dx3 in review: The start of something incredible

Two days, 3,469 Canadian Marketers and one remarkable event. That was this year’s Dx3. On January 25 and 26, the Toronto Metro Convention Centre was filled with tonnes of engaging conversations around Canada’s digital advertising, marketing and retail landscape.

Plastic Mobile was very proud to be a participant in the inaugural forum for Canadian digital innovation.

For me, some of the highlights included, Visa’s touchless payment transaction ice cream exhibit, which not only kept my team full of delicious ice cream, but also demonstrated to attendees the future of NFCs. Visa’s Derek Colfer gave a session on the future of NFC in the Canadian mobile industry, saying that it’s still going to take awhile for things to get going. He cautioned his audience to consider that it took nearly a decade to get the credit card chip and PIN rolled out in Canada, so we shouldn’t expect to see mobile payments rolling out in 2012. Nevertheless, the Visa booth allowed visitors to practice using NFC technology to get some ice cream. Pretty awesome.

Also, Doug Stephens, President of Retail Prophet Consulting, and Candice Faktor of ShopCatch began the second day of Dx3 with an interesting keynote on the retail space. Stephens was a man of the future, looking ahead into retail 20 years from now, whereas Faktor focused on present-day retail. Both speakers concurred that mobile has shaken up the retail industry unlike anything ever before seen.

Another exciting event was the startup “pitch-off” at the Intertainment Media Incubation Zone. Five contestants were given five minutes each to pitch their plan. The winner was the Toronto-based startup, Stylsize, who showcased their very cool online retail mobile solution with its advanced apparel-fitting technology.

Two interesting mobile-related myths that were actively debunked at the show were about group buying and broadcasting apps. There was a charge to make attendees better understand that the emphasis for group buying is not about “will I make a profit?”, rather customer acquisition. And that broadcasters are missing the mark by creating apps that just copy their TV experiences without adding value and making them “Mobile friendly.”

And of course Plastic Mobile was there, bringing the mobile-retail relationship to life with our interactive candy shop, which was the talk of the Dx3 highlight list.

After such a great forum this year, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2013.

Plastic Mobile teams up with leading group-buying site TeamBuy to bring the power of shopping to your fingertips – literally! Plastic Mobile announced the launch of the TeamBuy app yesterday in a press release. Our award-winning mobile marketing agency and TeamBuy, a leading Canadian group-buying site, created a channel that allows smart shoppers to get great deals anywhere, at anytime, on the go.

With mobile commerce on the rise and more than 60% of mobile users shopping on their smartphones, the TeamBuy app allows savvy shoppers to get that amazing weekend getaway or a spa-cation deal without rushing to a desktop. The app uses geo-location to offer deals pertinent to the users nearby area and allows TeamBuy users to track their purchases and redeem them directly from any iPhone, iPad, iTouch or Android phone. Built directly into the app, the “Team Bucks” loyalty program ensures users keep coming back to the app for more.

Check out the video to learn more!

Last week was really exciting for all of us here at Plastic Mobile. We were really pleased with the launch of our latest mobile application innovation,  ETF Central , created in partnership with Claymore Investments, a subsidiary of Guggenheim Funds Services Group, Inc.

Apparently our enthusiasm was mirrored by our media buds, as ETF Central got a lot of love from the press. Check out what the likes of the Financial Post and Mobile Marketing, among others, had to say about ETF Central:

Plastic Mobile in the News:

Advisor

Investment Executive News

CNW News

Digital Journal

Financial Post

Mobile Marketing

Tech Vibes

iPhone in Canada

A recent InsightExpress study suggests that mobile and print would make a great team. The company found that mobile users are also print junkies: “Based on our findings, it’s clear that brands and retailers should be incorporating mobile into their print strategies,” said Joy Liuzzo, vice president and director at InsightExpress.

Print and Mobile, sitting in a tree...

Liuzzo goes on to say that there’s more to this relationship than just a little QR coding. There are a number of ways to strengthen this bond, including article archiving or sharing and information gathering. The company specifically focused on QR codes and user engagement, finding that smartphone owners who use their mobiles for six or more daily activities were also reading or subscribing to print publications. These users are a hot target for advertisers as they have diverse tastes extending even beyond their reading mediums to any number of lifestyle routines (eating, shopping, etc.). The study found that these people were also more inclined to connect with companies via their mobile devices. “The biggest surprise to me was with the segment of smartphone owners that do six or more activities on their phone every day and their print media consumption,” said Ms. Liuzzo. “This group is both subscribing to, and reading more, print materials than any of the other groups (smartphone or regular phone owners).”

According to our friends over at Mobile Marketer, InsightExpress then delved into an investigation of this market’s varying reading behaviours and discovered that magazines came out on top in terms of user engagement. For example, tearing out articles or tracking down a product mentioned in an article or ad.

Turns out, traditional print media isn’t out of the game just yet. It just needs to get wiser and learn a thing or two from it’s new young partner. From here, who knows where this dynamic duo can go? What do you think? Are print and mobile a match made in heaven? Tweet us your comments to @plasticmobile.

The battle continues over which is the superior platform – Android or iOS. Everyone from users to marketers have weighed in with their future predictions, past musings and current praises and complaints. From a developer’s perspective, things remain uncertain and, at times, contradictory. Here’s the low down based on the latest research.

A couple of months back, the general opinion was that app developers were turning their attention to Android over iOS, because of its rapidly increasing market share. A survey from Appcelerator indicated that the momentum was shifting in favour of Android, closing the gap on current app development that traditionally favoured iOS. The idea behind the supposed shift was that the Android platform is considered to have the best long-term outlook.

The latest news, however, turns that theory upside down. It appears that Android continues to take a back seat to iOS, in part because, well, it’s not as mainstream cool (those Mac commercials still make us chuckle). While Android operating system is still the big winner on the charts (46.3% of US smartphone owners running the mobile operating system) according to the Strategy Analytics’ survey, “App Developer Attitudes and Behaviours,” it seems that Apple’s iOS platform remains near and dear to developers’ hearts, with 51% saying they plan to write for the “iTeam” (iPod, iPad and iTouch) platforms in 2012. Yes, Android is fast approaching a majority share in smartphones among US customers, but it now seems that the platform is suffering among its app builders, with interest rising only 30% from 23% in 2011. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

That being said, it seems that Apple’s status among the people writing app code comes from the multiple device types now using the operating system, with the iPhone down 26%. In fact, the real growth for iOS comes from the iPad, which attracted only 8% of developers last year, but will get 19% in 2012 (+138%). With more than half a million apps now cataloged in the Apple App Store, over 150,000 are compatible with or written specifically for the iPad.

Experts such as Strategy Analytics report author and Director of Apps Research, Josh Martin, expect that money will talk and developers will continue to favour platforms that offer the most diverse ways of generating revenue.

Piper Jaffrey recently estimated that Apple’s App Store substantially outperforms the Android marketplace for developers, with Apple responsible for about 80% to 90% of revenue generated by the app market.

What do you think? Will iOS continue to corner the market in app developers despite Android’s appetite for market share? Or will the interest in the iTeam fizzle out and watch Android steal their fan base?

In the News

Just some of the people who think we’re pretty cool (thank you!).

Bloomberg

Market Wire

Yahoo! Finance

Canadian Business Opportunities

Euro Investor

As we sat amongst our hacks/hackers peers and colleagues from the publishing world, we were giddy with anticipation to do a live demo our new platform Joomo. Joomo is an automated platform that enables anyone to create high-quality custom native mobile applications across all mobile devices. With a web-based studio you can create, edit, track and customize every aspect of your app, all for free.

When our host, Phillip Smith, told the audience that Plastic Mobile is going to build an application in the duration of our 8 minute presentation time slot, there were many skeptical faces in the crowd. Now I’m not going to toot the Joomo horn, and write about how unbelievably easy to use it is, or the incredibly engaging user experience, or how it’s simply visually stunning. And I’m certainly not going to get into the whole native back end discussion and the genius behind that, rather I’m just going to let you witness how Melody and Sep delivered as promised, and built an app for ’29 Secrets’ in approximately 5 minutes.

Warning: The quality of the video is not Oscar-worthy, but then again that’s usually how it is when something rare and awesome happens and we spontaneously try to capture it. Think of UFO videos-never great.

Lou Dubois at Inc.com wrote a great article on whether your business is in need of a mobile application, or not. He digs deeper into the mobile space, questioning whether an application is useful for all business. Showcasing our very own Pizza Pizza app and lots of excerpts from our Queen Melody Adhami, this article is an excellent resource for anyone that has thought about an application for their business. Everyone’s needs are different, and we understand that. Applications need to be tailored to the business objectives and consumer needs. Lou lays out a series of useful questions to ask yourself before going down the route of a mobile app.

You can read the full article here.

While consumers’ expectations of smartphones are rising everyday, the mobile industry hasn’t educated consumers about the limitations of mobile devices and this has led to idealistic expectations of mobile phones and mobile ads. A part of their unrealistic expectations is that smartphones can do just about anything and everything for them.

Before the Smartphone’s boom, most cell phone owners were satisfied with only clear voice calls, fast texting, and simple games. But times have changed and consumers have great expectations from their mobile devices; they want the best smartphones at the lowest possible prices. They demand more features, better performance, the coolest apps, and indirectly the best mobile ads.

The competition in mobile OS market is intense and bloody! Everywhere you go, you see Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Symbian devotees trying to make their friends switch or upgrade; marketers and advertisers are adding mobile to their strategy; manufacturers and app developers fight for increased market presence; wireless carriers try their best to attract more customers, and basically everyone in the mobile industry is fighting for more profit, higher market share, or stronger presence.

As a result of this hype, today more than ever before, mobile advertising is up swinging. Mobile advertising campaigns have become the key to making money with mobile marketing. This means that the opportunities for making money are endless, but the question is how can you turn mobile ad campaigns into successful mobile marketing that puts money in your pocket?

How to best turn mobile ads to dollars?

Cell phone adoption rates, especially smartphone adoption rate are rising everyday, so is the importance of mobile advertising; therefore, marketers should keep in mind the necessary qualities in creating successful mobile ads.

Marketers should also bring into consideration that many consumers are still less than thrilled about ads on this very personal device. In order to increase the usefulness of the channel, mobile marketers must cater the features and formats of their mobile ads to their consumer’s preferences. Meaning that they should understand not only do consumers expect mobile ads to inform, but also they expect the mobile ad to provide relevant information tailored to their preferences.

According to a survey from Yahoo! and Nielsen Company, being informative was the most important quality of mobile ads for a wide variety of products and services. Relevancy was a relatively close second in most categories. Respondents cared relatively little about the graphical and multimedia elements of the ads. This contrasts with research on iPad advertising, which has shown that tablet users pay more attention to the look and feel of the ads and care more about the colors.

According to the InsightExpress “Digital Consumer Portrait” published in 2010, the heaviest mobile users generally did not find mobile banners annoying, while full-page ads were seen less favorably.

Based on the research that has been done on mobile ad campaigns and our expertise in this arena, we recommend marketers to focus on relevant information for their mobile ad. A smartphone user’s satisfaction of mobile ads will only improve if the mobile industry releases flawless, informative, relevant mobile ads that truly offer excellent value and choice for the user.

As mobile ads are getting millions of clicks and eyeballs, it’s important to create an ad that meets users expectation. Time on a mobile ad with a brand is a great deal for a retailer; it is a very intimate experience exploring a brand on such a personal device; isn’t it?