iPad publishing potential

The link below was an interesting article published in the standard the other day, I couldn't help responding, though by the end of my response I was getting tired and bored so the grammar was dropping off,...sorry :-)

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23840405-is-ipad-really-digital-saviour-of-newspapers-dont-bet-on-it.do

Hi Roy
First of all I'm writing this on my iPad, and whilst a huge fan of Apple, am not scared to criticise them. The iPhone wasn't perfect when it first came out, and still isn't. I guess the iPad will be the same, however like the iPhone, the iPad is so far ahead of it's compitition I don't feel that compelled to complain too much.
Some of your scepticism though is unfounded on a number of points.
numbers don't stack up? The iPad isn't on it's own going to save newspapers, but the collective competition could. No doubt the copycat devices will be cheaper and do a similar job. Apples laptops don't have a dominant market share but they are still great pieces of kit.
You argue that no one will pay for content when they can get it free on the Internet, but if that was the case why do people still buy newspapers? Clearly the newspaper and an iPhone app will offer something more than the Internet. Have you seen Wired, Time or Popular Science magazines? Far more engaging than the Internet content.
Then there is the advertising. Admittedly, most advertisers have failed to grasp the potential in these first Apps, however then ones that have some kind of rich content such as video clips of animation have a massively more sticky appeal to them, compared to their standard press ad style equivalents.
I could actually argue the case for tablet devices being great for publishers, but I'd rather go to bed
Regards
Alistair Gillan

I'm currently working at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising - Mobile Technologies

WPP - Leaders in Advertising, Branding, Marketing.

Apps - the jewel in the crown

Despite what many of the established mobile specialists say, Apps are where we are at in terms of high profile content. The fact is many brands just wanted one, despite the ROI, and for the last 18 months or so that was great. If managed well the cut through and buzz of the App was all that was required.

But like any campaign we need to look at the big picture. Mary Meeker, Morgan and Stanley's internet analyst has just released a report showing interesting figures about mobile internet browsing and how in just a few short years it will over take PC browsing. For now though its still important to view mobile internet browsing as 'snacking' and we need to deliver mobile specific content for this space rather than a mobile friendly full blown site, as many many people still don't have big screens like the current smart phones.

And then there's good old SMS the stalwart of the mobile marketing, from a creative point of view I've not seen too many good examples, but that's because generally the campaigns are left to companies that are more technical than creative, however they still delivered, and for most that was good enough. Regardless, SMS is a great tool in the mobile marketing tool box, and I think should always be included when done correctly.

I'm now seeing the fruits of my labour from the last 5 years or so. I've gone from; 'maybe we should look at this mobile thing' to 'we have put mobile on the agenda' to 'mobile was in the initial budget, but with overruns, we had to cut the budget from somewhere' to now it's ' we can't afford not to do it' ...still small percentages but mobile budgets are here to stay, and grow and grow.

I'm currently working at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising - Mobile Technologies

WPP - Leaders in Advertising, Branding, Marketing.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Just a quick thought, maybe it's because I love the iphone, but when I'm on a train, in a coffee bar or a pub, etc the amount of people I see that are using their iPhone's far far out weighs the market share it is supposed to have. I think the last figure I saw was still single digits in terms of share of the whole phone market, many reports show it around 16-18% of the smart phone market, whilst others put it at 26% of market based on OS install, which probably then includes the iPod Touch.

I wonder if there are any stats for iPhone install within certain demographics, that would be really interesting....

I'm currently working at Ogilvy Advertising Mobile

WPP - Leaders in Advertising, Branding, Marketing.

iPad - my first touch

I was excited to get my hands on an iPad in advance of my own being delivered on the 28th May (hopefully). First impressions were of a high quality piece of kit, reassuringly weighty, with a beautiful screen and very fast.

However this device needs high quality content, scaled up iphone Apps just don't cut it, and Apple knows this. They go to great lengths in their iPad Human interface guidlines to encourage developers to ensure that graphics are of the highest quality.

Wired magazine demo their ideas for tablet magazines in a video posted on youTube ( search on youTube for 'Wired and Adobe')

Their concepts look truly amazing and whilst the demo isn't on an iPad, I'm sure it will be just as good. But will it be as easy to create this content within the Xcode environment? Dont know, but this I'm not going to get drawn into an Adobe / Apple debate :-)

I'm currently working at Ogilvy Advertising Mobile

WPP - Leaders in Advertising, Branding, Marketing.

It's been far too long!

At last I get to write on my own blog. So much has happened since I last wrote an entry!

Well the iPad has arrived, am I a fan? ... yes; is it perfect? no. Does it need to be? No. I'll still buy one! Lets go back 35 odd years, and I remember as a small child being in awe of a printed colour picture in a book. I touched it, and tilted the page, but I couldn't work out how the image got on the page, at that very young age I had no concept of printing. Move back to the present, and with the birth of tablets such as the iPad, I can't see why anyone would stick with a static image. Imagine if tilting the device shows a different angle of the same object; turn the device left and right and the object you are looking at rotates to correspond with the users motion. Not to mention being able to touch the screen to drag the object to spin it 360. Some of this is demo'ed in the wired magazine example of their tablet publication...awsome. When the public get to play with this stuff, will they ever go back to the printed version? Well yes they will, as I will, but will there be a huge market for this new interactive medium, too right there will be.

i-nigma: is it winning the 2D barcode race?

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a short blog about 2D barcode readers for the iPhone, and today I've just downloaded the best one yet, albeit it only reads one type; the QRcode.

With 3 different types of barcode reader installed on my iPhone, I think I'm fully prepared for the mobile barcode revolution to begin...... er what revolution??

I don't get it, with such a huge amount of phones being capable of running the barcode reader, why don't more Brands and publishers use it?? Especially publishers, it's the perfect link between the printed magazine and rich interactive content. There you are, anywhere, reading a mag, and next to the riveting article there is this small barcode, which with almost one click takes you to some kind of additional rich content; video maybe, or audio, exclusive too, stuff you might even pay extra for, could be an associated competition, or a quiz.

I'm sure a lot of people that read a magazine do so on the train, or bus, even the bog, and they don't have (or want to get out) their laptop. But they do have their mobile device, so its perfect, immediate access to exclusive complementary content, that could have great ROI, and extend the usefulness of the printed publication as well.

Bluetooth Marketing - a story of the bleedin obvious

I was in my favourite clothes shop in Chelmsford shopping centre, chatting to the owner about what I do etc etc, as you do, and I got chatting about Bluetooth Marketing, telling him that to promote his summer sale would be very straight forward with the software and hard ware that I owned. We both got quite animated about testing it out, even though I explained that it probably wouldn't be that effective, without some kind of call to action. But I thought what the hell it would be interesting to see what kind take up could be achieved. So I created a mobile friendly advert 240x320 and off I went with netbook and bluetooth dongle.

To begin with I sat outside Starbucks on a nice sunny day with a coffee and watched the people go by for an hour or so. It was mid week but still quite busy and it didn't take long to discover 100 devices to which I delivered 11 messages. Pretty good I thought.

What could we achieve on a busy Saturday for a whole day. The bluetooth systems was all set, and I left it to do its thing all day, however on returning at 5.30 that day, was surprised to see I had only discovered 934 devices and delivered only 4 adverts - just under 0.5%.

Over the next couple of weeks I tried a few other different days and locations of the netbook. What was very obvious was the location of the shop, which was very much at one end of town, had a significantly lower footfall than in the centre, strangely where Starbucks was!

However, regardless of how many, or how quickly devices were detected, on average I did not get far past 0.5% delivered adverts.

When the message was delivered to a device, the user could see the name of the shop that the advert was coming from, and decide whether to accept or decline, so I don't think we were being too "spammy", and if the user had already declined, they wouldn't get sent another message if they walked into the Bluetooth zone again.

So it was an interesting experiment, which just adds more weight to the fact that users need a good strong call to action and incentive to accept and respond to bluetooth marketing, something that is difficult to do in an open high street, but very simple to do at an event.

If anyone is interested to see the full stats of the experiment, and to hear what ROI I achieved, please feel free to contact me.