The hyper-connected consumer of today has little patience for clutter or noise. His smartphone is the compass with which he engages the world, the persistent interface that guides him through the ever-evolving digital landscape. How then, as marketers, do we evolve in order to not only keep pace with the mobile revolution, but also to utilize it as intended?

The smartphone is intensely personal, intimately integrated into our social graphs, superior in its contextual awareness of time and space, hyper-connected and nearly always within arm’s reach. The smartphone has, in essence, become a natural extension of our human selves.

Yet, despite the newfound wealth of opportunities available to mobile marketers, we have been consistently and fundamentally flawed in both strategy and execution. Quite simply put, we’re doing it all wrong.

1. Flaw: De-Emphasizing the Unique Nature of the Medium

Although they share a common infrastructure, mobile is not the traditional web. In fact, the two have few equivalents in the stationary web world. The stationary web is exactly that – inactive. With that said, why would mobile design, which should be focused on creating an experience unique to those who are actively on-the-go, be constructed with an inactive model in mind?

Mobile events are inherently transitive in nature. The different elements of the medium — constant connectivity, location awareness, personalization and social connection — add affinity to consumer/brand interactions and empower the medium uniquely as an events-driven interface. These features form the foundation for consumer interaction — a tight, relevant orchestration of branded communications among increasingly interconnected brand advocates.

2. Flaw: Treating Connected Consumers as Stationary Targets

Mobile consumers are moving targets; therefore, marketers must consider the variability of exchange. Where is the consumer right now? What is she interested in? How can I compel her to visit my store location? What can I reward her with to increase her loyalty to the brand? What can I do to make her feel included? How can I use the medium to make her encounter the brand more efficiently? What experience can I provide to her that she would feel compelled to share? When viewed through this lens, the possibilities for engaging consumers are limited only to the imagination and ingenuity of the brand.

3. Flaw: Ignoring the Power of Contextual Relevance

The mobile medium represents the most powerful mechanism for delivering contextually relevant, consumer-brand marketing communications. To take advantage of its unique capabilities, however, successful marketing strategies must evolve alongside these communicating customers. The digital natives of today’s hyper-connected world seek contextual relevance when engaging with brands. Their experiences are defined not only by the message itself, but by the context in which the message is presented.

Marketers who effectively tackle today’s mobile variables will provide consumers with unique experiences that are differentiated, highly relevant and intensely personal. Only then will we collectively realize the power and influence of marketing in the moment.

4. Flaw: Employing Old World, Unidirectional Strategies

Effective consumer engagement can no longer take an unidirectional mindset. Today’s digital natives are constantly presented with a dizzying array of branded digital touchpoints. They are expecting consistent yet unique communication and brand message.

Brands are now challenged to become adept transmedia storytellers, to create a message that syncs with the communication medium in which it’s delivered. Brands must move beyond simply marketing to people but, instead, must master marketing to a context that is determined by device or platform. They must consider the specific medium which they choose to engage.

5. Flaw: Not Offering Value in Exchange for Value

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance by scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ time and information.

Without the perception that value is mutual, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited. The customer may attempt to end the relationship — perhaps permanently. Regardless of the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it becomes extremely important that mobile marketing avoids being intrusive and irrelevant.

Conventional marketing wisdom advocates a right audience + right message + right time methodology, designed to entice a stationary audience. In mobile, the same principles don’t necessarily apply. Rather than marketing at the target with brand-centric storytelling, wherever and however she may encounter you, allow the tale to travel along with her as she goes. Communicate the narrative, allow the mobile medium to reveal ensuing chapters in a continuum of branded engagements.

At long last, 2011 has been a year of reckoning for the mobile marketplace. We have all been witness to tremendous advancements in the field and anxiously look forward to 2012 and the continued innovations that the new year will undoubtedly bring.

When I first began this blog, the first piece I crafted was entitled “An Obsolescence Missive.” As I look back on 2011, I also look back at the words I wrote at this project’s inception and find that they have proven true:

As the mobile marketplace continues its rapid evolution to becoming the primary digital screen with which consumers engage with the world, the stakes for mobile marketers have become much higher. The mobile device has become the persistent interface that guides the connected consumer through the rapidly-evolving landscape of the digital-optimized world. How then, as marketers, do we evolve in order to not only keep pace with this emergent medium, but to utilize it as it was intended?

Given that the device is so intensely personal, so intimately integrated into our social graphs, is superior to any other medium in its contextual awareness of time and space, its hyper-connectivity, and the reality that is nearly always within arm’s reach, the smartphone has, in essence, become a natural extension of our human selves. Yet, with all the newfound wealth of opportunities available to marketers associated with this new medium, we have continuously failed to utilize it effectively to engage consumers in innovative ways. Quite simply put, we’re doing it all wrong.

As is customary this time of the year, many of us resolve to take proactive steps to improve areas in our lives that we feel could use refinement. Often these resolutions are ultimately doomed for failure from being overly ambitious or unrealistic but, more often than not, our resolve simply fails us and we sink back into our cycles of destructive habits. In the case of mobile marketing, however, the areas of improvement are too many and the stakes have now become too high to fail. Unlike our secret resolutions to whom we have no one but ourselves to answer, in this case the world is watching.

With these inarguable truths in mind, I offer the following New Year’s resolutions for mobile marketing with the hope that we will all look back on our innovations achieved at the end of 2012 with collective pride and knowledge that we have been integral players in a special time in history.

Resolution One: We Will Treat the Mobile Medium as Unique

Mobile consumers are moving targets, therefore engaging with them requires consideration be given to the variability of exchange.  Where is the consumer right now?  What is she interested in?  How can I compel her to visit my store location? What can I reward her with to increase her loyalty to the brand?  What can I do to make her feel included?  How can I use the medium to make her encounter with the brand more efficient?  What experience can I provide to her that she would feel compelled to share?   When viewed through this lens, the possibilities for engaging consumers are limited only to the imagination and ingenuity of the brand.

Resolution Two: We Will Be Increasingly Contextually Relevant

The mobile medium represents the most powerful mechanism for delivering contextually relevant consumer-brand communications yet experienced in marketing.  To take advantage of its unique capabilities, however, successful marketing strategies must evolve beyond the employment of a unidirectional approach to communicating with customers.  The digital natives of today’s hyper-connected world seek contextual relevance in their engagements with brands.  Their experience is defined not only by the message itself, but the context in which the message was presented.  Marketers who effectively solve the variables associated with the mobile medium will provide unique experiences for consumers, irrespective of the constraints of time or space, in ways differentiated, highly relevant, and intensely personal.  Only then will we collectively realize the power and influence of marketing in the moment.

Resolution Three: We Will Become a More Collaborative Storytellers

The essence of any brand is the story it conveys. This essence must be infused with creative vision and continuous innovation as its underlying narrative unfolds across a widening array of mediums to engage consumers and create a vision of a lifestyle to be desired. Traditionally the consumer has only been capable of experiencing the story in a disconnected way. Mobile, as a medium, is innately transitive in nature, serving as a persistent interface for consumers to navigate an ever-evolving digital ecosystem of retail touchpoints and become, themselves, players in the storytelling experience. Strategically dissecting the brand narrative to take on an episodic form allows the brand to engage audiences in the on-going drama, create desire to see where the story will lead, and establish emotional connections in the process. We will become more effective storytellers to inspire deeper levels of involvement and engagement with the brand.

Resolution Four: We Will Always Offer Value in Exchange for Value

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful, productive relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance through scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ valuable time and information. Without the perception that value has been exchanged for value, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited attempts at interaction on the part of the consumer will spell the end of the relationship – perhaps permanently.

Regardless the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it is more important in mobile marketing to avoid being intrusive and irrelevant. Consumers will not give up their valuable information in exchange for clutter or noise. We will focus with an understanding of the currency of mobile marketing and utilize it to create an exchange that delights both our audience and the brands that value them.

Too often, in the infancy developmental stages of mobile marketing, we have settled for simply scaling down traditional strategies to fit within a four inch form factor. Not only have these strategies proven ineffective, they are counter to the differentiated elements that define the smartphone as unique and powerful. As we near year’s end and look forward to a new beginning in 2012, we will strive to keep at the forefront of our minds exactly why the mobile medium presents such an incredible opportunity to engage consumers in ways revolutionary and previously unexperienced.

We resolve to focus our attention on an awareness of time and location and the implications of context in the consumer experience. We resolve to focus with an awareness that mobile devices have become natural extensions of our human selves and why this necessitates personalization of the experience. We will strive to engage consumers in innovative and creative ways that reinforce the strengths of the mobile medium and we resolve to consistently provide value in exchange for value.

As T.S. Eliot once wrote, “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” For all of our self-congratulatory accomplishments of 2011, they belong categorically with the uninspired. With strict resolve and an innovative spirit, the voice of 2012 will be the voice of inspiration and advancement.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful, productive relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance through scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ valuable time and information. Without the perception that value has been exchanged for value, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited attempts at interaction on the part of the consumer will spell the end of the relationship – perhaps permanently.

In the early stages of mobile marketing, the value exchange was almost exclusively defined through promotional-based marketing. Consumers were asked to share their mobile numbers in exchange for coupons. While seemingly primitive by today’s standards, text back couponing remains an effective behavior stimulus for many brands and retailers, but for luxury brands discounting flies in the face of the intrinsic value of the brand. The challenge for innovative prestige brands is defining how best to create a true value exchange with their most loyal advocates while remaining true to themselves and not cheapening the brand in the process of attempting to deepen relationships.

Any value exchange requires the exchange of currency. Whether the currency is monetary, emotional, or informational, it establishes the parameters necessary to define a successful exchange and secures a commitment to future exchanges. With this in mind, an analysis of the efficacy of any value exchange must be measured by the mutually beneficial exchange of mobile currency.

Affluent loyalists of prestigious brands seek greater intimacy with, and priority access to, the brands they most covet. In exchange for priority access, the affluent consumer will exchange premium monetary currency. A mobile campaign touchpoint that directs the consumer to an optimized landing page or microsite featuring a product exclusive to mobile subscribers effectively plays marionette with the heartstrings of affluent consumers by exclusively engaging a prestigious audience with exclusivity and access to product available only to a select audience. Tactics such as these create a successful value exchange whereby a monetary commitment is made by the consumer in exchange for priority access to the brand and the prestige associated with exclusive ownership.

The essence of any coveted brand is the story it conveys. The rich heritage and tradition of the brand is infused with creative vision and continued innovation as the brand narrative unfolds across mediums to engage consumers and create a vision of a lifestyle to be aspired to and desired. Traditionally the brand narrative has been told in a unidirectional fashion through artfully produced photography and film, but the consumer was only capable of experiencing the story in a disconnected way. Mobile, as a medium, is innately transitive in nature, serving as a persistent interface for consumers to navigate an ever-evolving digital ecosystem of retail touchpoints and become, themselves, players in the storytelling experience. Strategically dissecting the brand narrative to take on an episodic form allows the brand to engage audiences in the on-going drama, create desire to see where the story will lead, and create deeper emotional connections in the process. Whether bringing still imagery to digital life through QR codes or augmented reality, targeting desired audiences and engaging them with rich mobile display advertising, or consistently communicating emotional currency via SMS marketing, the mobile value exchange is successful in the exchange of permission to communicate with highly-valued consumers in return for deeper levels of involvement and engagement with the brand.

Regardless the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it is more important in mobile marketing to avoid being intrusive and irrelevant. Consumers will not give up their valuable information in exchange for clutter or noise. Focus on an understanding of the currency of mobile marketing and utilize it to create an exchange that delights both the audience and the brand that value them.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

The visual mystery, sensuality, and intrigue elicited through still image artistry provide the de facto two-dimensional canvas of choice for luxury brands.  The artistic vision of the Creative Director is meticulously staged and captured for the world to marvel at in the glossed pages of the style guides of our times.  Each year, luxury brand marketers invest enormous percentages of marketing budgets in print advertising. Vast libraries of visual content collect dust, as the artistry of each new season’s collection is re-envisioned, making way for the evolving stylistic viewpoint of the house.

This accelerated march to antiquity for such valuable assets represents tremendous sunk costs for brands.  If digital life could be breathed into these traditionally passive assets, print advertising could be resuscitated with added dimensionality, and provide additional layers of complexity and personality to the consumer experience.  The technologies required for this revitalization exist today and are in use by some of the most creative minds in digital fashion marketing.  The opportunities are significant, yet the proper application and execution of the technologies in ways on-brand for luxury adds a layer of complication.

QR Codes and the Luxury Brand Dilemma

In the infancy stages of mobile marketing, many luxury brands have successfully experimented with QR codes as actionable triggers to launch added dimensions of brand engagement with consumers.  However, the QR code represents a dilemma for luxury brands. A vast majority of labels are unwilling to risk altering the artistic impact of their print advertising by including the awkward appearance of tiny, futuristic-looking blocks.

While advances in the production of more aesthetically on-brand vanity QR codes are evident in recent campaigns from prestige brands like Ralph Lauren, luxury brands will continue to be slow to adopt. Because of the contrarian nature of QR codes and brand aesthetic, labels opt instead to pursue less creatively intrusive technologies represented by augmented reality and image recognition.

The Curious Case of Augmented Reality for Luxury Fashion

Certainly, augmented reality provides an intriguing new wrinkle of added dimensionality to 2D print, but the function is faced with its own set of significant challenges.  Early adopters of AR technologies in the luxury arena have been predominantly in the timepieces and fine jewelry sectors. However, fashion brands such as Dunhill have taken progressive approaches to the utilization of the technology to add layers to their print campaigns.

The very technologically progressive effort by Dunhill in support of The Voice campaign provides an excellent example of how the mobile medium can breathe digital life into traditional brand assets, allowing them to take on an entirely new and more engaging identity. The Voice campaign, which highlights distinguished men from varying walks of life who exhibit the refinement of the brand, provides an exceptional environment for enthusiasts to connect with Dunhill through their connected devices.

The one drawback to the initiative is the primary barrier to entry for many retailers experimenting with AR or image recognition technologies: there is no universal reader or standard for it.  This arena is highly fragmented and siloed by application platforms, requiring a certain app – in this case Aurasma – to be downloaded in order to view the video content behind the print.  Consumers must have the Aurasma app downloaded and open in order to view this otherwise flawless execution by Dunhill.  AR technology can be a valuable addition to the digital marketer’s arsenal, but, until standards are solidified and AR can be leveraged regardless of application, its immediate value may be hindered.

The mobile medium is uniquely suited to revitalizing traditional print for luxury brands and allowing the consumer to experience a three-dimensional engagement with them.  The ability to breathe digital life into traditionally passive assets opens numerous compelling interactive opportunities for brands and their legions of loyalists.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

The essence of any coveted brand is the story it tells.  Its history conveys mystery, passion, and intrigue and creates in consumers an insatiable desire to be among a select few bit players in the theatricality of the brand experience. These narratives are communicated through a variety of channels.  Artful photography displayed in print tells a tale.  The runway provides the dramatic stage.  The store is the epicenter of the encounter.  Digital media voices a story and the shared experience platform enabled by social media allows the consumer to contribute to the brand dialogue.

Successful brands tell stories and deliver experiences through each medium uniquely, artfully orchestrating events that leverage the inherent strengths of each in an ornamental array of disconnected, yet consistent, transmedia vignettes. The question remaining to be effectively addressed, however, is how best to weave these disconnected encounters together in a more unified fashion – how best to allow consumers the ability to carry the narrative with them, irrespective of time or space.  That is, until now.

The mobile medium is inherently transitive in nature, providing the vehicle for consumers to navigate an ever-evolving ecosystem of digital screens. Aware of location, sensitive to time, and ever connected, the mobile medium delivers contextual relevance to brand communications and allows marketers to truly engage consumers in the moment.  Unlike other more stationary channels for consumer interaction, successful strategies for mobile marketing require precision aim at moving targets.

Given that the targets are in motion, intelligent planning requires a fundamental shift in approach.  Conventional wisdom advocates a right audience + right message + right time methodology designed to entice a stationary audience.  In mobile, the same principles don’t necessarily apply.  Rather than marketing at the target with brand-centric storytelling wherever and however they may encounter you, allow the tale to travel along with them as they go. Communicate the narrative with an episodic structure and allow the medium to reveal ensuing chapters in a continuum of branded engagements that create a journey with the brand.  In this strategy, consumers live the brand story as if they were on the page.  The narrative is not unidirectionally told to the consumer but, rather, allowed to unfold before their eyes, as they become actors in the theatre of the experience.

While not flawless in its approach, the Amble with Louis Vuitton iPhone application provides a structural framework in line with the point of the mobile medium being transitive in nature.  The tale established by LV is consistent with its other media narratives that focus on the art of travel and the chic traveller lifestyle that its brand adherents aspire to as they look to LV guidance as preeminent subject matter experts.

The Art of Travel is woven into the DNA of the brand and, as such, it has ventured to produce an application designed to enrich the travel experience and narrate day-to-day urban discoveries of both famously recognizable “friends of the house” as well as Amblers among its brand proponents.  Utilizing location recognition, the application serves various ambles that are submitted, specific to the user’s current coordinates, and allows them to travel similar paths that accentuate the LV Art of Travel interaction and provide a deeper sense of connection with the house and its vision of chic travel.

The mobile medium is unique in its ability to transport the brand’s narrative in transmedia storytelling models.  Given that the device is ever connected, contextually relevant, and always within arms’ reach, the opportunities for brand marketers to engage consumers with consistency, relevance, and personalization are tremendous.  By effectively leveraging digital engagement triggers such as QR codes, image recognition, SMS, or with the advent of NFC, marketers can breathe digital life into traditional unidirectional communications via smartphone devices.  Transporting the brand story from television and print by digitizing and connecting the offline experience via a portable medium allows the consumer to carry the brand’s tale across channels to deliver upon the promise of compelling transmedia storytelling models.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

The conceptual model of pop-up retail is certainly not a new strategy in the brand and product marketing playbook.  Pop-up stores have been effectively employed by a number of the world’s most recognizable brands. Most often they are used to introduce new product, gauge consumer interests, and enhance exposure through cleverly placed, transitory concept venues that are designed to generate buzz by creating an out of the ordinary brand experience.

By nature both experiential and ephemeral, the pop-up concept forces a greater degree of interactivity and imaginative engagement between brand and consumer because the timetable to create memorable impressions is accelerated.  The consumer desire to experience a pop-up venue is fueled by time sensitivity and exclusive access to the brand. Customers want the opportunity to experience a unique orchestration of art and commerce available to a limited few, given time and space restrictions.

For these orchestrations to be staged and performed symphonically, however, brands must invest extensive economic and operational resources in these intentionally limited interval sprints designed to generate excitement among a limited consumer base able to experience them.  The persistent question among brand marketers continues to be how to most effectively scale an innovative pop-up strategy to achieve maximum exposure impact.  Enter the mobile medium, and the introduction of a new, complimentary approach to pop-up experiential marketing.

The essence of the pop-up experience is time sensitivity, location and exclusivity.  Much the same is true when speaking of the differentiated elements of the mobile medium.  The mobile medium is location aware, dialed-in to time, intensely personal, action-oriented, and integrated into the social DNA of the digital native consumer.  As such, the medium conveys a unique value proposition to experiential brand marketing – offering a transitive platform for a more scalable and consistent pop-up retail delivery infrastructure.

The end goal for any mobile optimized pop-up engagement campaign can vary. From driving store traffic to providing game clues through QR code scans to an invitation-only event, or from delivering limited availability product and promotional offers to showcase exclusive branded production content.  The true value is in the platform that couriers the message and ensures a more cost effective and consistent series of consumer encounters with the brand. These campaigns effectually serve as component extensions of a comprehensive experiential pop-up marketing strategy.

To intelligently integrate mobile for this highly scalable model, considerations must be given to the aspects of the medium that make it unique.  Whereas the physical pop-up experience is spatially focused – with considerations concentrated primarily on location, staging, atmosphere, and exhibition – the success of pop-up mobile encounters is predicated on creating actionable mobile moments that adhere to the following fundamental premises:

The Mobile Consumer is a Moving Target

The mobile medium is constantly connected and often in motion. As such, it represents the ideal events-driven medium for engaging consumers in a pop-up fashion. Effective mobile events, when properly orchestrated, consist of actionable, properly sequenced occurrences and provide an instantaneous portal into the brand encounter. This ability to effectively market in the moment bridges communication lag, with precision aim focused at the moving target.

The Mobile Medium is Transitive

Mobile provides a consistent interface for customers to assist in the navigation of an ever-evolving ecosystem of digital consumer touchpoints.  The transitive functions of the mobile medium provide the continuous messaging and engagement capabilities necessary to deliver a pop-up marketing model. This model ensures a balanced, timely, and relevant encounter with the brand, providing heightened degrees of interaction.

The Mobile Medium is Contextually Aware

Location and time recognition capabilities specific to the medium allow savvy pop-up mobile marketers to engage consumers in a contextually relevant manner.  The effectiveness of any pop-up mobile marketing campaign is predicated on being relevant. Communicating branded messaging with an understanding of time and space creates interaction momentum and encourages consumer engagement.

Pop-up retail marketing is fundamentally designed to provide a metaphysical outlet for brands to see beyond the boundaries of their own brick and mortar and provide experiences for consumers that excite, entertain, and illustrate the innovation of the brand. The mobile medium is uniquely equipped to provide that same level of intrigue, based on an understanding of the context through which a consumer engages in brand encounters. The imaginations of marketers are free to guide consumers along a collaborative journey and create truly engaging, consistent, and scalable experiences that build intimacy and loyalty, while highlighting the creative vision and innovative nature of the brand.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

The 21^st Century digital native consumer is hyperconnected, socially integrated, empowered with information, and always in motion.  The mobile medium has been a tremendous catalyst for consumers to get out into the world and experience.  As we as a society evolve from stationary models of entertainment and information gathering to one that experiences our world by immersing ourselves in it, we are constantly seeking ways to make our encounters more meaningful and interesting. The power of connection and information allows us to demand greater degrees of intimacy with the brands we most admire.  We actively search for ways to achieve efficiencies while being consistently entertained and informed along the journey.  What does this mean for luxury brands as they try to engage this digital native?

The primary function of marketing has always been to attempt to boost the lifetime value of a brand’s consumer base by increasing loyalty and, in turn, the average selling price of a good or service, while simultaneously heightening the desirability of a brand to a larger potential base.  In this hyperconnected world, marketers are constantly testing strategies to expand engagements, improve lines of communications, entertain, and create intimacy with consumers.  Marketers are discovering that applying gaming mechanics to campaigns can be an effective strategy for advancing brand loyalty by increasing participation.  Brand marketing can no longer be cemented in unidirectional communication strategies, so engaging consumers and encouraging them to interact with brands is essential for success.

Gamification fundamentally succeeds as a marketing strategy because it fulfills our basic human needs for achievement, status, and rewards by effectively playing on our desire to compete.  However, this seemingly intuitive evolution in approach takes on an added layer of complexity for luxury marketers. Luxury’s consumer base has little patience for clutter or noise and expects brands to participate with them, without the need for social objects and digital status symbols like badges and mayorships, or virtual goods and currencies.  That said, how do gaming mechanics apply and how can they be leveraged in a way that is subtle, refined, and on-brand, not ostentatious and designed for the masses.  What are sophisticated game mechanics for luxury mobile marketing?

For decades, travel and hospitality brands have provided the quintessential example of refined, smooth game mechanics through rewards programs.  Showing loyalty to a particular airline or hotel brand is rewarded by priority access, express lanes for check-in, and points that carry redeemable monetary value.  These types of seasoned game mechanics incent loyalty and participation for mutual value between brand and consumer.  They provide engagement, the ability to achieve status, and exclusive rewards for the most loyal participants.

The luxury digital native is not concerned with competition, nor is she interested in mass marketing attempts at gaming.   In an era where conspicuous consumption is passé, the luxury consumer is far more subtle and sophisticated.  She is seduced by exclusivity – by her inclusion in a lifestyle and her personal connection with luxury brands that few can attain.  She seeks a greater degree of intimacy with the brands she covets and expects those brands to reward her for her faithfulness.  Attempts to gamify the luxury retail experience with strategies successful in more mass-market campaigns are perilous.  The luxury consumer desires priority access to the brand that is exclusive and available only to a limited few.  Rewarding loyalty with exclusive access is at the heart of the luxury game mechanics strategic equation, with refinement taking priority over conspicuous competition.

This article was originally written for, and appeared in, Fashion’s Collective (www.fashionscollective.com)

Mobile is an action-oriented medium.  Mobile shoppers are moving targets, so stationary forms of traditional branded engagements need not apply.  Effective mobile marketing strategies accentuate the unique strengths of the medium and must work to solve the numerous elements of variability associated with marketing in the moment.  The mastery of managing high levels of volatility will prove to be of great worth. The opportunity to engage consumers in a contextually relevant manner, based on knowledge of both time and space, with campaigns that provide increased interaction and social relevance, is unrivaled in any other communications medium.

The variables associated with a successful mobile marketing campaign are the immediacy, mapping, interaction, and collective aspects.  Each variable must be planned for in order to deliver a relevant experience between brand and customer and strengthen the mutual connection.  Today’s digital native consumer is empowered with more information and access to brands than ever.  They are also hyper-connected to an influential social graph where tribal knowledge is constantly being shared.  As such, successful marketers can no longer simply market at consumers.  They must learn to market to context and, in turn, remain (or become) relevant.  The strength of the mobile medium from a marketing perspective is its ability to provide customers with contextual relevance in their engagements with brands.  The margin for error in any connection is slight, so considerations must be made for each changeable element to ensure the experience is on brand and on point.

Immediacy Variable

The mobile medium is in the moment.  Unlike other communications vehicles that are stationary and heavily presentation-oriented, the mobile medium is actionable, time sensitive, on the go, and always on.  Given the limited time intervals of engagement opportunity, brands must ensure that communications are crisp and the call to action is clear, concise, and quick to participate in.

Mapping Variable

One of the primary differentiators of the mobile medium is location awareness.  Engaging in a contextually relevant way assumes an entirely unique perspective when brands can determine the location of a consumer. Brands are then able to interact with customers instantly, and with location-based relevance, through the intensely personal smart device that is always within arm’s reach.

Interaction Variable

Today’s hyper-connected customer actively seeks out true engagement with the brands they most admire.  A unidirectional, one size fits all approach to marketing, from a mobile perspective, undermines the strength of the medium and fails to deliver truly interactive experiences between the brand and the consumer.  Successful mobile strategies encourage customers to participate in the connection encounter with the brand.

Collective Variable

Mobile marketers must learn to market within the social graphs of their consumer base.  A natural byproduct of increased access to information in the hands of the digital native is shrinking levels of brand loyalty.  Word of mouth is still the most effective form of marketing.  Providing contextually relevant, engaging experiences with consumers compels them to share.  It draws upon a very basic human need to be altruistic and communicate experiences that help others.  Marketing to the collective requires an understanding that the power of shared experiences has far reaching implications beyond the immediate in the moment interaction.

The mobile medium represents the most powerful mechanism for delivering contextually relevant consumer-brand communications yet experienced in marketing.  To take advantage of its unique capabilities, however, successful marketing strategies must evolve beyond the employment of a unidirectional approach to communicating with customers.  The digital natives of today’s hyper-connected world seek contextual relevance in their engagements with brands.  Their experience is defined not only by the message itself, but the context in which the message was presented.  Marketers who effectively solve the variables associated with the mobile medium will provide unique experiences for consumers, irrespective of the constraints of time or space, in ways differentiated, highly relevant, and intensely personal.  Only then will they realize the power and influence of marketing in the moment.