(This article was originally published in Mashable)
The essence of any coveted brand is the story it conveys. The elements of heritage, craftsmanship, and creative innovation combine with a vision of an aspirational lifestyle that inspires the desire to associate with that brand.
Historically, this vision was realized on a print canvas, but the rise of digital has created new opportunities. Through video and other forms of brand content, luxury brands have become media companies and content marketers selling a vision of an exclusive lifestyle attainable only by a select few. This new media has not, however, been effectively translated for the mobile audience.
The mobile device requires brand marketers to rethink engagement strategies and devise innovative campaigns that leverage the medium for effective mobile-content marketing. The challenge lies in enticing mobile users. Here are four ways to do that.
Resist the temptation to unveil the entire story in a single instance. By breaking down the narrative into episodes, the audience has a reason to keep coming back. This approach essentially creates a desire to continue following the story as it unfolds.
Regardless of the communication mechanism employed, be it a mobile ad, SMS, or in-app push notifications, messaging should be intriguing and subtle. Be cryptic about what awaits the audience if they choose to participate. Creating mystery through veiled communication fuels desire to see what is on the other side.
Take the consumer on a journey with the narrative. Provide sophisticated clues to challenge the audience by using the outside world as your canvas. Clues could exist on billboards, on buildings, or in taxis. By adding a sophisticated element of game mechanics you allow the audience to become players in the campaign.
The luxury consumer seeks priority access to, and deeper levels of intimacy with, the brands they most covet. The lure of exclusivity is the most effective mechanism for pulling on the heartstrings of this highly-sought consumer and forming greater connections. Rewarding a select group of participants creates desire for brand association through exclusivity.
(This article was originally published in Mashable)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
mobi.luxe 