Tag: mobile ads

Mobile marketing investment shortfall in the U.K. reaches £1.9 billion

| August 14, 2014

While organizations are increasingly likely to have a smartphone ad strategy, levels still haven’t reached expectations.

According to a report that has now been issued by Oracle Marketing Cloud and Econsultancy, businesses are now more likely than ever before to have some type of strategy in place for the integration of mobile marketing into their overall promotions and advertising campaigns.

The report showed that while the acknowledgement of importance is there, the integration remains small.

The publication, entitled the “Cross-Channel Marketing Report 2014” showed that marketers and brands are continuing their transition from traditional channels toward digital and mobile marketing. However, in the United Kingdom, while it is clear that companies find that there is considerable importance in using those channels, there hasn’t been a tremendous focus made in terms of actually working them into a campaign.

It is believed that this will soon begin to pick up, as many companies are making their first mobile marketing moves in 2014.

The report showed that 20 percent of companies are now using mobile notifications and push alerts and that these, combined with messaging, mobile apps, and email are viewed by marketers as the areas in which they will best be able to achieve customer retention.Mobile Marketing - UK

This aligned with a report that was published by the 2014 Internet Trends Report which focused on the market in the United States. This latest report used the same sources as the American one, only using data from the United Kingdom, instead. The U.K. figures showed that while mobile represents 20 percent of a consumer’s total time spent with media, it also represents only 7 percent of total ad spend.

When applied to an actual monetary value, this represents a gap that is worth an estimated £1.9 billion. The shortfall has been attributed to a greater mobile optimization and advertising activity market, in addition to actual ad spending. That said, this still represents a sizeable gap between the actual time spent by consumers and the amount of money spent by marketers.

Equally, though, among the brands and marketers surveyed, 75 percent said that they had some type of mobile marketing integration strategy in place for their campaigns, which represents a year over year growth of 16 percent.

Mobile marketing real time pilot launched by Hudson’s Bay

| August 1, 2014

The iconic Canadian department store retailer is testing out a new way to reach its customers via smartphone.

Hudson’s Bay Company is now testing out a new mobile marketing program that is designed to give shoppers who are in the retail store locations to be able to receive messages in real time in order to enhance their overall shopping experience.

The retailer has announced that it is working with Swirl in implementing the technology for this program.

The company will be using geolocation technology at its five largest By and Lord & Taylor store locations in the United States and Canada in order to use this new mobile marketing program. This location based advertising technique will send consumers smartphone alerts when they walk into the participating stores. The use of this tech is a tremendous leap forward for Hudson’s Bay, which has had a noticeably lacking strategy in terms of general e-commerce.

Swirl uses beacons for its mobile marketing technology, to transmit popup messages via smartphones.

The beacons communicate with the smartphones by way of Bluetooth, detecting that the phone has entered into a certain location and then sending out the appropriate location based marketing message or alert.Mobile Marketing - The Bay retail store

For instance, a customer in the store who was close to the display for purses may receive a message to inform them about the Michael Kors products that have just been added to the shelves. At the brand’s flagship store in Toronto, Canada, the entire home wares floor has been completely remodeled and shoppers entering the building are encouraged to check it out.

Beacons may also be able to identify people who have never entered the store, offering them a complementary cup of coffee to enhance their overall experience and encourage them to return for another visit.

According to the executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Hudson’s Bay Company, who spoke about this geolocation technology based mobile marketing pilot, “The amount of mobile usage that our customers are engaging in has grown dramatically.” He also added that “As a retailer, if you’re not thinking about the impacts of mobile on your retail marketing, you’re really missing the boat. We saw this trend, we’ve watched the data, and we’ve been looking for ways that we can enhance the store experience through mobile.”