ADO hosted this event at Oct 3, 2011.  We had more then 300 participants and 36 Brand Marketing Mobile Apps  were submitted.   The event was in cooperation with Mobile Monday NYC, NYC mobile Apps, and NYC Mobile.   Also, we had a special guest from ROVIO Angry Bird’s CMO Peter Vesterbacka! The event was closed with a special performance from Erin Barra.

Those are some apps which ware submitted.

Winner is

* Ray Ban http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ray-ban-never-hide-u.s./id426128456?mt=8

From the team!
Ray-Ban NEVER HIDE is an immersive brand experience which connects Ray-Ban’s audience with the Never Hide campaign. This app engages users on multiple levels by allowing them to consume, create, and share Never Hide content. Imano worked with Luxottica Group’s agency, Vizeum, to integrate the app’s functionality with Ray-Ban’s global Never Hide campaign.

Designed and developed by Imano

Thank you for the sponsors and participant!

http://www.mediacrossmedia.com/mxm_series/nyc/oct_03_2011_brand_marketing_mobile_app_show-off/

• As of November, the ratio of iOS to Android users was more than 15 to 1 at AT&T.
• iOS at AT&T has twice the users as Android at Verizon
• Although T-Mobile had the Android franchise to itself for all of 2009, it was overtaken by Verizon within four months
• T-Mobile Android consumption has also been nearly matched by Sprint within a year

In Addition, this extension by Apple and Verizon shows that we are moving into a new era of advanced devices and connectivity that will lead to an exciting 2011 in the ecosystem of mobile internet and cross-media applications.

Given the fact that the Verizon iPhone is still not the LTE 4G device, there is room for the release of the iPhone 5 during this year with an exiting evolution to not only the network capabilities, but also the link to rich-media.

At CES this year, there was a plethora of new innovative 3D services and video delivery systems.  Group video with Skype and being able to consume video at a signal action on the device will only get better and better.  The use of the device as a remote control tied to a users TV set will keep evolving and the ubiquitous nature of having all kinds of vertical applications leveraging real-time communications will make the device more and more personal in our daily lives.  With this growth, there will be all kinds of new business models and we grow more mobile in this next decade.

I Just arrived here at CES…. Clear day, but cold here for the desert! Definitely Android’s presence at this major Consumer Show will help warm up the mood.  2011 is going to be a great new year in the mobile industry in North America as both Apple and Google battle it out for the leading market share of smart phone devices.

#1- Devices, Devices and more  Devices

We are all looking forward to some of the new devices that will hit the street with Android.  As an open system and an entry platform into the mobile area the competition with ensue between Consumer electronic manufactures, PC manufactures, incumbents and anything you can embed an OS.

The Apple vs. Google’s Android (24.6% vs. 23.5% respectively according to Comscore) competition has first of all made a major dent in RIM’s leadership.  Will Blackberry move from #1 to #3?

At CES this year we expect a fresh taste of many of the new devices to come.

#2-  The blurring line between Smartphones and Tablets

This jostling is not only in the Smartphone race, but in the tablet market as well.  Apples iPad with its 44% marketshare getting nibbled to death from Android’s estimated 39% marketshare by 2010 according to the Piper Jaffray’s estimates.

Although there has been polarization of the different formats, a new breed of formats occupying that middle ground has started.

What makes this interesting is in the multiple forms of display sizes from the 3.5 inch Retina displays, advanced OLED’s all the way up the spectrum to the 10.1 inch and larger.  How will content itself polarize for these different formats? Or maybe not?

#3- Apps and Media Marketplaces

The big differentiator in this new era of advanced internet devices is in the content.   Apple’s leadership in the iTunes marketplace ( more then 300K strong)  has not been threatened yet, but with Android’s openness as the angle for developers to bring in new and exciting things in parallel to the shear volume of content.  The Android Marketplace has will quickly reach the 200k level and continue to grow strongly!  HTML5 mobile apps and content that blend web experiences on native app experiences is something we should keep an eye out for this year with the overall Android App and Marketplace experience.

#4 NFC and the mCommerce explosion

It has been a long-time coming to see this opportunity of Near Field Communications baked into devices.  The quiet release in Google and Samsung’s Nexus S with the Android 2.3 and the NFC chip is an indication that these enablers will be aggressively now released into the market as part of the competition to bring in these new business models. Apple, RIM, Microsoft as well as the mobile operators have all entered this foray becoming the next big battleground for local and location based payments.

#5 Connected and Suggest Advertising

2011 will be a year of advertising innovation beyond the basic impression based CPM models of past.  Android will be a unique platform where Google will bring out is best of ideas of mobile and local advertising that will go beyond the basic behavioral response, but to include the context of location and push.  How will this be mitigated so that our social privacy is not evaded? The debate will continue as the competition ensues.  Google’s Admob vs. Apple’s iAd will be two of the big battle grounds, but expect to see all of the local retailers, commerce and media companies bringing in new and exciting formats to make it more relevant for advertisers in this cross-media, physical and local connection.   The shear volume of Android handsets entering the market should make this a very dynamic addition to Google’s strength, but with Facebook’s Places Mobile Application and the opportunity to bring advertising into this mix as social ads will be another interesting spike in this evolution.

#6  Application Search… the other blurring line

Up until now, Applications have been silo’ed creatures that had activation to content only when downloaded and launched.   I would expect this to be another unique battleground as the plethora of content grows, access in-app will become more and more important as well as the indexing of relevant content on the go.  Twitter search has had the make-up to be the next big thing in the search space, but now will the growth of endless applications paralleling websites as the content for mobility; search will take a potential exciting new direction in the coming year with Applications.

#7  TV and Rich-Media Convergence

Android should make an exciting platform for the future of TV.  In 2010 we saw Google TV, Apple TV and the evolution of real-time video streams anytime, anyplace as a growing trend, now in 2011 with the advances in LTE and more and more content becoming available online this will be another battleground for the mindshare of consumers.

As the Android OS continue to show up everywhere in 2011 ( taxi’s, airplanes, billboards, etc..) this opportunity will make way for interactive video everywhere on the go.  However, how long will it last before content owners hold back from licensing content to Google’s TV initiatives?

This trend is also bringing in new entrants such as Vizio that has been a top Flat-panel manufacturer now entering into the smart device area as well.

#8 Chrome OS vs. Android OS cross-platform

Google has been strategic in keeping these two different platforms separated as they build within the two different marketplaces of mobile and online, but how long will this last. Android platform has been strong with the evolution of the opensource Webkit Browser based on a Safari core.  The Chrome Browser vs. The Safari browser dynamics has now put Google in a unique position for moving forward with its own enablers in parallel with taking the best from both worlds.   2011 will be the year of the Cloud when it comes to the connected OS cross-platform.

#9 Android , Google Music and Content Distribution

It seems like Apple has enjoyed the luxury of being predominant player for the last several years in the mindshare of the music industry. With the shear volume of Android handsets and tablets flooding the market, it would only make sense to see some unique play into the music space by Google.  This space has been a minefield of content rights licensing and business models.  In 2001, the world will begin to relook at the Limewire’s and the Bit torrents of the world that have made such dent on the business models of music.  Intel will launch a new architecture for content protection embedded on its chips that will find their way into the Android devices to come and the App Marketplaces will evolve with new dynamics for business models around the distribution and rights of music to attempt to give content owners more choices in revenue generation.

#10 Social Relevancy and the Android OS

It was rumored in 2010 that Facebook was attempting to launch their own devices the same way Google brought the reference platforms of Nexus One and Nexus S into the market.  There is no stopping Facebook from moving forward with this strategy, but it is clear that further enhanced and improved Social Relevancy will become a key part of the entire OS of Android in the near future starting with Android 2.3.  Facebook and Google have not always shared similar views, but with the large market penetration of Android moving forward they will find the right mix of cooperation strategies that will make this a platform that will leverage social interactions and conversations as a core to the overall user experience.

We have entered 2011 and I have to say the first decade did fly by rather quickly for us in the mobile industry.   I am a big fan of JWT and their things to watch deck.  I thought I would share it and highlight the top 10 in my mind for those realigning and creating a  mobile strategy this year.

As we all gear-up to fly out for the 2010 end of the year holiday season, are we grabbing that large guidebook and throwing into our suit case or travel bag? Are we getting the iPhone App, iPad App, or even Kindle version instead.

I saw this article on how Tourism Thailand ( TAT) is moving over to mobile and it brought back a nostalgic moment for me any my life.  In 1984 when  I was a third year Engineering Student at the University of Illinois,  I had the chance to study/ teach abroad in Thailand.  For me the Lonely-Planet Book for Thailand- written by Tony Wheeler ( at that time)  was a bit of  Bible  or sorts for my survival.  Back in the  Bangkok summer of 1984, it was like the wild-wild west for me.  I actually did contract Typhoid Feaver, and had many unique stories to tell, but that Lonely-Planet guidebook was something special in my overall discover and journey of the Thailand countryside.    The guide book lent it self for shoe-string travelers like myself to take notes, tear-off pages to share, and send in information that would better the book.  It was one of the first collaborative community projects of its time.  What happened Lonely Planet? I guess you lost the Tony Wheeler type characters of that day? Times had changed as well with global digital communications and the Internet of the 90′s, but it is something for me in my late teens to experience that was a slice in time right before the global World-Wide-Web.

Now as see all of this going Digital, that distant feeling of going to such a far away different place at that time has really changed as we  experience tourism/travel and back-packers of the day….  I remember reading about this unique noodle place tucked in the back-alleys off of  Sukumvit Road, and getting there with this diagram map to a Tuk-Tuk driver only to find the exact description of the Snake-charmer and old man siting on the corner adjacent to that Noodle shop.

Now we will be navigated with Google maps on our iPhone Lonely Planet App…. Not much Analog left in that experience…..:(

Apple has finally rolled out a way for app makers and content providers to build their own specialized ads for apps and the iAd Producer could help boost its mobile advertising network.

Advertisers will need to use this tool to create proprietary ads for iPhone, iPad, AppleTV?  and all in the Orchard I guess….?

Apple rolled out its advertising network as part of iOS 4.0 and it promised to give ads all the functionality of the app itself – this included 3D graphics, multitouch, video, gyroscope and more.  The goal was to create ads which deeply engage the user with experiences  brands could create only mobile… Yahoo took some stabs at it and beyond the Nissan Leaf campaign, we haven’t heard of too many success cases.

In fact, Chanel dropped its plans to advertise with this network after Apple meddled with the creative process.

Could this  iAd Producer change this slow start for Apple to get involved creating the ads,  yet now giving the creators a bit more flexibility.  As it appears these tools seems it make it fairly easy for user to create.

According to Apple:

iAd Producer makes it easy for you to design and assemble high-impact, interactive content for iAd. iAd Producer automatically manages the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript behind your iAd to make creating beautiful, motion-rich iAd content as easy as point and click.

For advanced developers, iAd Producer offers sophisticated JavaScript editing and debugging, along with a powerful extension mechanism that enables them to create and re-use their own page templates and components.

We all know that Google is fully integrating AdMob into its business and you know that the search giant is going to be putting a lot of effort into the mobile advertising space. Besides there foray into Voice, Operating Systems and new advances to Search that was recently stated by Google’s Marissa Mayer- ” Contextual Push”, this is not going to be a straight forward process for Apple to get the agency and brands mind share that easily, but with these tools it is definitely a good way to start…

Just learned about this and found it very interesting.

Apple to Improve App Purchasing & Sharing — A release from the US Patent & Trademark Office has revealed a new patent for Apple and the purchasing of applications at places such as the App Store. According to Patently Apple, the system will utilize an “Application Seed” methodology, which means that when users download an app, they will be able to share it with others, allowing them try it, for free, and effectively helping to mitigate the over-saturation of apps on the market.

In a recent article by Geoff Ramsey, President of eMarketer ( See below), he definitely hit the nail on the head! In the wake of  the financial crisis, will we see a similar media crisis spurred on by the overflow of more and more content, while users still expecting to downloading it for free? We are in an age where everybody is creating, and the world has become  flat for media.  There is just so much out there and it is really becoming more and more available as we envisioned….the on-demand via multi-screens scenario.  I do believe in social recommendations of compelling content, but the market is there for the taking if you do something stimulating and original that really catches the eyes of the consumers. This then could potentially propel it with immense social velocity.

This is why it is critical to have all of your media ducks in a row.  As I say, your RIOTPM ( Radio, Interactive, OOH, TV, Print, Mobile) all working like a purring Ferrari ready to hit the road with your creative “eye-catching, ears-ring”, “Taste buds-swelling” “Fingers-itching” campaigns. The industry word has been coined “Earned-Media”, but I like to think of it as “Emotional-Earned Media”.

If as a marketer you can deliver on this kind of compelling promise to consumers, the last thing you want is for them to try to open that campaign on their mobile phone and the site does not work due to lack of preparation, or poor layout….. Mobile has to be there as well as Social media with the right strategy in place from the start, with its own creative twists….

2011 is the dawn of the new media creative that maps across all the different screens in that unique special contextual way… we are excited  to be part of this…

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2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Geoff Ramsey—CEO, Co-Founder

Next year, marketers will need to rethink their approach to advertising and marketing and intensify their focus on creating magnetic content that will naturally attract consumers, rather than relying solely on the interruption model of advertising, which consumers are responding to less and less. Think pull vs. push.

Magnetic content can include anything created on behalf of a brand—be it an ad, YouTube video, online game, Facebook page, Twitter promo or mobile app—that consumers genuinely want to engage with and pass along to others. This content entertains, amuses, informs, serves a function or satisfies a consumer need. It’s welcome instead of annoying or interruptive.

Marketers, especially those working in social media, have seen the proven value of branded content, sometimes also referred to as “earned media.” Nearly three-quarters of US companies with a social media strategy used such content in their campaigns, making it the most common type of content used, according to a June 2010 study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42.

Creating effective, breakthrough advertising has always been a challenge for marketers, as well as for the agencies charged with the task. But the classic interruption-disruption model of advertising is moribund. Marketers should ask themselves five questions about the magnetic content they are seeking to create to determine whether it will be truly attractive to their audience:

Is the content unique?
Is the content useful?
Is the content well executed?
Is the content fun?
Does the content make good use of the channel in which it appears (e.g., social, mobile, video)?
Marketers should base their magnetic content ideas on well-researched customer behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles. This entails altering your emphasis in marketing from “selling product” to identifying and solving a consumer need or want that transcends or complements the physical product or service you are selling. Ask yourself this critical question: Besides your product, what can you do for the consumer?

I learned about Delta’s decision to add WiFi now to its regional Jet Service. It appears the Virgin domino strategy has worked!  This is big news for all of us that like to work when we are flying.  I do not know what they will do about Skype or video calls over Wifi, but being connected during those several hours when flying is exactly the service I like as a business traveler.

This will bring a new breath of fresh air to iPad, smartphone Apps as now we will start to see the in-flight entertainment services moving to those opportunities as well.  Just think of the future shopping potential? Duty Free when you fly with one-click of the button….

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Amazon launched on Monday ( Nov 22) a new iPhone App for with advanced price comparison features on-the-go. Is this the straw that broke the camels back?  Will window shopping now be the only and main behavior for users shopping in the future? Has the Check-in replaced the Check-out?  Consumers look through the merchandise like they would through catalogs, but instead of buying it in that store, they hit the button on Amazon, buy it and have it delivered right to their home by the time you get there. This new change of purchasing behavior has evolved considerably with the growth of Smart Phones. Recently it was published that over 60% of users with Smart Phones will do some kind of product search in-store. Google recently launched its own new shopping product called Boutiques.com, and this wave of new eCommerce sites that incorporate mobile and offers is really exploding.

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of local supermarkets migrating to self-serve check-outs to cut the costs at the cash register  and make the flow quicker for people to move through the check-out lanes when congested.  It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to use the automated system at Food Emporium and Home Depot, but once I figured it out, It found it quite convenient. But is it more convenient then just doing a quick product search, buying the product and having it delivered to my home.

Like many of the Retail brands, Food Emporium is doing its best to meet these online challenges with its own Online Shop, and FREE Delivery for sales over $75.  They have their own strategy for coupons and they have a great methodology of pick-up vs. delivery for making it convenient for their shoppers, but is it enough?

When I searched on Google for Home Depot and clicked on the link, Google kept me within Google’s index for my first couple of searches and clicks on Home Depot. I thought I was crazy when I was navigating within Home Depot’s site, but the URL string in my search bar was still Google? What does Home Depot thing of this? Google is now doing analysis of the users behavior in the site even after the search that is beyond just the lead. They seem to be pushing the envelop to gathering information that is beneficial for them. Google is trying to build deep information even before you can enter the online site of the Retailer for their own competitive advantage ( see diagram)

Retail brands are going to have to come up with new ways of assuring they not only have the right low price, but also the right “stickiness” in their apps to get users to use them over the Amazon’s of the world.  With Google running the search show, even when users go to the Retail Brand via the Web, Google is hanging on as long as possible to gather information on the user, making it potentially even more difficult for even Retail brands to understand holistically that first step.

In addition, this new era is one of optimized fufillment  where delivery and convenience is potentially the winning card.

2010 seems to be the year of the social promotion. 50% off for this or 90% off for that, if you register for the goods prior is the model that has worked so well for Groupon, but nitche players like Gilt.com, LivingSocial, Yipit and a variety of others are now making it easier for users  to find these promotions and coupons related to a location in real-time. This combined with the behavior of social recommendations and purchase history of your “Friends” will add even another unique dimension on the behaviour of online shopping on the go.

Even though Facebook seems to be quite quiet when it comes to eCommerce and one-click to buy shopping, they did have an unique release that better integrates the social graph as part of a sign-on process recently for mobile.  Once they also add this one-click to buy and make it easier to find products and services on-the-go, they will become another “Guerilla in the Room” that makes it more and more difficult for the Bricks-and-Mortars” to control that check-out experience.

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Amazon Price Comparison App Aims At Brick-and-Mortar Stores
by Mark Walsh, November 23,2010

Amazon will use the iPhone as a vehicle for snagging more business from brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season. With the company’s new price comparison app for the iPhone launched Monday, users can scan a product barcode, snap a picture of an item, or say a product’s name to find out if they can get a better deal from Amazon.

If they choose to go with Amazon, they can then make a purchase directly through the Price Check app and have it delivered to their home. That’s a clever way to try to take sales away from physical store rivals while shoppers are strolling down their aisles.

“For example, a customer may be shopping for a toy in a toy store and decide to compare the in-store price of the item to Amazon.com and other online merchants using Price Check,” explains Amazon in its announcement. But the third-party merchants online are limited to those that sell through Amazon.

That’s not the same as a popular app like Red Laser, acquired by eBay in June, which lets users scan a product barcode to compare pricing and stock across multiple online and physical stores. Amazon’s new app is essentially comparing its own pricing against that of the store someone is shopping at.

“While we love the search and quick purchase options, the [Amazon] ultimately isn’t that useful because it only allows users to compare a single store price with the prices of Amazon and its sellers,” noted Mashable. Once someone has already decided to brave the holiday crush by heading to a local store, there’s also a question of how often they would forgo an immediate purchase for a better price on Amazon.

The most likely instance for opting for Amazon would be where an item was out of stock and a shopper could use the Price Check to say the product name to find out if was available through the online retail giant. Or where the price difference was big enough to switch to Amazon despite adding in any shipping costs.

A report from research firm IDC Monday revealed that smartphones are changing consumer behavior. It found more than one-third of smartphone-carrying consumers (who represent 24% of all U.S. consumers) “are ready to use their mobile devices in ways that transform how they shop everywhere, and in particular, how they shop in retail stores.” That includes searching for price and product information, comparing prices at nearby stores, and buying things.

IDC projected that mobile-shopping “warriors” and “warrior wannabes” will account for 28% or $127 billion of the $447 billion the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates U.S. consumers will spend this holiday season. Amazon itself said in its second-quarter earnings report in July that its mobile sales had surpassed $1 billion during the prior 12 months.

Brick-and-mortar retailers have released their own apps to take advantage of the smartphone explosion and aid in-store shopping. That includes major chains and department stores such as Target, which Monday was named “2010 Mobile Retailer of the Year” by Mobile Commerce Daily, Best Buy, JCPenney and Nordstrom.

Julie Ask, a mobile analyst at Forrester Research, noted that Amazon and Best Buy — which finished second and third behind Target as top retailer of 2010 — may actually have an edge when it comes to having more mobile-savvy customers.

“Both sell a lot of products that fall into the sweet spot for mobile — consumer electronics (one of the top activities for consumers on mobile devices around commerce is price comparisons — especially in the CE category) and books/DVDs,” she wrote in a blog post Monday. By creating an app patterned after customers’ mobile habits, Amazon is hoping to drive mobile revenues even higher.