What the iPad means for marketers

By Nathan Kraft

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve likely heard the tidal wave of hype surrounding Apple’s iPad mobile device.

Fitting somewhere on the mobile device spectrum between a smartphone and a netbook, the iPad features a 10-inch touch screen, WiFi capability (3G optional), a battery with 10 hours of active life and tons of memory storage—all wrapped in a sexy, slim Apple design. Steve Jobs probably said it best when he said the iPad is “far more intimate than a laptop, but far more capable than a smartphone.

Market penetration beyond early adopters isn’t expected until next year—after at least one price cut, although the 3 to 4 MM units analysts anticipate in 2010 is nothing to sniff at. More importantly, the iPad will legitimize the tablet device and lift sales for the burgeoning category, just as the iPhone and iPod did in the smartphone and MP3 player categories. However, The iPad is in a category slightly different than the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader because of expanded capabilities.

What does all this mean for marketers? Here are a few implications:

• More Apps, New Apps – First the iPhone, then the Android, now iPad. Marketers–who have found applications to be one of the best ways to drive engagement, loyalty and consumer value–will need to re-think their approach to application development taking the iPad’s expanded capabilities and different user needs into account. While most successful smartphone apps serve specific, information-now needs; iPad apps may incorporate more entertainment and social components because of its larger size and different consumer use cases. At the same time, marketers will need to figure efficient ways to deploy applications across a growing number of mobile platforms. As Forrester’s Josh Bernoff recently noted, device fragmentation isn’t going away anytime soon.

• Mobile Gaming Gets Bigger – With its bigger, higher resolution screen, the new iPad is already being touted for its much richer mobile gaming experience than smartphones. Marketers should think of ways to integrate brands into popular games or create games that are an extension of their current brand offering.

• A new channel for traditional media and mobile advertising – This new device was built for media consumption, and will create a new distribution channel for legacy media companies. Though no big media company deals have been inked, large publishers will likely create iPad-specific sites or applications that integrate with new pay walls being introduced on traditional wired sites. Will people pay? It remains to be seen, but as iTunes demonstrates, when the user experience and exclusive content warrants it, consumers are willing to pay by the bite. While most of today’s mobile advertising is limited to text links and tiny banners, mobile advertising on the bigger screen is a new canvas for advertisers. Smart advertisers won’t think of this as another place to plaster irrelevant ads, but will find ways to add value to the consumer’s media consumption experience—taking advantage of social, behavioral and geographic data to deliver relevant messaging yet unavailable in other media, including the internet. This will be a boon to retailers and local businesses, which will be able to efficiently serve richer, relevant offers to small, location-specific audiences. Instead of text links and click-to-call buttons, think of maps, product/service preview videos, etc.

• The social mobile web will expand – Social applications for Facebook and Twitter are already among the most popular smartphone applications. But consumers primarily use these apps to skim through status updates or post a status. The iPad’s larger screen will encourage deeper engagement in social applications and use in coordination with behaviors such as point-of-sale research. This makes consumer reviews and consumer generated product feedback more important than ever, as consumers turn to their social networks for advice on what brands to buy while standing in front of the shelf or showroom.

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Nathan Kraft, MSIMC ’09, is a Chicago-based marketing manager at Cars.com, responsible primarily for social and emerging media at the automotive publisher. He can be reached at nathangkraft@gmail.com.

Avatar: a 'Titanic' exercise in marketing

By Jill Xiaojun Ni

The popularity of Avatar has been a major topic of discussion, both online and off, for the past six weeks. With long lines at the box office and endless tweets and comments on social networking sites, James Cameron’s epic story about justice, war and love has taken over worldwide media.

This past weekend, Avatar held on to the top U.S. box office spot for the sixth week in a row. This week, it surpassed Titanic in worldwide ticket sales.

What’s amazing is how much Fox invested in marketing the film. Avatar has become more than a movie blockbuster, it has become an achievement in entertainment marketing efforts.

Avatar cost Fox $350 million. Global marketing accounted for 30% of the budget, and the studio promoted the movie through synergistic approaches in new and traditional media.

Consumers got the first glimpse of Avatar in August through a16-minute IMAX trailer, which was later broadcast on television networks. The film generated global buzz through an official multi-lingual Web site that allowed participants to navigate through features and clips of the movie.

Avatar partnered with Coke Zero and McDonald’s to interact with consumers. Coke Zero launched the special “AVTR” package, which allowed consumers to simulate flying the helicopter that appeared in the movie by placing coke cans in front of their webcams with new technology called augmented reality.

McDonald’s similarly offered an Avatar themed “thrill card” with Big Mac purchases. With the card, consumers could log onto the McDonald’s vision website as an Avatar and explore Pandora with games. These innovative marketing strategies enhanced the consumer experience by seamlessly integrating into the movie’s online promotion campaign.

Did you participate with Avatar online? Did you like the film?

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Jill Xiaojun Ni is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She loves watching actors do accents in movies. She can be reached at xiaojunni2010@u.northwestern.edu

What's the secret formula? A Happiness Machine

Coke’s “open happiness” campaign is an ambitious brand building effort. “Open happiness” can be interpreted in many different ways and has the potential to fall flat to fluffy efforts. But with this new viral video, Coke shows us all why it is a top global brand. By simply delivering on its brand promise and understanding how to connect with its target consumers, Coke successfully brings “open happiness” to life.

Not only do the people interacting with the machine get a dose of happiness, but watching the video will undoubtedly bring a smile to the viewer’s face, which most likely will lead to sharing this cool video with others. This is a recipe for viral success -- anyone, anywhere in the world can appreciate the happiness in this video. And that’s truly the mark of an iconic global brand.

What will be interesting to see is if Coke can keep consumers buzzing and if the happiness machine pops up at other college campuses. There’s a great opportunity here for Coke to further engage with this target group. How about creating a contest for college students to select the next secret location for the happiness machine? Or what about extending the life of this idea and integrate it with Expedition 206?

--Stacy Cohen

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Stacy Cohen is Co-Founder and Alumni Advisor of Vitamin IMC and recently graduated from the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Medill. Currently living in Atlanta, Stacy does not miss the winter she left behind in Chicago. She can be reached at StacyCohen2008@u.northwestern.edu

Trading privacy for data

According to Stephen Baker, the Numerati are taking over. These mathematicians and computer scientists are the focus of Baker’s book, The Numerati, which he discussed last week at Medill. Baker described how our observed behavioral patterns are being turned into quantifiable data by these innovators, and hinted at the vast implications this has for marketers.

“This science is ideal for those industries where you can afford to make a lot of mistakes,” Baker said. That is, marketing and advertising. In practice marketing is a blend of art and science, intuition and analysis. The Numerati can analyze the vast amounts of data and uncover new insights about consumer tastes, preferences, and moods. The use of behavioral data undoubtedly makes marketing more effective than traditional segmentation approaches based on demographics.

Forget about demographic and psychographic targeting. NetFlix and Amazon.com use vast databases that predict behavior and make recommendations based on past purchase behavior. Sometimes the suggestions are misguided, but there is little cost associated with the error. It is certainly more accurate than a strategy based on customers’ billing zip codes.

But these new methods aren’t without problems. People are increasingly protective of their privacy and anonymity, both online and offline. Baker argued that consumers would be more willing to share information if they understand how it benefits them.

The ultimate effects of the Numerati’s efforts in using the staggering volume of available data will be decided by the public’s willingness to trade its privacy for better relationships with brands and businesses – or the government’s eagerness to step in and change laws.

Do you think companies are going too far with your private information?

--Kelly Kross

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Kelly Kross is a graduate student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She loves her BlackBerry and will never switch to the iPhone. Kelly can be reached at kellykross2010@u.northwestern.edu

McKinsey’s consumer decision journey

One of the key IMC tenets is data-driven formulation of strong consumer insights to produce effective marketing strategy. McKinsey’s John Copeland drove the point home at Medill last week, with his statement: “Understanding the why is important, because it’s the only way that you can get out in front of the consumer. Otherwise you would be chasing behavior, or chasing demography.”

Copeland, a senior expert in marketing at McKinsey & Company’s Marketing & Sales practice, spoke at an event for the Professional Speaker Series at Medill. He showcased McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ), a reorientation of the traditional marketing funnel that breaks down the consumer buying decision process. While the traditional funnel assumes a methodic reduction in the number of brands in the consumer’s consideration set at each stage, the CDJ proposes a more dynamic version of the process.

With the deluge of information available, consumers are too overwhelmed to start off with an assessment of all available options. Often, their initial consideration set of brands consists of as few as 3-4 brands, which are three times more likely to be purchased eventually. This number may increase or decrease as consumers seek more information during the purchasing process, as well as during the post-purchase evaluation phase. Consequently, although it is important to gain entry into the initial consideration set, marketers still have opportunities to impact consumers across the journey. Decoding the CDJ and understanding the “why” reveals these opportunities.

Once this is done, it is critical to achieve integration across touch points. Only a third of the touch points for consumers involve company-driven marketing; the rest is comprised of consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews, recommendations, past experiences, and in-store interactions. The relative importance of touch points varies through the journey – and aligning marketing with the decision process through a strong integrated strategy is now more important than ever.

The original McKinsey article can be found here.

--Pooja Ranganathan

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Pooja Ranganathan is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She does not get football, and is amazed she managed to discover a sport more boring than cricket. She can be reached at PoojaRanganathan2010@u.northwestern.edu

Mobilizing to donate after the Haiti quake

Text “Haiti” to 90999 to Donate $10 to The Red Cross. This message proliferated the internet and television within hours of the Jan. 12 catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.

Since then The Red Cross’ text-to-donate campaign collected a staggering $21 million, dwarfing the $4 million total of all charitable ‘text’ drives in 2009. Most notable was the first 48 hours – people gave The Red Cross more money faster than in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami, or any disaster to date.

The operation is backed by Mobile Accord’s mGive Foundation, the first company to offer mobile donation services to non-profit organizations back in 2005. Donors’ pledges are added to their cell phone billing statements.

From a cause marketing standpoint, $10 increments paired with mobile accessibility is a winning combination. Simply cutting out the need for Americans to give an intermediary their credit card information enabled a mass reaction.

The text-to-donate message was not seamless. False word spread on Twitter that AT&T was not participating in the campaign as customers slammed the carrier for preventing them from helping victims. But AT&T spokesman Steven Schwadron quickly clarified that was a rumor: it was on board with The Red Cross and messaging rates would not apply to donation texts. AT&T customers contributed half of the first $9 million collected via text message. However, The Wall Street Journal did its part to warn the public to do research before texting away money, citing up to 90 days’ lag time before the phone company pays the charity.

Natural disasters bring together great minds and able bodies to help those affected. The difference with today’s tragedy in Haiti is newfound strength in mobile technology.

Charitable reaction to the Haiti quake glimpsed the symbiotic IMC process. Americans immediately saw footage of earthquake victims on television, online and in print news, and were driven to help however they could.

Will this tragedy instill confidence on a greater level for mobile charity? For mobile commerce?

We can’t deny its power. Companies are truly mobilizing for the future; take Apple’s recent purchase of mobile ad company Quattro Wireless. The technology exists and millions just adopted it.

Today we move forward, to repair and to improve.

--Susan Monahan

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Susan Monahan is a Blogger at Vitamin IMC and a graduate student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University's Medill School. She was deeply moved by the global community's quick response to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Susan can be reached at susanmonahan2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Polaroid's romance with Lady Gaga

There’s no shortage of celebrities partnering with corporations, but a new venture between Lady Gaga and Polaroid is one that few would have guessed. On January 6, Polaroid appointed the pop star to become the company’s creative director. Not only will she be the face of the brand but also develop a line of “imaging products” scheduled for release late this year.

Polaroid, which was acquired by a private equity firm in 2008 after filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has had brand image problems for years. Most perceptions of the Polaroid brand fall somewhere between dated and irrelevant. Its products have missed the mark in recent years, fueling continued financial problems.

Undoubtedly Polaroid is hoping that some of Lady Gaga’s trendy cache will rub off on their new product line. Although details of the multi-year agreement are still unknown, Polaroid does intend to leverage Lady Gaga in future marketing campaigns, which includes having a presence at her upcoming tours.

It’s clear Polaroid is betting that Lady Gaga’s next few albums continue to generate the buzz her first two have and that her creative talents are translatable to developing innovative electronics.

The possibility for the partnership to be successful is not out of the question, since Lady Gaga appears to have legitimate creative talent that has already been used to launch a line of headphones. But the bigger issue here is how Polaroid will reconcile its brand heritage and core competencies (instant imaging) with the current fast-paced technological environment. If Polaroid can’t solve this problem, no celebrity – not even Lady Gaga - will be able to dig them out of their brand ditch.

--Mike Witham

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Mike Witham is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She has a pet duck, Phil, who does tricks. She can be reached at michaelwitham2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Pepsi’s Super Bold Cause Marketing Move

It’s tough to imagine the Super Bowl without the Pepsi ads. Full of pop culture, sex appeal and charm, the spendy spots are being benched this year in favor of a new marketing plan. The soda giant is instead re-funneling $20 million of its advertising dollars to the “Pepsi Refresh Project,” awarding grant money to community projects selected by its consumers. The Wall Street Journal offers a comprehensive piece on the decision, but here’s my perspective as an IMC student, armchair advertising critic and Pepsi drinker.

In its current stage – before consumer engagement, attitudes and profit margins are calculated – Pepsi’s strategy is downright applaudable. It likely wouldn’t have had the same effect just two years ago. Back then, we Americans basked in frivolity. Paying $2.7 million for a 30 second first quarter belly laugh was pure bragging rights for many a company. Sure, Pepsi also was likely backed into spending binges by direct pressure from Coca-Cola. To remove themselves from competition on the biggest advertising platform in the world must have more than a few Pepsi executives biting their nails right now. But my prediction is this: it will be worth it, and here’s why:

Word of Mouth. People will talk about the Pepsi Refresh Project because it’s unconventional, risky and doing some good. If it’s possible to change attitudes, this program has more potential than a short-lived advertisement. Remember Mister Splashy Pants?

Social Media. There’s potential for Pepsi to have a bonanza here. Cause marketing works when people are given the power of participatory influence. Viral engagement will lead to an “everybody wins” scenario, including consumers and the communities being served. Oh, and more brand equity isn’t bad, either.

Legacy. If this concept is ultimately profitable, it will not only be a success story, but one exemplifying a true change in consumer behavior. Although copycats will follow, I think Pepsi will be preserved as a heartfelt pioneer because of the level of risk taken on with this program.

So Pepsi, good luck to you. The bubbly Super Bowl ads will be missed, but the Refresh Project is definitely going to be fun to watch.

--Anne Mahoney

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Anne Mahoney is the Social Media Director of Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She is hoping to watch the Vikings take the cake at the Super Bowl this year. She can be reached at AnneMahoney2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Authenticity, Relationships and the Economy: Why Little is Getting Bigger

One day last quarter in his Marketing Management class, Medill IMC Professor Frank Mulhern noted that today is the age of the mega-business. Whether it’s through acquisition like many of the media empires or through internal growth like Walmart, Big is where it’s at. Economies of scale. Multi-layered specialization. Reach. To be a market leader, you have to basically take over the market. Become a category killer.

While there’s truth in all that, Professor Mulhern could not deny there’s also a distinct rebellion against the notion that bigger is better. In contrast to the mass industrialization of last century, many people now prefer to own items and pursue experiences that are authentic and as close to one-of-a-kind as possible.

In the world of marketing, this presents a distinct opportunity for the Little Guy. Amid this current Great Recession, many smart, talented businesspeople have turned away from corporate behemoths toward independent entrepreneurial ventures. Whether triggered by a quest for personal meaning or the result of downsizing, these people have joined in a movement. And the movement has legs.

And if the economy and individualism serve as those legs, social media will gladly be the eyes, ears and mouth. No longer is the Little Guy outgunned by access to mass media. The playing field has been leveled.

But don’t be distracted by the tools. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are leading the Democratization of Media, but they’re just instruments. They serve no purpose if used incorrectly.

The true value of social media lies in personal relationships. It’s almost a return to the days of door-to-door salesmen, but the difference is your business of one, five or 20 people can interact with individual households in Chicago, Barstow and Shanghai – all at the same time.

It’s that personalization that allows small businesses to find their niches and offer consumers what they want when they want it. These entrepreneurs literally *know* their audience. People will no longer tolerate being just another faceless customer. They want to connect.

Consumers prefer building relationships with other people to building relationships with corporations. That’s the power of social media. That’s the power of the Little Guy.

--Daniel Hindin

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Daniel Hindin is the Managing Director of Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. He loves it when people comment on his blog postings. He can also be reached at DanielHindin2010@u.northwestern.edu.