These Norwegians Who BOOST Mobile Advertising – #mwc13

On my third day at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I stopped by the Boost communications booth in order to have a chat with some of the world’s trailblazers and innovators in the mobile marketing market. It’s true that mobile advertising is the next big thing, but not much has happened yet by way of innovation in that area. All we are given to see is plain banners which divert people’s attention and takes them away from the page once they have clicked on them. Yet, new models are possible, and tools are being built by the likes of Boost, a Norwegian company now expanding on the UK market. Here is the report of my encounter with one of the company’s founders, Øystein Skiri (photo).

mobile marketing since … 2000!

Boost communications was founded 13 years ago and the 2 co-founders started working on mobiles from day one, which was very visionary. Their idea was that “[they] could use them for more than just making calls”. They pioneered early solutions like SMS and MMS messages as soon as 1999. This is a period I can remember very well for I was in that industry too at the time. Today, “the world has evolved towards the landscape of paid, earned and owned media but a lot of the principles which were laid out in those days and are still valid”, Øystein Skiri, one of the two founders, declared. “One can actually increase the rate of advertising and direct marketing through the use of pertinent information, permission marketing” and, to put it plainly, the respect of users. This is typically what the founders of Boots Communications started to experiment at the end of the 1990s.

As Øystein Skiri showed me in the picture below, the company started very early on with the idea that customers had to give their consent about what kind of information they wished to receive, how often, and how pertinent this information had to be with regard to their needs.

[permission marketing pioneers – Skiri points at a 2001 permission marketing form for direct marketing; Seth Godin will appreciate]

push marketing is never going to disappear

Yet, even with more respect, “push marketing is never going to disappear” to put it in the words of the founder of Boost Communications. Marketing has to evolve, and mostly on the mobile where click-through rates are very low because of the extensive use of disruptive mobile banners. “Mobile consumption has evolved” Skiri added. “Now that all are using smartphones and tablets, and we can now do display adverts, rich media and video advertising. The problem is that when we are using banners, the user who clicks on it will leave the current page so we had to create a device within the banner which is not going to divert attention.”

This is particularly the area in which Boost Communications has been innovating by creating new display banners that look different. “Display banners don’t quite work at the moment. Mobile advertising needs to be taken to a level higher through the understanding and interpretation of reading context, location and the understanding of previous user behaviour” Øystein Skiri said.

I have been able to see 3 kinds of innovation in the field of mobile display which I found particularly interesting:

• first and foremost, a new kind of banner which revolves around itself; through this “flipping advertising”, Skiri said that click-through-rates can be enhanced 7 times. Obviously, the real banner can be smaller than the one displayed on this particular demonstration screen

[mobile banners that flip click-through rates 7 times!]

• The two other examples are interactive banners in which the user is not leaving the screen but is actually interacting within the banner itself either for a scratch game or even to shoot a penalty kit on the screen. Even though I wasn’t given numbers of how much click rates are improved with that kind of banners, one can easily imagine that users stay there for hours playing on the banner rather than leaving the page.

[in-banner scratch game on mobile keeps users interested]

[in-banner penalty kick game on mobile – this time it’s a goal!]

Boost communications is also responsible for the madmaker application, a self-service panel for producing banners and landing pages, mostly aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. The application can be used as is or delivered as a white label service. Publishers and agencies love that feature and end-customers in the B2B arena can also use the software directly. This technology is very straightforward and easy to set up; it is producing mobile land pages in the responsive design standard which are available on all kinds of screens. A partnership with the Google ad network will be provided in the short term Skiri added.

[madmaker screenshot: tools on the left-hand side, preview in the middle, settings on the right]

Boost communications employs 55 people and is based in Oslo, Trondheim, London, Dubai and Johannesburg. It was founded through the Norway VC scene and received funding of 25 million Norwegian Kröner last year. Its objective now is to grow interest in new projects and new geographies on very fast-growing markets.

ZTE launches Grand Memo mega phone and announces shift in mobile industry – #mwc13

This post was written as part of a blogger trip I organised for the Live Orange Blog. Connect to the blog for the latest on that event!

On February 25th, at ZTE’s press conference at Mobile World Congress, the show was not where you’d think it was. The announcement of ZTE’s new launch of devices (one of which with the brand new Firefox OS) has given way to a real scrum amongst journalists who were fighting for a good space in conference room 1 of the MWC media village. Why so?

Heads; it was a Press Conference

Tails; Journalists fighting for a scoop (already leaked on CNET 3 hours before)

Even though the video demo of the brand new ZTE Grand Memo led to chuckles in the room when the conference room’s sound system refused to reproduce anything more than hisses, the launch of the large screen high end smartphone by the Chinese manufacturer was nothing to laugh at. Indeed, our 2012 live Orange blog readers had already got a hint of the Chinese offensive on the Western front. ZTE and Huawei were indeed very present at MWC last year (remember the horse?). 2012 was the sign that Chinese manufacturers were entering that market and penetrating foreign markets way beyond the borders of China.

Now, today’s announcement was anything but laughable, it was a clear signal that, to put it in the words of He Shiyou EVP and head of mobile devices division, the main objective of the company is to “be a player in high-end devices and even become one of the top 3 players in the World by 2015”. As a matter of fact, Chinese manufacturers benefit from a very large domestic market and now it is time for them to deploy around the world. Once again quoting the ZTE exec, “IDC declared we sell 65 million devices per annum” he said, “we are the fourth device manufacturer in the world and 70% of ZTE’s revenue is made of mobile devices”; the company also expects to grow its revenue y 30% in 2013.

The now famous ZTE Grand Memo (photo ZTE)

What was new today is the Grand Memo smartphone “4S” (as in slim/screen/speed/safe), a super-sized 5.7 inch screen device packed with features (including full 1080p HD video recording), which also includes Dolby’s sound solution. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as “70% of smartphone users think that sound quality is essential in providing great experience for a phone” the Dolby representative said. The big phone also has designed a special interface so “that dialling is possible even with one hand despite large screen” therefore showing that “one of the key areas is the development of the user interface and easier navigation menus, which have been created and are unique to ZTE”. The launch will take place this year and should “provide the springboard for success” He added.

ZTE also announced a brand new entry-level smartphone based on the Mozilla Foundation’s brand new Firefox operating system, and the phone is named, very logically, “ZTE Open”. Even though there are still some grey areas such as pricing, availability, and – in the case of the ZTE open phone – specific number of applications running, one can sense that the mobile industry is just about to turn a new page. China is no longer the place for producing cheap phones which were originally designed overseas, it’s mostly becoming a centre for innovation and mobile phones are no exception.

Barcelona, World’s mobile capital city for 4 days – #mwc13

This post was written as part of a blogger trip I organised for the Live Orange Blog. Connect to the blog for the latest on that event!

On February 24^th, 2013, we paid a visit to the Grand Fira which is the brand new venue for the MWC conference in Barcelona. Everything here is brand new and even though they built dummy columns at the entrance to remind visitors of the old place it is certainly lacking the lustre of the old romantic buildings at the end of the old Fira convention centre, situated in Plaza de Espanya.

[Polishing the signs while speakers are polishing their pitches]

Nonetheless, the new venue is – as the name goes – even bigger, and we can expect a lot to happen by way of innovation on the stands. The promise is that a new horizon for telecommunications is ahead of us. One, mostly, where NFC will be playing a role since the three letter acronym is absolutely ubiquitous. The press is even asked to check in through NFC gates exclusively and I was quite disappointed that I hadn’t taken the time to renew my phone and buy a brand new Galaxy SIII for instance.

[nothing is shown at MWC on the eve of the event. All is quiet… not for long!]

Talking about Samsung, we were greeted by a small stand of theirs at the exit of the Fira metro station. This is probably a sign that they are going to show big things this year. On the other hand, so far, we haven’t seen any signs of Android being at the forefront, but it’s not clear as the venue is always decorated at the last minute to avoid leaks. Last year was definitely an Android year. Does it mean that Google – I heard that rumoured yesterday – would toy with the idea of renaming its mobile OS by using its main brand (as they did with Google Play which replaced the former Android Market)? Or does it mean that new big guys, like the Mozilla foundation for instance, are sticking their guns this year. A new OS in the mobile environment is a possibility. Time will tell, I am all set for the press conference on new mobile Operating systems as well as the much expected Zte announcement. Stay tuned to the live Orange blog!

#leweb12 – hoteltonight: “smartphones are where the market is going”

The Silicon entrepreneur explained that there are 2 main groups of hotel bookers. One is for people who have the time to book in advance, be it for business or leisure, whereas the other group is impulse bookers. These are the ones that Hoteltonight is catering for: “they are presented with last minute deals. Having an app in your pockets truly changes the way you think about hotels” Shank added.

[note: this is a guest post I did yesterday on behalf of the live.orange.com blog]

[Sam Shank, chain start-up entrepreneur and founder of Hoteltonight]

In the US there are a lot of chains but a lot less in the UK. “The ownership is very fragmented, and this is the bread and butter because people can choose and pick up new places that are nice” Shank said.

not just a High end service?

One could be tempted to think that this is a very exclusive service for the rich and wealthy, but Sam Shank disagrees strongly with that statement: “we want to be something for everyone. It goes from luxury hotels to more basic hotels and even business hotels” he said. The application delivers 3 deals from a selection of 20 hotels each night. Hotels are competing amongst themselves and “nothing can be predicted” Shank said. This emphasises the lastminute effect in so far as you can’t choose what hotel to stay in in advance.

the market?

Admittedly, there are “many vendors in the same space” and some are multi-million companies such as Expedia for instance. “The main way hoteltonight competes is from singular focus and mobile, content and merchandising, customer support and online marketing” Shank said. The start-up’s singular focus on mobile, and their advantage on competition is that they have no legacy systems. Most businessmen are using their smartphones on the move but “it is still a challenge when teaching people that they should use only mobiles” Shank added.

In essence, Hoteltonght is focussing only on last minute deals and mobiles are well suited for this. Besides, it’s a marketing channel for hotels because 90% of buyers have never stayed in the selected hotel before.

Shank’s third start-up

Hoteltonight is Sam’s third start-up: “all have been successful but I know that lack of focus is reason number one for failure” Sam Shank explained, and this is why they focus on smart phones, also because “this is where the market is going” he concluded.

mobility in retail industry: main security challenges and prospects

This is an original guest post by Roger Hockaday (picture below and bio at the end of this piece), Aruba Networks. Aruba’s Atmosphere Corporate blog is dedicated to mobile devices. Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise (disclosure: Aruba Networks is also a North American customer of my company, Orange)

Risk and Reward: Tablets and Smartphones in Secure Retail

The introduction of smartphones and tablets into the retail environment brings great rewards to the forward looking retailers. They present a disruptive technology and provide an opportunity to innovate both front-of-store and back-of-store operations, yet they also introduce new security risks if their adoption is not properly developed.

The iPad, Android tablets (large and small) and iPod Touches or smartphones are altering the retail experience around the world. Retailers are the midst of a point-of-sale (PoS) transformation from terminals to smartphones and tablets. In fact, many retailers have started embracing them as best practice and, according to a recent poll (Aruba Networks 2012 Retail Survey), 56% of retailers plan to use iPads for Point of Sale in the next two years.

[source: the Aruba networks 2012 retail survey full results at http://bit.ly/arubaretail]

Sales executives in car showrooms use tablets to engage better with prospective customers, remaining by the car to access colour charts, model specification and instantly check stock levels without having to return to their desk. One well known US department store identified the challenge of walk-away customers in the shoe department as sales associates went to bring stock to the customers. The retailer justified the costs associated with the use of tablets by sales assistants simply to prevent customer walk-away as the assistant could now check stock levels, order shoes to be brought onto the sales floor, or offer alternates should the first choice item be unavailable, all while remaining with the customer.

To enable the use of tablets and smartphones in retail it is of course necessary to deploy in-store wireless (more than 50% of retailers surveyed intend this) but this requires a significant overhaul of the legacy networks first put into stores just to facilitate back-office functions such as stock-checking.

The last few years have already seen wireless networks extend onto the sales floor to support Point-of-Sale (hence the need to meet Payment Card Industry standards to protect cardholder and authentication data), but it is a more challenging proposition to support tablets for sales assistants, and even more to offer hotspot services to shoppers (as planned by 37% of retailers by the end of 2014).

In-store wireless enables a new set of mobile applications to allow retailers to engage even further with customers; applications that can push information to customer smartphones and iPads as they walk in the door enabling them to download rich content when and where they want. Combined with store associates empowered to access stock data and process transactions with tablets, it all adds up to an outstanding customer experience.

The challenge is how to manage this expansion of devices, users and applications on the retail network.

Front-of-store wireless requires pervasive coverage (there’s no secret to making a wireless network that works; good coverage combined with proven RF management tools and a management platform that provides real time visibility into the coverage, device location and application performance). The ‘secret sauce’ for retailers is the choice of platform used to manage the discovery of devices on the network, the provisioning of large numbers of devices and users without overwhelming the IT department, the ability deliver guest access with advertising, and delivery of context-based / role based connectivity.

[souce: ibid.]

While the cardholder associations of PCI (PCI standing for Payment Card Industry, with companies such as AMEX, VISA and MasterCard) require different levels of compliance based on transaction volumes, the use of Wi-Fi in an organisation brings a layer of requirements that the retailer must comply with.

Role-based access (as required in PCI DSS) can be as simple as separating employees from customers (or guests). However, in order to provide a more flexible infrastructure it is more logical to create roles based not just on the person (employee, manager, customer), but also the device (iPad, smartphone, handheld scanner), the location (retail outlet, hotspot, corporate office), and application (PoS, database, Internet access). This more holistic approach – one that understands the context in which the network is being used will ultimately provide a more flexible and efficient wireless network than one that simply separates employees from customers.

Security, capacity and flexibility will become the watch-words of the next generation in-store networks. Security to comply with the needs of PCI DSS, capacity to meet the needs of employees and customers using tablets and smartphones, and flexibility to cope with the new applications and rapid changes needed to work in a competitive environment. Tomorrow’s retail network will be very different to yesterdays.

read more

• the Aruba Networks retail survey with full results at http://bit.ly/arubaretail
• using Wifi security on mobile phones and devices
• my report on Kaspersky’s statement about mobile crime at MWC
• Kate Bourdet’s own wrap up of mobile security at MWC
• an interview with Roger Hockaday at IP EXPO ONLINE

about the author

Roger Hockaday is Director of Marketing, Aruba Networks, EMEA. A former executive of Alcatel, Infoblox and Packeteer he is currently responsible for developing end user opportunities and channels to market in the secure government communications sector across EMEA for Aruba Networks.