Emerging Media

In a study published on Monday, Forrester noted that location-based social platforms are currently too small for major marketers to concern themselves with. The reasoning Forrester gives is that location-based start-ups are still too small for major marketers to take great advantage of.

I weighed in on the four reasons to consider Foursquare in your marketing plan in a post on Ad Age today. Regardless of its current scale, we’re including Foursquare and other location-based social networks in our client thinking today. There are a number of reasons for this, including the influencer potential of reaching early adopters. In addition, brands who approach new platforms and experiment early on will be ahead of the game when and if these platforms take off. The sooner you get involved, the faster your influential fan network can go to work on your behalf and the more you can ultimately reap from these bleeding-edge platforms.

For more on why we consider Foursquare a ripe opportunity for many brands, you can read the full article over on Advertising Age.

Do you wish there was another mobile application where you could check in at a location? There’s no shortage of options. Yet another contender just launched very publicly with a different approach, turning the whole act of checking in into a game.

Meet SCVNGR, which is as long on ambition as it is short on vowels. With its latest version having debuted last week for consumers, it’s making big announcements at Google I/O, the annual developer event. SCVNGR has been quietly growing over the past couple years, reporting that over 600 institutions in 44 states and 20 countries have worked with them so far. Today, it released the names of some of the larger brands that are starting to build on it: the Boston Celtics, Boston Globe, New England Patriots, Journeys, The New York Times, Universal Music Canada and Warner Bros. Its client base also includes hundreds of colleges and universities – notably Princeton University, where 21-year-old SCVNGR Chief Ninja founded the company in 2008.

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Stickybits provides a fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects.

Seth Goldstein, Chairman and founder of SocialMedia, and Billy Chasen, the original programmer of Chartbeat, launched Stickybits this past March at the annual SXSW festival. Their concept holds the rare honor of being completely awesome and simple, while at the same time enabling limitless possibilities, the majority of which have yet to be seen.

So, what exactly are Stickybits? According to Goldstein, they’re a ‘fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects’. Using the mobile application (currently available for the iPhone and Android), users scan standard barcodes, which are found on every consumer packaged good you can think of.

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Couponing Then & Now: Mobile technology is changing the way retailers connect with their customers.

The New York Times recently reported on innovations in web couponing technology.  Multichannel retailers can now deploy tools to identify the relationship between online research and offline sales.  And not just mass population, but individual user data.  New single-user web coupons can connect a user’s online behavior – such as keyword searches – with his/her offline purchases, in a way we could only dream about a few years ago.  The proposition of matching the right offer to individual propensity is intriguing for retailers in 2010. Hopefully this article will inspire you to consider the potential web couponing has for your business and how to get started.

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Since the iPad hit stores earlier this week, consumers and marketers alike have been feverishly diving into the far-reaching capabilities of Apple’s newest tech toy. Beyond its ability to blend (iPad-lovers watch at your own risk), the iPad seems primed to have huge effects on the publishing and mobile advertising industries — especially if it shifts the way consumers interact with media.

In addition to reading your favorite newspapers, magazines, blogs and e-books on the iPad, you can also read our Social Marketing Playbook, which has been downloaded more than 50K times to date. To get the Playbook, you’ll need to download new iPad-compatible Kindle app and create an account with Amazon if you haven’t already. Finally, search “360i Playbook” to locate our product within the Amazon Kindle store. Note: While we’d love to offer this for free, we were required to charge a a minimum fee of $1.

Stay tuned for more insights on the iPad – and social marketing strategy – right here at the 360i blog.

Ralph Lauren is one of many brands that have integrated QR codes into their marketing programs. Will the trend continue to surge?

The Japanese embraced them nearly fifteen years ago. They’ve been used by major film studios in America for numerous marketing campaigns. Ralph Lauren incorporated them nearly two years ago at their Rugby store near New York’s Union Square. So why aren’t QR codes being used everywhere, by everyone, all the time?

Let’s back up. In case you’re not familiar with the technology, QR codes, short for quick response, were created by a Japanese corporation, Denso-Wave, in 1994. The Wikipedia entry will give you the basics, but the real story is about to unfold, one mobile phone at a time.

The technology takes the basic bar code concept and literally adds an additional dimension. Instead of just grabbing a series of numbers to say, scan a can of corn, QR codes allow scanners to pick up additional types of information, such as a URL, text, phone number, or SMS. In the URL example, that link connects Smartphone (and some flip phone) users to a mobile site, where they can engage with a piece of content, such as a photo, video, or anything else you can think of.

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While at the Consumer Electronics Show, I moderated a panel at Digital Hollywood on “Mobile Commerce and Content: The Mobile Web, Texting, Search, and Advertising Options.” As you can see, the panel covered a lot of ground, and I can’t begin to capture it all. But I did take some notes and I’ll share those here.

I need to thank my panelists here for all their insight, and I wish I could have done the session more justice, but look out for any of them at other events as you’re guaranteed to learn a few things.

• Ali Rana, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Dynamic Logic
• Jamie Wells, Director, Global Trade Marketing, Microsoft Mobile Advertising
• Brian Johnson, Senior Vice President, Americas and Asia Pacific, mBlox
• Thomas Roberts, Chief Product Officer, Digital and Mobile Services, kgb
• Pooj Preena, CEO, Groupe Hi-Media USA;
• Greg Fawcett, co-founder, MobiAd Sales

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