Mobile Fix: The post-mobile world

This week, Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive!, looks at how smart brands need to operate in a ‘post mobile world’, and why Google and eBay having their own ‘brand cathedrals’ is starting to make sense.

An interesting deck from Flurry reminds us we are now in a Post Mobile World. Using a collection of industry stats, they make the point we made last week; the disruption has now happened and we now need to work out how we prosper in this new ecology.

Our strategy work increasingly goes beyond purely mobile. Social, content, desktop and the physical world all now need to be considered. Smart brands know that getting this blend right gives them competitive advantage over those rivals who have yet to take digital really seriously.

PoMo Retail

As predicted a while back Google is the latest tech brand to roll out brand cathedrals – real world retail spaces where people go to worship the brand, and maybe buy something too.

Whilst not on the scale of the fabled ships, these stores are an early indicator; we are convinced that the success of Apple at retail means the other GAFA players recognise the need to be present in the physical world.

As Amazon explore opportunities such as taking over the London Underground ticket offices as distribution points, and same day delivery becomes key for them, Google and eBay having their own brand cathedrals starts to make sense.

Already Google is evolving its business to embrace digital and physical -its product listing ads used to be all about e-commerce but with mobile search they now guide shoppers into local stores too. And whilst initiatives like Blue Dot – where store real time stock levels are shown in search results – seem to have gone quiet, we should expect even more blending.

Looking ahead to Christmas, this blending is key;

The transition between e-commerce and fulfillment is becoming more seamless, and shipping is becoming part of the commerce experience, says Steve Yankovich, VP of Innovation at eBay.

One great example is the deal Amazon has struck with the US Postal Service to start making deliveries on Sundays – but only for parcels. We shared the rumour that Amazon were considering a bid for the UKs Royal Mail (before the privatisation) and this deal shows the audacity that would have allowed such a move.

Just as the established digital players look at this blend, emerging digital players are experimenting too. Line – which now has over 300 million users – is launching a store in Indonesia.

Real world retailers are equally keen to blend the digital world with the physical – as the CEO of Target says, we want to be where the consumer is – with lots of focus on Pinterest in particular. IBM data shows that shoppers referred via Pinterest were spending $123 on average – over double that of shoppers referred via Facebook.

Social and mobile have a key role to drive consumers to the store and have another key role when shoppers are instore. Getting the balance right – and real synergy between the two – is the key challenge.

Collaborative Consumption

This balance is also an issue for the new collaborative consumption startups like AirBnB. The digital business model means acquiring rooms and customers is (relatively) easy and cheap. But the complexity of dealing with your customer’s issues can be a challenge and the FT considers whether this will constrain growth;

An important question for companies such as Mr Chesky’s will be whether they can evolve into true service businesses capable of dealing with issues like these, without at the same time adding a layer of cost that undermines the attractions of their business model.

Supermodel Lily Cole has now launched Impossible, her Collaborative Consumption platform that enables people to fulfill other people’s wishes. It has met some skepticism and the fact they received £200k from the Cabinet office has surprised some.

Our SkratchMyBack social project – which is in the same sort of space as Impossible – is showing promise in beta. Launched without any Government funding, the beta is focused on Manchester and we have started to get charities on board, as well as growing the users.

We are now looking for collaborators, partners and seed investors as we look to take it to the next level. If you know anyone who may be interested in getting involved , please point them in our direction. And any feedback or thoughts on the concept, and the execution to date, are welcome too.

PoMo Business Models

VC Fred Destin has added his voice to the debate over Snapchat and reinforces the point that scale trumps revenue – at least in the early years.

If you’re running a business that is predicated on tiny revenues per user (such as an advertising based revenue), it’s common sense to realize that you need scale. Humongous scale. It’s often entirely rational to shun revenues until you have achieved that scale.

Why are retailers only now taking Pinterest and such seriously? Because there is now enough scale to drive meaningful revenue. No matter how good the idea, without scale few brands are willing to invest the time and effort into understanding how they could use new platforms. Let alone invest money.

We have covered before that Line and others are starting to combine scale with revenue – selling stickers and now we see that WeChat sold 150k Xiaomi smartphones – in just 10 minutes.

The next challenge for these emerging players is supporting the scale with the tools for brands to advertise and that is both a challenge and an opportunity for AdTech. But the brands will arrive – we already have a couple of people starting to take these new players seriously.

While it’s fair to say that many mobile messaging apps will be challenged to attract significant advertising spend with their current products, the opportunity is there.

Obviously there are questions about the audience demographic, the interactions, the content and quality of content shared on the platforms, and the brand names of the platforms themselves, but the same doubts existed when social networks first emerged.

In the end, user attention has pulled brands into testing and using new platforms to tap into new customer behavior.

What’s next?

Just as the Christmas lights seem to get earlier every year, so too do the various predictions for the next year.

Someone has done a quick summary of the Wired Need to Know trends, but the full guide is probably worth reading. Forrester have shared their predictions too – the first of which says;

Physical and digital worlds are converging. As a result consumers expect uniform service whether they are in the physical world or if they are in the digital world. The convergence of the business and personal use of technology is also fueling this trend.

All good stuff, but nothing too surprising for regular Fix readers.

This is an edited and abridged version of Mobile Fix – click here to read the full article on Addictive!’s website