As comment to the current update of the “Communication Global Scenario“, I wish to point out how content is over and over the real evolution point of mobile, but there’s no evident and current news that show the real engagement of big players into this market.

Let’s see the latest and less considered news:

• Fox Mobile Distribution Strikes Deal to Integrate Mobile Content on AOL’s Winamp (04/13/09)
• Nokia’s Latest Buy: Mobile Geotargeted Ad Firm (09/13/09)
• MySpace Breaks Into Mobile Ad Market (12/06/08)

Those three news show:

• content players (like Fox) are starting to test their assets on mobile-like platforms, but still without much commitment (Fox and AOL are part of News Corp group);
• mobile hardware payers (like Nokia) are evolving into service companies, which is not a trend but the mere possible way for them to keep their market share;
• distribution payers (like MySpace) are going mobile only because they lost the online advertising train.

My conclusion is that we won’t see a “mobile take-off” unless:

• the public revert from web to mobile at a more speed pace than expected (but that’s not the case in the main trending market – the US – due to too high consumer prices);
• the telecommunication crisis ends before expected (but it has to solve energy and business model’s problems), which could support reversion from land to mobile connection.

As these two conditions are far to become real, even the big players on the market are continuing to test, without any real shake to the current scenario.

I think that the current crisis should stop the “forcing to consume” attitude which naturally create more waste than richness. We have the opportunity to “falsely” embrace environmental issues while still forcing our public to buy.

Earlier this year the European Court of Justice ruled that member states cannot ban BOGOF promotions. That was said to Belgium, but later in the UK the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs began to put pressure on stores to target food waste: they ask supermarket heads to offer half-price discounts on perishable foods instead of BOGOF deals.

Now, in appearance there’s no difference between “Buy One Get One Free” and “Buy One Pay Half”. The money transit between shops and customers is the same.

On the other hand, the two options are very different.
Besides the fact that the customer perception of the first one is highly more positive, that one put the client into a buying loop that tends to provoke a double-buy (or the buy of larger-packages) for almost everything possible. Which means, obviously, more turnover for the shop.
So, it’s not so easy to force distribution channels avoid such promotions: you’re simply telling them to cut revenue.

But people are smarter, and even more now they have less value in their pockets.
So, why not:

• make the BOGOF mechanism work with multiple accounts (one consumer pays, another consumer gets the second item)?
• limit these type of promotions to “organic”, “natural”, “environmental friendly” products?
• enlarge the BOGOF to set of products (you buy a toothpaste and get either a tuna can or a pack of cereals or …)?

Marketing has to evolve, give solutions to social problems and embrace the new trends.

Smarter people need smarter shops, who need smarter companies.
I’m not talking about environment, that’s only an excuse.
I’m only trying to suggest an even better way to do business selling a lot of stuff to people.

“Embrace constraints”, “practice restraint”, “adopt the beginner’s mind”, “check your ego at the door”, “focus on the experience of the design”, “become a master storyteller”, “think communication not decoration”, “obsess about ideas not tools”, “clarify your intention”, “sharpen your vision & curiosity and learn from the lessons around you” and, finally, “learn all the rules and know when and why to break them”: those should all be part of our mindset when working in the actual business world.

Reading the “10 Tips on how to think like a designer” reminded me the times when I contributed to the design of many products and to their winning Design Awards all around Europe.
My approach was always on the maximum respect to design experience (it’s a mindset, developed through application on diversified markets and products) and my expertise was mainly in my ability to storytelling and communication.

But the start was always in

• clarifying the overall intention, which was mainly the service we wished to supply to people, being it a brand new one or a evolved one from a traditional approach;
• be very serious on finding ideas beneath tools, becoming a creator and not a technician;
• and curiously searching the market for any inspiration, which could be trans-functional or trans-national, always looking at things with the simple sight of a child, leaving aside the formal aspects and concentrating on substance.

Note: taking into account that I’m more a marketer than a designer, my most important function in the designing group was to keep it strictly connected with the market’s reality, avoiding that creativity could start prevailing by itself, ending the process in a concept product / service with very much immediate ROI.

But the most difficult part of the job was to “embrace constraints”, “practice restraint”.
Being the first phase a mixture between research and brainstorming, the difficulty were in keeping the creation of the idea within limits of the ambient where it was conceived. Creativity is richness, finding an idea is always powerful, but those two media frequently are “against” reality, which needs them but within the limits of economics.
Once a very good friend of mine told me that “an idea is not such if it’s not transformed into something real”.
A clear imagine of what the market asks for, of what we’re able to do, of the time involved into the process, of the involved resources is the basis of any designing process and the greatest enemy to creativity, at least of free creativity. But we live in a well constituted world, where rules are set and cannot be changed either without a great investment (in money or time) or with a very good idea.
So, reality is sometimes a limit but sometimes it’s a boundary that creativity is able to surpass.

When the latest case occurs, then “breaking the rules” is really fun.

A few good friends know that I’ve been on a new revenue models in advertising for at least five years, didn’t find it yet, but sure that it’s over the current “Free, Free+ADs or Fee” models because we’re in the Web 2 context and the value of revenue should be set by the public.A very general reading of latest “Strategies to Fight Ad-sponsored Rivals” by a couple of Harvard Business School’s authors shows a scenario which is not the right one: one model is fighting another.We have to understand that any current model will necessary evolve and only the winning evolution will prevail.IMHO the way to discover which one will be the “winner” starts focusing on the basics. We are now in an era where:

• our public increases in quantity (and it’s not only duplication, as the overall population increased and new areas started to be exposed to communication media);
• those individuals are no more mere passive actors but active ones and the trend (with technology lowering the financial access point to media) is an exponential increase of the the Web 2 attitude.

So the first conclusion could be: the value of our communication is not the number of eyes who see our ad but the number of people that interact with it.The second issue which should be taken into consideration is the ability of measuring any digital activity, made by communicating and made by interacting.I don’t want a “Orwell’s 1984″ world, but I accept that our current technological situation enables us such control.So we can be sure we have the means to determine the “new” value of communication (if we want to).The third issue is the benefits that our public gets from our action.We could measure it summing the value of purchased goods or (and that’s possible: it’s called knowledge evaluation) of acquired knowledge.In the first case we can collect data from a company, in the second case the knowledge value will generate further communication, which will be measured, which will create benefits, which will be measured, which …It’s not a virtuous circle, I think it’s a different way to see the process and, mostly, a more “natural” one, as it consider the way things go in the current system and simply apply a measurement system to them.

Besides the fact that we have to wait some more time before this type of communication will become mass-oriented, there’s no question: we’re progressively becoming the mobile device we carry, which will identify us, will let us pay products and service and will provide us with the majority of all commercial communications.I read “How Twitter Could Make Money” by Joe Marchese and thought he’s telling a normal, obvious, current reaction to proximity advertising.It’s normal, because it’s normal to refuse new things one doesn’t know (I’m speaking in general).It’s obvious, because that’s not the way to proximity communicating (that’s more similar to broadcast at a much more limited level).It’s current, because proximity advertising is still at a test stage and we need to brainstorm on it.But there’s an absolute issue we can not and must not dismiss: “we are our communication device”, every days more and more.And our personal communication device is our cellular phone.And, on and with our cellular phone, “they” are starting to give us applications (activities one can do) and functions (enlargement of its original use).And every time we use our cellular phone “someone” is recording our activity, now for billing porpoises but in the future …And all that information is building up such a precise profile of ourselves that is much more valuable than any highly-profiled DM record.And any advertizer would love getting all that information to target her/his communication to you.But how that impacts proximity advertising and when it will?I’ve been following the mobile market for years and actually working in it since one year and a half and I can say: the technological system was ready at the start of the millennium and we don’t see it operating only because “someone” is still doing enough money with the “old system”. When we changed into GSM, the system started to be able to record any user’s activity. When we adopted the second generation SIM card, we could record on it any information (even the billing information) and the system transformed itself into a “financial” network (that was in May 2000).All those personal information will bust proximity advertising.To make an example, imagine you’re in your car, at noon, packed in the jam, a few cars from the next traffic light (which is currently “red”). There’s a restaurant on the corner, that is promoting its $5 meal to passers-by. The restaurant system searches prospects and creates a connection with your phone. Starting its digital dialog, it discovers:

• in reference to your GPS position, you’ll be in the queue for sufficient time to read an advertising and act consequently;
• in reference on the time of your first call / first access to the phone in the morning, you had your breakfast early and you should be starving;
• in reference to your phone activity, you hadn’t bought anything to eat, so it’s confirmed your starving;
• in reference to your phone agenda, you have time for a quick stop;
• in reference to your buying habits, you should like one of the menus in promotion.

Now, tell me: that’s much better than a sandwich man, isn’t it?

The goal is to turn Illy Issimo into the global leader for premium ready-to-drink coffees, said Vinay Kapoor, CEO of Ilko Coffee International, the Milan, Italy-based joint venture created by Coke and Illy.

L’obiettivo è di far diventare Illy Issimo leader tra i caffé pronti, questo è ciò che ha detto Vinay Kapoor, CEO di Ilko Coffe International, la società partecipata da Coca Cola e Illy con sede a Milano.

This is how brands should build loyalty. This is how flying should be.

Ecco come stimolare la fiselizzazione, ecco come dovrebbe essere volare.

This is the miracle of social networking: if something is done with love, marketing could suggest but people will move the news and business. See it all at http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/BlogDetail.aspx?BlogID=476.

Questo è il miracolo del social networking: se qualcosa è fatto con amore, il marketing può suggerire ma saranno le persone che faranno notizia e fatturato. Il tutto a http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/BlogDetail.aspx?BlogID=476.

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2009/03/consumers-in-a-downturn-a-new-consumer-habit.html

Here you find a very clear scenario, worth considering / È uno scenario molto chiaro, da leggere.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/PDFDownload.aspx?L2=16&L3=20&ar=2313&srid=526&gp=1It seems there’s still a lot of work to be done / Pare che ci sia ancora molto lavoro da fare.