Mobile shopping—and in particular mobile product discovery—is at the forefront of ecommerce sales through 2024, despite the fact that research suggests unsatisfactory shopping experiences on mobile devices are causing nearly one third of American adults to opt out of purchases. An article in Multichannel Merchant reviews key steps to improve mobile product discovery along the customer journey, from strategically differentiating omnichannel experiences to creating a hyper-personalized mobile experience.

Photo credit: camilo jimenez on Unsplash 

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Think Outside the App

Mobile apps are undoubtedly a key way to engage shoppers, but simply releasing an app won’t cut it. Consumers expect an omnichannel experience that produces a seamless shopping journey. Marketers should include promotion across all channels, including social, store signage, receipts, weekly promotions and others.

Beyond Physical Displays

In-store promotion using physical displays, through shelf positioning and compelling visual signage, remains a key tactic for retail marketers. Go a step further by incorporating mobile devices so that shoppers can use them to navigate the store aisles. Having access to shopping lists and data on purchasing decisions, for instance, can help marketers target consumers right on the mobile devices.

For more tips on mobile marketing strategies, including promoting private label products and prioritizing the user experience, read on in Multichannel Merchant.

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A new contest asks entrants to submit clips of their best gameplay on social. The live-action clips should highlight creativity, personality and skillset and be accompanied with a caption about why they’re passionate about gaming. The clips are uploaded post to either Twitter or Instagram using #AXEGaming and #Contest.

The theme of the contest follows AXE’s “Find Your Magic” initiative that the brand says works to help teens “find the magic within their passions.”

“AXE is giving guys the tools and platforms they need to stay chill, showing them that they can be their most attractive selves while pursuing what they love,” AXE said.

After the contest ends May 23, and a winner has been named, Cizzorz will host the that person on his stream, introducing the winner to his viewers.

“I hope that the work I’m doing with AXE will encourage guys to be proud of what makes them unique and help them find some of their own magic so they can feel the same way both on and offline,” Cizzorz says.

• Join us for the Esports Business Summit
  September 10-12, MGM Grand, Las Vegas

The winner will also join Cizzorz and AXE at online video conference VidCon to be held July 10-13 in Anaheim, CA, for a joint live stream. The Find Your Magic Tour, now underway, supports the contest as the AXEMobile is traveling around the country making stops at major events like SXSW Gaming, as well as local stops including high schools to offer free samples of AXE’s new Ice Chill products, free haircuts and styling tips.

AXE is promoting all of the events tied to Find Your Magic via @AXE on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Last month, the brand introduced a new word—Bathsculinity—defining it as: “Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of young men who take pride in their appearance and feel confident in expressing their most attractive selves, inside and outside of the bathroom.”

To get that new word out into its targets worlds, AXE released a series of YouTube videos featuring actor and comedian Lil Rel Howery of Get Out, Birdbox & Uncle Drew. Take a look at one of them:

Find Your Magic and Bathsculinity are extensions of the ongoing work AXE has done over the past few years pushing the message that “there’s no one way to be a man.” Research AXE was involved in found that stereotypes, like men should never cry, have negative effects on teens.

Another program by AXE, the AXE Senior Orientation program, goes into schools to work with teens to help break outdated stereotypes of what being a man really means. This year, the program has evolved into an in-school curriculum, developed in partnership with education specialists, Cairn Guidance, that will address gender roles, sexuality, self-expression, and other related topics, in middle school health classes this fall.

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The post AXE and Cizzorz Ask Video Gamers to Bring it On! appeared first on Chief Marketer.

The Freakshow Maskerade app features six face-changing characters, with three additional characters ready to be unlocked by scanning Freakshow wine bottles at retail.

Users who share their “freak’n faces” on Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #freakshowwine are automatically entered to win a weekly Freak-of-the-Week swag pack. In addition, one winner will have their real face added to the menagerie of freaks on the Cabernet Sauvignon label.

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“While Augmented Reality has made its place in the wine industry, we really wanted to use this technology to give consumers a fun, interactive experience that connects them to the brand and wine they’re drinking,” Melissa Phillips Stroud, vp sales and marketing for the winery says. “What better way to do that than making them part of the label?”

The winery also markets the Petite Petit and Earthquake wines, and the latest to the Freakshow lineup, Freakshow Zin.

The post It’s a Freakshow All Right appeared first on Chief Marketer.

To make a splash around the rollout, a partnership with payment app Venmo offers a giveaway through March 15 for those who use its payment app and give Chipotle their phone number. Winners will get anywhere from $1 to $500 deposited directly into their Venmo accounts, with the brand giving away $250,000 by the time the promotion ends. Bonuses will be include perks like “extra points days,” free chips and guac after the first purchase as a member and surprise birthday rewards.

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This is the latest iteration of Chipolte’s reward program strategy. In summer 2016, it spent millions launching its first reward program, Chiptopia, that made the likes of programs from Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts look rather stingy. That three-month test let members earn rewards based on visit frequency versus the standard points based on dollars spent systems. Customers earned free meals after their fourth, eighth, and 11th visits each month. Members signed on fast and by September 3.1 million had registered.

But Chiptopia wasn’t sustainable and the promotion ended with Chipolte promising a new loyalty program. Last fall, it began piloting Chipolte Rewards in three test markets—Phoenix, Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas) and Columbus, OH.

Digital is growing quickly for the brand, up 66 percent in Q4 and accounting for nearly 13 percent of sales. CEO Brian Niccol told CNBC the program has a  “multiplier effect” on the chain’s business—”what we’ve seen is people get more engaged and more committed in our digital system with the loyalty program.” The company is also upping its digital game by installing pickup shelves and drive-thrus for digital orders.

The post New Chipolte Rewards Program Debuts with $250,000 Giveaway appeared first on Chief Marketer.

For brands to maximize the return on investment for their collateral, they must bear in mind the specific challenges of mobile devices. By following a few simple guidelines, advertisers can dramatically improve the mobile experience as well as their odds of building a long-term relationship with the end user. 

1. Think vertical 

To establish trust between brands and end users, advertisers must make the  experience as user-friendly as possible. A key part of this process is to ensure that content is designed for the device on which it will be viewed. Video content designed for a mobile screen must be optimized for a smaller, vertical screen. Too often, brands take the shortcut of converting a television commercial (originally designed for a large, horizontal screen) for mobile use. In fact, a recent Sublime review of more than 80 global mobile ad unit campaigns indicates that 83% of assets are designed for a horizontal environment.

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Instead, by dedicating the resources necessary to create collateral for a vertical viewing environment, brands can make tremendous strides towards increasing engagement and building a positive relationship with end users.

2. Embrace interactivity

Mobile devices offer inherent advantages in functionality that cannot be matched by other forms of advertising, and brands would be crazy not to make use of these tools. From videos to augmented reality to store locators to slideshows, brands have the potential to design a truly immersive brand experience for the end user. Indeed, the expanded toolbox  even enables brands to allow end users to tailor their own interaction with the brand.

One particularly promising asset for increased engagement is 360° product viewers. These interactive visualizations provide a new avenue for users to learn about a brand and its products; compelling 360° content could be the key to increasing the amount of time users spend interacting with your brand. Interactivity means high impact and higher impact means improved ROI.

3. Short and sweet

While overall mobile use is on the rise, that doesn’t mean that the mobile user’s attention span is also increasing. According to Sublime’s review of global mobile advertising campaigns, KPIs improve by 10% when a mobile video is 10 seconds or less. However, 27% of video assets are more than three times that amount, 30 seconds or longer.

To ensure an impactful message and a happy end user, brands must create video content optimized for the viewing experience. That means distilling a message to be as short and compelling as possible – anything longer than 10 seconds risks turning off viewers. How can brands ensure that they make an impact given the extreme constraints of a 10-second video? One key strategy is to ensure that every video begins with the brand’s logo or name, guaranteeing a connection between the brand and the end user.

Mobile devices are ubiquitous in our everyday lives: the first thing we reach for when we wake up, and the last thing we see before we fall asleep. While this unprecedented level of engagement has served as a call to arms for brands and advertisers, the battle for user attention and loyalty will be won by those who work smarter and keep these tips in mind.

Jerem Febvre is co-founder and president, Americas at Sublime.

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The 12-episode, mobile- and social-first video series called “Changemakers,” is in partnership with full service agency Giant Spoon and has begun appearing on Forbes.com, a site which has the highest Millennial audience of any major media brand in its category, Forbes said. Each episode is thought-provoking or inspirational or entertaining and pulls the viewer in with purposeful content.

The campaign consists of two major components: short-form videos tied to a multi-format campaign that consists of 45 pieces of branded content. The content will live on Forbes.com and offer Millennial business professionals style advice, practical life hacks and tips for achieving their personal and professional goals, Forbes said.

Long-form videos will being rolling soon featuring experts that will provide inspirational narratives across food, travel and wellness. Influencers like Randy Hetrick of TRX, travel photographer Tiffany Nguyen, spearfisher Valentine Thomas, and Chris Strang, Co-Founder, and CEO of The Infatuation, will act as some of the hosts for the videos.

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“This initiative represents a strategic shift for the Cole Haan brand as it works to establish itself as a true thought leader for its core audience and position itself for new customers who are future changemakers,” said David Maddocks, CMO of Cole Haan. “And this takes Cole Haan to a new level as a curator of content for the millennial who wants to excel in all facets of his or her life.”

The campaign will continue to roll out through May 2019.

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For instance, the popularity of shopping on smartphones affecting the purchasing funnel from ad to cart, and the rise of digital assistants that have made voice search SEO a new part of digital strategies. Along similar lines, smartphones are also giving rise to voice search. The point is that digital marketing trends are constantly coming and going.

To illustrate, the following are some of the top up-and-coming 2019 digital marketing trends, and how these trends will affect marketer’s strategies through the coming year.

1. Actual Intelligence with AI
Salesforce recently reported that artificial intelligence use among marketers will grow more than 50 percent in the next two years for the purpose of better ad targeting.

In 2019, we’ll also start to see AI used to optimize ad creative images. AI will eventually be used to not only understand contextual data, but also images. Further, AI for “intent advertising” will emerge, and platforms will be able to recognize what the shopper is trying to achieve and cater the creative messaging and imagery to the user’s experience.

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Digital All-Stars

In this special report, we profile six brands and the CMOs who tapped into the digital and social sphere to create visual spectacles, change conversations, recharge aging brands and engage millions of new customers.

2. Influencer Marketing Goes Mainstream
This year, brands will allocate more budget than ever to influencer marketing because campaign results have been exceedingly effective for advertisers this past year. Influencer marketing is fast-becoming a more time- and cost-effective way to reach new potential customers.

Additionally, influencer marketing has reached a new niche with gamers: E-sports got a major uplift in 2018 and the live-streaming video platform Twitch became a greater focus of attention in the influencer marketing sphere. Marketers will finally tap into the full potential of Twitch’s reach in 2019.

3. Video Ads Will Grow
As consumers spend more time on their smartphones watching videos, advertisers are expected to spend $20 billion on mobile video in 2019 (up from $2 billion in 2015), and video is expected to account for 85 percent of total Internet traffic by 2019 (both live video and video ads).

This past year, 65 percent of ad impressions on Instagram were the result of video content, and this is expected to grow even further. With this type of growth and consumption of video ads by consumers, video ads should be part of every marketer’s strategy in 2019. Marketers can accelerate their video ad content by running video ads on YouTube and Instagram, as well as by creating video content in-house or working with third-party creative agencies.

4. Voice Activated Search Matures
By 2020, it’s expected that 50 percent of all searches will be voice searches, and by 2022, voice commerce sales will reach $40 billion. Next year, consumers will be able to do more in search with their voice, and mobile marketers should be prepared for voice activated search advertising. User interface platforms will become the new battleground for marketers (Alexa v Google Home, Siri, Bigsby).

As search engines grow more and more sensitive to user intent, it becomes increasingly vital that advertisers tag every image, video and piece of content appropriately with meta descriptions and alt-text. Search engines use these bits of information to promptly categorize and serve up content to users. Without them, marketers will lose traffic—more so in 2019.

5. Messenger Ads and In-App Ads are on the Rise
According to Statista, 2.01 billion mobile phone users accessed over-the-top messaging apps to communicate in 2018, a number that is projected to grow to 2.48 billion users by 2021.

The top APAC chat apps are already ahead of western developers in using messenger ads to reach audiences. In South Korea, a country of 50 million, KakaoTalk counts 32 million local users who spend an average of 850 minutes on KakaoTalk per month. In August 2018, Whatsapp Messenger was the most downloaded app for Android users globally and is being used by 450 million people daily on both iOS and Android. Whatsapp is followed by Facebook Messenger; which now engages 1.3 billion people globally and is the leading app in the U.S. with 126.3 million users.

Additionally, a new report by AppAnnie predicts that in 2019 the number of apps using in-app advertising will grow by 60 percent as advertisers increase conversion rates with these captive users.

This year will be the year for advertisers to start experimenting in using messenger apps to target and engage with this massive audience as well as increase in-app advertising spending.

6. Finding New Ways to Fight Ad Fraud and Ensure Brand Safety
RetailDive reports that fraud rates have almost doubled since 2017, and Juniper Research estimates that ad fraud will cost advertisers $19 billion in 2018. Next year will further challenge brands and platforms to stay on top of emerging fraud trends from click flooding and click injection to SDK spoofing.

Technologies that were exploratory in 2018 will take centerstage in 2019, including blockchain, which is helping to create a new model that uses a cryptography-encrypted pipeline to ensure that target audiences actually get the ads that are delivered. Blockchain is expected to address transparency, reduce fraudulent attacks and address flaws in the OpenRTB system.

Development of more advanced AI- and machine learning-based ad fraud detection systems is expected in 2019 as well.

Brand safety is becoming a key concern, and there is a rising need for advertisers to get better information regarding the quality of the inventory. At the same time, there is an increase in recognizing this safety issue as the publisher’s responsibility. More focus on technology solutions to identify fraudulent patterns will be key in 2019.

7. Macro Trends: APAC App Ecosystem Expands into Europe and U.S.
In the global mobile ecosystem, Chinese and other APAC-based apps from chat to mCommerce began to soar through the ranks of the U.S. and EU app stores in 2018. Discounts, seamless payments and customer service were driving factors in APAC apps gaining traction in global markets.

Traction will continue to grow, and with it, new concepts being introduced by APAC to western markets like social commerce are expected to rise with social media and campaigns in 2019.

8. Parallel Bidding is the Next Big Thing for In-App Advertising
The days of monetizing apps through advertising in a waterfall system is over. This year, apps will instead sell their ad inventory through header bidding, or parallel bidding. Unlike the waterfall where requests are sent consecutively to ad demand sources, one by one, parallel bidding sends the ad requests to the ad demand sources simultaneously, and an OpenRTB auction then takes place on the ad mediator’s server side. This enables ad networks to not only choose to fill or not fill a certain price floor, but also to report the estimated value of the impression.

This new model creates a fair and competitive environment where ad networks can be more aggressive in winning an impression, but without overbidding, hence it will be the method of choice for in-app advertisers in 2019.
Sven Lubek is managing director at WeQ. He can be reached at sven.lubek@weq.com.  

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Just arriving on campus is a robotic, snack-wielding, six wheeled, self-driving bot that is well-stocked with snacks and beverages and standing at the ready to deliver orders from any of the 5,000 students.

Called snackbot, the robot is designed for the outdoors, using a camera and headlights to make its way through darkness and rain. All-wheel drive capabilities handle curbs and steep hills as it delivers snacks from Hello Goodness, a curated portfolio of better-for-you brands from PepsiCo, to designated locations around campus.

Students can order food and drinks from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. via the snackbot App to be delivered to more than 50 designated areas across the 175-acre campus. The bright green and white bots are stocked with a variety of items, including Smartfood Delight, Baked Lay’s, SunChips, Pure Leaf Tea, bubly, LIFEWTR and Starbucks Cold Brew and have a range of more than 20 miles on a single charge. The ordering app is available for iOS and to those with a University of the Pacific email address.

Snackbots were developed in partnership with Robby Technologies and are the first robots from a major food and beverage company in the U.S. to roll out, PepsiCo said.

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“We’re thrilled to launch our Hello Goodness autonomous delivery snackbots and reimagine college snacking for the future,” said Scott Finlow, vp innovation and insights, PepsiCo Foodservice. “PepsiCo has a unique opportunity to better serve today’s ambitious college students, by joining together the power of the Hello Goodness portfolio with our expertise in design and equipment innovation.”

Building on the initial successes of its Hello Goodness vending platform, PepsiCo has expanded the idea of curated convenience into new formats, locations and experiences to deliver 50,000 touchpoints by the end of the year. Snackbot is part of this effort.

The post Self-driving PepsiCo Snackbots Invade California Campus appeared first on Chief Marketer.

The campaign kicks off during one of the biggest events of the year, the 2019 Super Bowl on Feb. 3, with messaging to promote some of the Bumble app’s newish features like Bumble BFF, which moves the app from just looking for dates to seeking out platonic friends and Bumble Bizz, a networking platform for women.

In the campaign,”The Ball is in Her Court,” Williams encourages women to make the first move in all aspects of their lives, Aol.com reported.

“Society has taught us as women to kind of sit back and not necessarily be the first one to speak up. We want to take that and flip the story,” Williams told Aol.

After launching in 2014, Bumble now reports more than 47 million app users across the globe, competing with other dating services like Match Group Inc’s Tinder and a new Facebook dating option.

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Williams participated with the all-female team in crafting the campaign and is also an advisor to Bumble. It is not clear if “The Ball is in Her Court” campaign will be in the form of a Super Bowl ad or some other tie to the game. Some of the brands that will air ads during the game include Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, M&Ms, Colgate and Pringles.

Williams and Bumble CEO and Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd appear in a 30-second video explaining the campaign and its message and promoting the campaign hashtag #InHerCourt.

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