“The economic factor is there, definitely,” said Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, as quoted in Reuters. “If you look at smartphones’ performance in some southern European countries, it is flat or declining… Last quarter we warned of a slowdown in smartphone sales in Western Europe,” she said.

Globally smartphone sales have grown 42 percent in Q3 from a year ago, but went down from a 74 percent rise in the previous quarter. Inventory of unsold phones has grown by about 20 million phones this quarter in anticipation of the holiday season.

ADOTAS

Now, what if more than 50 million people in North America now have an app on their smartphone that can read a standard QR Code, and comScore found that 14 million Americans scanned in June alone? Sounds great, right? Now, you can go QR crazy and throw a code onto anything. People will go right to your home page and they will get all of the information they could ever want!

Not so fast.

In their simplest form, codes are a quick way to get to your website, but there is a much bigger opportunity to be realized. Deploying QR codes should come from a strategic idea that solves a need for your users. To demonstrate the effectiveness of deploying a strategic QR Code campaign, let’s look at some recent campaigns from Taco Bell, Tesco and Ford.

When Taco Bell sponsored MTV’s Video Music Awards they wanted to deliver exclusive MTV content to its customers in a way that would engage them with the actual product. ScanLife-powered QR Codes were placed on items like cups and boxes that would immediately link to mobile-formatted content.

What made this campaign unique was that the content was refreshed every week, so each time a code was scanned customers would see something different. This led to over 400,000 scans in just six weeks, which was a direct result of strategically combining code context and content.

Speaking of context, the next example is a gold standard. Tesco, a global grocery retailer, developed a program in Korea that combined the best of brick & mortar and e-commerce into a single shopping experience. It papered an entire commuter train station with what looked like real store aisles – milk, eggs, and other staples, but they needed one more ingredient to make this static installation come to life – QR codes.

Image courtesy of 2d-code

The program allowed customers to simply scan the codes to add an item to their shopping cart, buy, and ship the order to their home. Tesco could even make suggestions based on scanning behavior for other items that may not have been visible in the station. This was an amazing example of how codes can turn anything into a virtual store with ink, paper, and a great idea.

Finally, many people think that QR codes need to always link to the same content because the data is “hard wired” into the code. While this is true at a basic level, there is much more you can do to make your code smarter.

Ford ran a campaign that asked people at an event to “collect” or scan five unique codes that were distributed on Twitter and event signage. Once the same user scanned the entire group, he/she was automatically entered into a Ford Focus sweepstakes. All consumers had to do was enter an email once, and the real-time metadata did the rest. It’s important to understand that each code is unique, each user is unique, and – once you combine the two – you can have a really engaging experience that is relevant and exciting.

The world of QR Codes is upon us. Codes are being published in droves, and people are now ready to scan. But don’t disappoint them! They are taking the time to engage with your brand, so take advantage and give them an experience that will make your QR Code proud.

But it also documents an interesting trend that I’ve been talking to with a lot of folks lately — more than 25% of mobile web users in emerging markets connect to the Internet solely through mobile devices. That’s the case for 70% of mobile web users in Egypt, 59% in India and 50% in Nigeria — and only 25% of U.S. and 22% of U.K. mobile web users.

It would seem that tablet devices fall under the realm of mobile, but I’m not sure where WebHostingBuzz files netbooks, which are far more popular in the developing world than desktops and laptops due to their low, low pricepoints. Still, file this data under evidence that newcomers to the Internet in emerging markets will likely skip desktops and laptops and only use mobile devices for getting online.

But the U.S. figure is a big deal too, corroborating signs that the tablet market is cutting into laptop and desktop sales. With the proliferation of tablet devices that are more intuitive to use and much cheaper than PCs ($99 HP Touchpad anyone?), that 25% of mobile-only Internet users is going to keep getting bigger. Advertisers, make sure your ads are optimized.

The medium will gain momentum with the debut Apple’s iOS5, because the system’s new notification center makes push messaging more consumer friendly on iOS devices. Next, I think the real value of push notifications will become glaringly apparent as marketers realize its ability to get customers actively engaged with mobile content and applications.

This is also an enormous, and welcomed, shift for developers. It gives them another mechanism and medium for driving customers to interact with their brand while creating additional touchpoints, or engagement, with those customers. This is the new holy grail for mobile.

A Growing Push for Push Marketing

The expanding market for push notifications is timely and reflects its increasing relevance to mobile marketing. The industry has learned that obsession with driving downloads is ineffective as a long-term strategy: Despite the money invested in developing mobile applications, only about 5% of mobile apps are used 30 days after they’re downloaded by customers.

Focusing on downloads is also becoming passé: It’s akin to the first waves of web marketing, when driving page views was the goal. In today’s mobile environment, marketers want people actively engaging, better yet, spending money while they’re at it. And do this on a continued basis, which is what success is all about.

Push notifications serve these marketing objectives because they can reach mobile customers, stimulate interactions with them, even if they are not using the app or their device at the time. Customers are responding. For example, according to a recent study by comScore, 14% of consumers representing Groupon and LivingSocial users said they engage with the app after receiving an offer sent via push notification to their phones. This is not surprising and the engagement rates are certain to grow as push matures and the market and marketers become more familiar with it.

Push works because it takes advantage of mobile as an intent-driven platform. It focuses on the customer’s reasons and motivations for using a device, such as shopping, following sports scores, or playing a game, and it creates conversations with the users around those activities. But it’s also about real-time social sharing of content, like music, pictures, and video.

In addition, when you consider that most devices now are location aware, messages in real time become even more compelling. Finally, apps can be designed to include rich media such as video, audio, maps or actionable content like coupons or voter polls to a message, which enriches the entire experience and strengthens the overall appeal.

Marketers like push notifications because they generate a wealth of metrics that can be used to analyze the success of their ads, get to know their customers better and create one to one relationships that are more effective. The technology can generate quantifiable statistics on many variables that indicate, among other things:

• how often customers return to an app;
• how much time they spend with it;
• if they take an action requested by an ad;
• if they unsubscribe; and
• most important, how the app performs against others in its category.

A company will be able to tell, for example, if it is losing subscribers in a category that other firms are excelling in, and if this is the case, it can adjust its approach accordingly to better compete.

The SMS Angle

General trends in the mobile industry favor increased use of push notifications. For example, numerous research firms are projecting that app-to-device messaging will become a much more significant part of the SMS market.

A2P promotions delivered via push notifications should do even better than that. Push-based A2P notifications are easier to respond to, because the notification takes the customer straight to the app without requiring clicking through to a URL. The analytics that push notifications generate give it value that SMS can’t provide. And push is less costly and more valuable to brands, marketers, carriers and consumers than SMS.

Companies have of course embraced marketing via SMS because it can reach almost all handsets. But it is short-sighted to focus all of a company’s campaigns on SMS. It is not particularly easy to build programs and services around SMS, for one thing, but also the margins for SMS-based campaigns are razor-thin. SMS fees are assessed on a per-message basis, and depending on the type of message used and its destination, SMS messaging can cost an advertiser up to 3 cents per message.

Push notifications, which travel over the mobile data network, are easier to build and distribute and as more and more mobile data networks are deployed around the world, the addressable market for push notifications will increase. Nor are push notifications limited to mobile. They can target any device that is connected to the Internet and the more screens the customer engages with, including connected TVs, set-top boxes and gaming platforms in the home, the more opportunity this will bring.

Finally, push services do not incur SMS fees and they can be purchased according to a variety of flexible pricing schemes that can be friendly to any marketer. Prices can be based strictly on the number of devices or the number of installed apps receiving the notifications, which can allow distribution of unlimited messages to those devices or apps.

So we look forward to seeing what Apple and iOS5 can do to bring more mobile innovation to the market, and are prepared to make that easy to take advantage of when designing and launching apps.

Read more about Scott Kveton’s firm Urban Airship and mobile push marketing here.

Yes, I said “virtual pop star” — Miku is a virtual singer and character created in 2007 by Crypton Future Media using Yamaha’s “Vocaloid” software. Her singing has been used in more than 100,000 user-generated videos, and Toyota has employed her before in campaigns in which she interacts with “real” people (are we really referring to actors and spokespeople as human beings these days?).

Through downloading the Toyota Shopping Tool App for Android or iOS — which is infused with the junaio Plugin, an extension of metaio’s augmented reality browser junaio that overlays interactive digital and 3-D content on top of a mobile view screen — Miku and/or Corolla fans can watch the electric-blue-haired virtual pop star perform a song alongside the 2011 Corolla. The directions don’t seem that difficult:

If you print out the “Toyotag,” you can make Miku sing and dance wherever you want. App users can also use the augmented reality program to shoot photos of themselves with Miku.

“The junaio plugin provides a convenient and efficient solution in taking existing mobile apps and integrating rich, robust AR functionalities like this Hatsune Miku Corolla experience,” says Lisa Murphy, project lead and metaio senior business developement manager. “I am thrilled that we were able to work with Toyota to take the virtual Hatsune Miku and make her a reality. We look forward to working together with Toyota in the future to make augmented reality an integral part of the customer purchasing experience.”

Pretty much, HP is giving up on both its tablet computer and its mobile phone business. Apparently Best Buy is yelling at HP to buy back 200,000 unsold units, as it sold only 10% of its inventory even after a $100 price cut last week.

According to a statement from the company, ““HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.”

So is this a concession that the Palm acquisition has been a failure? Kind of crazy this announcement comes on the heels of Google’s attempt to buy Motorola.

Even more interesting, HP announced in a press release that the “board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group” – aka, the personal computing division. One of these alternatives is a spin-off of the company, which may seem ridiculous considering that HP is the number one PC-maker in the world.

Or at least it was — Apple sold 13.6 million personal/portable computing units (including Macs, Macbooks and iPads) in the second quarter of 2011 compared to the 9.7 million PCs sold by HP over the same time period. Dell also reported a 10% drop in PC shipments during the last quarter. Tough economic times may be to blame, but it’s no secret that tablets (particularly the iPad) are seriously cutting into laptop and desktop sales.

HP wasn’t done with announcements, as it also admitted to making an offer for Autonomy, which offers cloud-based solutions for data management, regulatory compliance and marketing on an enterprise level. So it looks like HP may be trying to pull an IBM, which sold its laptop biz to Lenovo to focus on cloud-based enterprise solutions. It’s worked out pretty well for the computing veteran.

Some may say this is the reason why mobile advertising is on the rise, and why some retailers have started including mobile advertising in their marketing strategy. In fact, the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) reported that “72% of businesses are looking to increase their mobile advertising budget in the next two years.” Geo-location is one of the many elements retailers are including in their mobile marketing plans.

Geo-location allows brands the chance to interact with customers wherever they are, but that doesn’t mean that companies can tap into your phone; rather it’s a way for you to receive relevant advertising messages in relation to your location.

The ability of any rich media ad to determine your location is largely based on a number of factors. This can be as general as which state you are in, down to your service area, cellular region, latitude and longitude, or even a specific location if you have a GPS feature turned on.

Rich media ads which use geo-location, like this McDonald’s one created by Crisp, lets consumers enter their local information, such as an address or zip code. From there, a store locator appears giving the customer the ability to choose the nearest McDonalds, which then gives directions to the desired location.

Coffee giant, Starbucks, is an example of another retailer using geo-location. Starbucks launched a new iPhone app that uses the location-based feature by allowing users to find nearby Starbucks stores. Another example is Yelp.com. Their app lets users locate the nearest burrito joint, or search for a nearby gas station before their tank hits empty.

Additionally, Subway restaurants have also become a part of retailers jumping in on this mobile trend. The restaurant chain created a mobile app that lets consumers create their food on the go via their phones and then pick-up at a nearby store.

All in all, geo-location is a helpful targeting parameter to utilize, and in this day and age where, we rely heavily on our mobile phones, businesses can (and should) make the move to becoming a mobile friendly company. For more examples, check out the Mojiva Mobile Creative Alliance showcase or schedule a Lunch & Learn to bring a mobile advertising expert to your agency.

Digital Marketing Manager Scott Fiesel contributed to this report. Cross-published at the Mojiva blog.

The rise in smart phone usage has coincided with a shift in how consumers view information. In many cases, the convenience and timeliness of a handheld device is preferable to sitting in front of a computer.

A new study by ExactTarget found that more than half of U.S. consumers who made at least one purchase on their smart phone have done so based on a marketing message delivered via mobile email. In addition, data shows that messages received through a mobile device can lead consumers to an in-store purchase.

Beyond the “on the go” convenience of mobile devices, they are also widely used when consuming other media. A recent study by Performics revealed that 66% of mobile internet users reported at least occasional use of mobile search while watching TV.

Advertisers can use this to their advantage to engage consumers in a multichannel advertising experience. By providing a URL at the end of a TV ad, advertisers can drive TV viewers to a dedicated landing page. In addition, advertisers could increase their bids for mobile search brand terms and generic terms related to the ad for a period immediately after it airs on television.

With the rise in smart phone usage, a number of high profile advertisers are engaging with mobile commerce. For example, eBay generated $2 billion in mobile sales in 2010, outstripping their projected total of $1.5 billion. With applications for a number of devices including the iPhone and iPad, a purchase is made every second through their mobile apps, with 94 bids every minute coming through mobile devices.

So how does the growth of mobile tie in with the affiliate channel?

Affiliates are often the first to embrace new technologies and the advancement of mobile advertising is enticing a number of affiliates to enter this market. As part of this movement, more affiliates are developing sites that are fully optimized for mobile.

Even if an affiliate does not own a dedicated mobile site, consumers are still browsing affiliate sites through mobile devices — therefore encouraging affiliates to optimize sites for mobile to enhance the user experience. Further, companies such as mShopper are offering advertisers an easy-to-use software solution to create a custom-branded mStore.

In addition, a number of affiliates are building their own mobile applications that their loyal customer base will regularly use. Rather than serving as an afterthought in the purchase funnel, many large affiliates are major brands in their own right and become the first stop for a consumer who is ready to make a purchase.

Additional technologies such as QR codes and location based services are further enabling affiliates to deliver additional value. Aside from serving as a pure acquisition channel, affiliates are able to combine location based offers to drive in-store traffic.

For example, advertisers can work with affiliates to accomplish the following:

• Design a promotion that encourages  visitors to redeem a specific offer sent directly to a mobile device
• Offer incentivized check-ins  to drive visitors to their store
• Provide in-store customers with additional incentives and discounts

Mobile Driving Social

The growth of mobile commerce has also seen a rise in the consumption of social media through mobile devices.  Research undertaken by comScore highlights that social media has grown 45.7% year on year – the greatest growth area of mobile usage.

Additional stats indicate that consumers spend more time on Twitter through a mobile device than they do on PCs. This is relevant for affiliates as they are able to send timely deals to their followers and capitalize on the increased mobile usage.

Similarly, consumers spend a considerable amount of time on Facebook through mobile devices, although this is not as high as PC usage. Again this is a useful medium to send out offers to an engaged user base.

Executives at T- Mobile are also reviewing a number of mobile trends and reported the number of cell phone users connecting to Facebook through a mobile device grew by 112% from a year ago, while Twitter experienced a 347% jump. In addition, they saw 60% of all traffic to their YouTube page delivered by mobile devices.

More and more advertisers are embracing the growth of m-commerce and putting comprehensive strategies in place. With an increasing number of affiliates designing their own mobile apps and dedicated mobile sites, they should be considered an integral part of mobile strategies.

In order to engage with affiliates through mobile, it is essential to ensure that affiliate tracking is added to mobile sites. Without this, advertisers could be missing out on a wealth of additional opportunities.

Google CEO Larry Page made the announcement early this morning on the company’s blog,writing, “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”

While trying to forge ahead in the smartphone market as the owner of the Android operating system and the Nexus S, Google’s efforts have been thwarted by its otherwise empty arsenal of intellectual property in wireless telephony. This purchase will arm Google with Motorola mobility’s patent portfolio of over 24,500, lending the company to try its hand at manufacturing handset.

The deal comes just eight months after Motorola’s split into two companies: Motorola Solutions, which manufactures tech products aimed at businesses; and Motorola Mobility, which focuses solely on consumer technology.

According to Page, “This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.”

It appears that the acquisition is “welcomed” by Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC and LG Electronics from the “Quotes from Android Partners,” accompanying Google’s press release. But after the PR people’s smiles fade, it seems likely that the deal aiming to “supercharge the Android ecosystem” will have sparked conflict with these other phone manufacturers.

The transaction has been approved by Google and Motorola Mobility’s boards of directors, but is still subject to regulatory approval. While the deal is expected to close by early next year, the FTC is still scrutinizing Google for anti-trust violations.

Whether it’s a plain feature phone (your basic flip phone with dial pad, color screen, SMS capability and not much more) or a smartphone (such as an Android or iPhone device), those 300 million Americans are generally loath to leave home without them. This level of penetration has grown 10-fold from just 15 years ago, and retailers and others are finally sensing that reaching customers via mobile makes good business sense.

Data has shown that consumers doing mobile search intend to make a purchase within 24 hours of that search. Creating an easy shop-and-purchase experience from the mobile device is therefore critical to connecting with users in this mindset, and mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is fueling many new developments in the space:

• In May, Google announced plans to launch the near field communication (NFC-) powered “Google Wallet” to enable payment via Android phones.
• In South Korea, plans were announced in mid-June to require NFC in all smartphones produced, with hundreds of thousands of mobile payment systems at retailers being installed or updated to match.
• And according to Juniper Research, astronomical growth in the NFC market will drive the overall mobile payment market to an astounding $670 billion worldwide by 2015.

We probably won’t see widespread implementation of NFC through mobile in the U.S. until 2012, but consumers are looking for an easy shop-and-purchase experience today. Seemingly a vision from our smartphone-saturated future, NFC often has a psych-out effect on the scope of today’s mobile creativity.

For the most part, brands have focused on delivering the right mobile content and rewards like coupons and loyalty programs, but many companies see m-commerce as a whole separate discipline rather than an immediately accessible tool. As a result, they’re often not taking advantage of it in their existing programs, missing the next logical step in engaging with the mobile consumer who hunts for content relevant to her needs and desires.

Two giants in the world of Internet commerce, Amazon and eBay, have successfully transitioned their online experience to the mobile device, showing others a path forward. Besides moving from desktop to smartphone, there are other ways for brands and retailers to capitalize on m-commerce right now without extensive platform transitions:

SMS and QR codes. No longer just a way to drive your audience to content, SMS and QR codes can be utilized to allow consumers to create shopping lists that can be saved and purchased via traditional e-commerce portals.

For example, feature products on a traditional out-of-home media touch point, such as posters or point-of-purchase displays, then give each product a unique QR code that, once scanned, relays product info and enables you to add that product to a shopping list, or purchase directly from your phone.

Opt-In Product Push. Retailers and brands can push custom products (especially fast-moving goods like soap, detergent, etc.) to users via SMS to those who have opted-in to receive such messages – and also streamline the purchasing process.

For example, text “needdiapers” to 12345 and you’re immediately linked to a secured checkout screen – with credit card and shipping info already pre-loaded – and all the user has to do is confirm and purchase.  Allow the user to adjust the frequency with which he or she receives such messages.

Non-retail affiliated e-commerce sites. That is, retailers not named “Walmart” or “Target” – should lead the m-commerce initiative.  These e-commerce-based companies would probably increase sales by triple digits if they developed mobile sites.  Having properly rendered m-commerce capabilities would alleviate the “appointment” necessary to purchase online from a PC, opening up a substantial amount of buying opportunities.

For retailers and brands, now is the time to adopt m-commerce. There are practical ways to implement m-commerce functionality right away at scale. And while we’re still in m-commerce’s infancy, there’s little doubt that it will explode.  The message is simple when it comes to m-commerce: adapt. Or get left behind.