Why Your Mobile Marketing Strategy Needs An Upgrade

The pivot from smartphones to connected devices requires greater human-centricity

It’s time to shatter the old view of mobile.

Marketers need to be looking at mobile as a way of life, not an alternative to landlines and a place to play Angry Birds. Consider this: in the coming year, as more technology converges with mobile, consumers will own between 40 and 100 connected devices, according to Deloitte’s recent Global Mobile Consumer Study. In other words, with IoT, augmented and virtual reality, AI, telemetry and more, the market has gone far beyond smartphones and tablets.

So how can marketers help their brands thrive in the new reality of mobile?

Yes, reach matters: Consumers glance at their smartphones nearly 12 billion times each day. But what’s more interesting are the cognitive and behavioral shifts of consumers. For example, older generations are starting to mimic the mobile behaviors of millennials. On the flip side, even though device ownership is increasing, awareness of device addiction and consciousness about etiquette are driving more users to thoughtfully unplug and reduce ad noise. Marketing strategies must also shift to maintain brand engagement, moving from providing touch-point experiences to driving experience ecosystems.

This approach will require marketers to combine new ways of thinking with a few foundational principles. Think of it as the new ABCs of marketing, reflecting the pivot from a technology-view to a human-view of mobile.

A: Audience-centricity

Instead of treating mobile as an add-on to a multichannel campaign, take the time to understand your audience’s mobile needs and experience preferences. And instead of treating various mobile platforms as separate experimentations, take the time to knit multiplatform campaigns from an audience lens.

Consider Acura’s “What a Ride” campaign for the 2018 TLX. Understanding how people watch on mobile, the ads are shot vertically, then repurposed for the horizontal TV experience. The mobile-first campaign amplifies the car’s suite of mobile technologies, including Apple Car Play, Android Auto integration and AcuraWatch.

Location-specific data can support engagement through hyper-local ads. As people block cookies, unique device ID targeting will complement environment targeting and focal clustering that illuminates exactly where a consumer is looking. Marketers will be able to truly see through consumers’ eyes.

B: Bring Back the Magic

Mobile is the new TV, and CMOs that grew up in the TV era truly appreciate the magic of engaging contentAccording to Deloitte’s Global Mobile Consumer Study, TV-watching on mobile devices has increased by 92 percent and hour-long mobile streaming of film and TV content has gone up 41 percent in the past year. Structural factors continue to encourage long-form content consumption on mobile screens, including 5G, more use of Wi-Fi and higher fidelity OLED screens. This confluence of demand- and supply-side factors will continue to drive adoption of longer form video.

So, more than ever, we’ve got to bring back the magic of storytellingMobile advertising can’t be just about push notifications or app listings. It’s time to meet consumers’ hunger for video by bringing great content to mobile screens.

C: Cross-surface meets cross-journey

Marketers have been designing campaigns across journey stages for years now. Increasingly, marketers also design campaigns with cross-surface in mind, powered by analytics and dynamic content management. It’s important to remember that consumers may have discernable and measurable screen preferences across the discover, try and buy stages. How are your device experiences working together to move consumers along the journey?

The real power is to combine cross-surface with cross-journey approaches. Start with a shared understanding of audience segments in terms of their mobile content consumption behavior. Then design cross-surface integrated campaigns to engage them, with clear objectives and KPIs against each journey stage. In fact, marketing groups that are organized by functional challenges should consider shifting to CX and journey structures.

Cross-surface with 1:1 audience insights opens up a world of possibilities for engaging audiences along cognitive and temporal dimensions. Adobe and other mar tech and ad tech cloud providers are driving this wave of cross-surface and programmatic. For example, Adobe made a splash with its “Experience Business” global campaign, distributed 100 percent programmatically across social, online, mobile and TV.

The growth of the mobile universe has been one of the most impactful of the digital era. But it’s important to remember that we’re just getting out of mobile’s infancy. And this next growth spurt is going to put mobile into a new era defined by ever-more-complex consumer behavior and evolving ways for marketers to meet those needs with a focus on the person, not the technology.

 

Frances Yu is the global lead for Deloitte’s Enterprise Digital Strategy offering, and the High Tech sector lead for Deloitte Digital’s Market offering. Additionally, she is a leader in Deloitte’s end-to-end CMO Services and Customer Transformation practice.