Bite-size missions and surprises key to mobile success: DraftFCB

“Our belief is that mobile is no longer the third screen,” Patrick Moorhead, senior vice-president and group management director for mobile platforms with DraftFCB, declared to kick off his presentation. "What we’re seeing now is that the mobile device is the first device that consumers turn to nine times out of 10.”

Yet comparing adspend with the activities mobile users engage in shows a big discrepency, he said. Users are spending time on social and mobile, but marketers are still spending most of their money on search and banners. 

It's time to learn how to capitalise on the central position mobile devices hold in peoples' lives, Moorhead maintained. Not only are mobile devices living in the aisle of the store (73 per cent of consumers would rather use their smartphone to find product information than to talk with a retail clerk) but also "the mobile phone has blown the doors off the front of the store. The front door of your store is now in the pocket of your consumer.”

And if you've seen statistics that seem to indicate consumers do not want to use their phones to make purchases, Moorhead has news for you: They're wrong. Such statistics merely reflect the fact that retailers are not yet making mobile purchases easy enough. “Brands and retailers have not adapted to that yet, and that is a huge opportunity,” he said.

Moorhead went on to detail human characteristics that mobile marketing can capitalise on.

We love surprises

Research has shown that surprises are three times more motivating to humans than expected rewards, and have a much more significant impact on behaviour change, Moorhead said. This indicates that when it comes to CRM, we've been doing it wrong. Instead of rewarding shoppers for loyalty, retailers should focus on giving surprises.

Moorhead detailed a program that used location-triggered messaging to deliver such surprise offers to consumers when they came within a half mile of a participating store. A survey showed that the program delivered a 52 per cent lift in purchase intent, a 54 per cent lift in return visits, a  50 per cent lift in search activity, and a 100 per cent open rate for the messages.

We love missions

Research shows that people love quests and also that people are more likely to take on a mission that has been started for them. Moorhead cited an example where a coffee retailer offered two versions of a punch card that required eight additional purchases to unlock a reward. The version of the card that had two extra 'purchases' pre-punched delivered 78 per cent higher redemption than a card that started with no pre-punches—even though the actual number of additional punches the consumer needed to obtain was the same.

He also showed a video clip describing a Mini Countryman game that played out in Stockholm. With the prize of a real car on the line, 10,000 players enganged in a quest to find and retain a virtual car using an app that displayed the location of the virtual car and other players at all times. The person with the virtual car had to stay 50 meters away from other players to retain it. The person possessing the virtual car at a preset time would win the real car. Average game play per user: more than 5 hours.

In closing, Moorhead spent some time explaining the mobile wallet concept, which he asserted many people underestimate. While the Bank of America estimates that mobile wallets will be responsible for $545 billion in transactions by 2015, marketers must start to prepare for impacts far beyond the "tap to pay" capability at the point of sale.

For example, he walked the audience through an example of a businessperson traveling with a mobile wallet, and the many transactions and conveniences traveling with a secure, credentialed mobile device that knows your location could provide:

• Automatic delivery of your boarding pass when you arrive at the airport
• Easier processing through immigration
• An automatic upgrade at the gate without any action on your part
• An automatic notice that about your car reservation when you arrive at your destination
• Automatic unlocking of the rental vehicle using your phone
• Driving directions to your hotel
• Automatic recognition and check-in upon arrival at the hotel
• Unlocking the door to your room using your phone. 

“Get your strategies and your retail environments ready to live in this world," he concluded, "because this is the world your consumers are going to want to live in.”

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