Garnier makes mobile top initiative to reach consumers worldwide

Garnier International is launching a worldwide mobile strategy to provide consumers with personalized experiences that will help them select the right product.

The company is partnering with Motricity to provide access to the company’s beauty expertise and advice via consumers’ mobile devices. The program will be launched worldwide, replacing individual markets efforts in mobile to date.

“Because of how mobile is being utilized on a global basis and with consumers using mobile instead of online, Garnier is saying that it is going to make mobile one of its top initiatives to engage with consumers on a global basis,” said Ryan Wuerch, chief executive officer of Motricity, Bellevue, WA.

Garnier is a mass market beauty care brand that is owned by L’Oreal Group. It is a leading beauty brand in France and has a presence throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Mobile reach
Motricity will exclusively deliver and power Garnier’s global mobile marketing and advertising sites. Garnier will use Motricity’s mCore platform to engage customers via mobile Web sites, targeted ads and personalized content.

With smartphone adoption growing significantly, Garnier will be able to leverage the platform to provide smartphone customers with targeted mobile advertising and rich media. This includes being able to deliver promotions, coupons and content directly to Garnier’s audience based on previous behavior.

The goals of the mobile strategy include enhancing brand reach and customer loyalty.

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Garnier is launching a worldwide mobile strategy

Garnier International is launching a worldwide mobile strategy to provide consumers with personalized experiences that will help them select the right product.

 

Consumers embrace mobile for bigger purchases: study

Half of mobile device owners spend $100 or more on a purchase via their smartphone, according to a new study by JiWire.

The JiWire Mobile Audience Insights Report Q1 2011 shows that consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable making purchases via their mobile phones. Mobile commerce is n0t limited to small-ticket items either, with a growing segment of consumers comfortable making bigger purchases via their mobile devices.

“The fact that 50 percent of mobile device owners are willing to spend $100 or more is reflective of a broader trend that mobile commerce has moved beyond ringtones to much bigger-ticket items,” said David Staas, senior vice president of marketing at mobile advertising firm JiWire, San Francisco. “Mobile moving into the higher tiers means it is becoming a mainstream commerce platform and that’s an exciting trend to see.”

The report shows that mobile consumers are growing more comfortable shopping via a mobile device, with 84 percent of the mobile audience partaking in some sort of shopping behavior on a mobile device in the first quarter, up from 70 percent in the previous quarter.

This includes the 20 percent of consumers who researched and made a purchase from their device.

The report also points to mobile’s growing role in multichannel shopping, with 31 percent researching a purchase on their device before buying it in-store, up 5 percent from the previous quarter.

In addition, 40 percent researched a purchase on their device before buying it online, up 19 percent from the fourth quarter.

“The growing viability of mobile to drive conversions in store is interesting data for marketers as they start to think about mobile as a way to drive ROI and a real return on their marketing dollars,” Mr. Staas said.

Location-based interest growing
The most popular category for mobile shopping is travel, with 62 percent researching travel and 42 percent making a travel-related purchase via mobile. This is followed by entertainment, with 55 percent researching and 40 percent purchasing and, retail with 54 percent researching and 36 percent purchasing.

The report also took at look at location-based services, with overall interest in these services up 11.7 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. The survey shows that 72 percent of the mobile audience purchases local deals, with 44 percent of respondents purchasing local deals at least once a month.

In addition, 62 percent are sharing local deals with friends and more than half of consumers aged 45 and older are sharing local deals.

“As more and more services build location into their offering, this is raising consumer awareness,” Mr. Staas said. “The demand for these services is increasing because location adds value to the service.”

It still remains to be seen whether the recent focus by Washington on the data collection practices of location-based mobile services and their impact on consumer privacy will have any impact on the demand for these services.

“There’s a lot of attention around privacy and location,” Mr. Staas said. “This is an emerging part of the media market and there are always questions around what is the right way to provide these services and still maintain consumer privacy.”

The survey also took a look at the mobile landscape, with usage of iOS devices decreasing 4.1 percent for the quarter.

The Android market continues to grow with several new devices – Samsung Galaxy, HTC Glacier and HTC Hero – making the list for the first time.

With regard to tablets, 71 percent of respondents either own or plan to purchase a tablet. While 58 percent prefer an iOS operating system, 31 percent have no operating system preference.

“Overall, Android is gaining traction,” Mr. Staas said.

“The traction and growth of tablets is a trend that we’ve seen over time, with the tablet category becoming a pretty viable solution set,” he said.

 

3 Big Reasons Why Social Media Marketing is Essential for Your Business

Social media is embedded in our daily lives. It is no longer the trend, it is the web and continues to weave and wrap itself itself into every corner and crevice of the internet as we know it.

It is on your smart phone as a Facebok “app”.  Twitter streams compel you to click on the link, to respond to questions from strangers. YouTube viral videos videos offering  distraction from your tasks at hand entice you to click when you should be working and to view when you should be productive.

The addiction, like crack cocaine has spread and 650 million people on Facebook,  225 million on Twitter and 100 million on LinkedIn are evidence of  this compelling attraction and distraction that disrupts our daily lives. Quite often it has crossed my mind in a quiet moment as I ride or drive and observe people with heads bowed as they peer into their 3.1 inch screens that an interesting research study would be to see how many people have been hit by a car or a bus while checking their Facebook updates while using their phone.. but that’s just me I guess!

What are Other Signs of this Evil Addiction?

• When you leave your iPhone behind at home do you feel a sense of loss and isolation because you can’t check your Facebook or Twitter updates while out and about
• You check your Facebook account 20 times a day
• If you don’t receive a comment on your latest blog post within 12 hours you have suicidal thoughts
• You go away for a weekend without your laptop or iPad and your suffer severe heart palpitations
• You have more social media icons on you iPhone than productivity apps
• You stood in line for an Apple iPad for 24 hours just so you could update your Facebook on a bigger screen while on the move
• You have more online friends than you have in real life
• You Tweet on your mobile while walking
• You log on to Facebook before you have brushed your teeth in the morning

• You check your Facebook or Twitter updates ‘after’ going to bed

The reality is that this evil (humor here!) and addictive behaviour is exactly what makes social media so powerful as a marketing medium.

3 Reasons Why Social Media is Essential

1. It Spreads

Television can reach an audience of millions but that’s where it stops. You cannot hit retweet or Facebook share on your TV remote (not yet .. but watch this space).  Television is also mostly local or national and is not global unless you are watching the Olympics or the ‘World Cup’. Social media’s viral capacity lies in its ‘one to many’ and then the ‘many to many’ amplification of ideas and content on a worldwide scale. The low friction of sharing (how easy is it to hit a ‘like’ button or a retweet icon) with social media provides the power to make ideas spread that dictators of the past and present would admire.

2. It Lasts

I don’t know if you realize that Google is now indexing and archiving your tweets. The tweets may be fleeting but Google’s 1 million servers are quietly buzzing and working away in dark rooms in distant corners of the earth digitally filing away your superficial tweets along with those ones with great links to YouTube videos and great blog posts that make a difference in people’s lives. The blog posts you write are saved, maybe not for eternity but certainly for decades to come. Think of your content as a digital asset that you should be continually investing in as you build up your online properties net worth.

3.It Helps You Get Found

Ranking on the first page of a search engine is the holy grail for businesses (it is where 90% of all clicks to websites occur). Google along with Bing is now placing a higher priority on all things social ( you may or may not have noticed that YouTube videos and Blogs are often appearing high up in search along with other social networking channels). The search giants have realized over the last 12 months that people’s ranking of content on websites and blogs with Facebook likes, Twitter retweets and Google +1′s that social recommendations are valuable as a ranking for search. An active and persistent presence on social media channels increases significantly your chances of being ‘found’ online and we all know how important that is on a world that is continuously connected, searching and clicking.

Do you ‘get’ social media yet? Does your boss ‘get it’?

Social media is way beyond fluffy, fun and superficial… it is now serious business!

How 3 Mobile Gadgets are Transforming our Lives: New Research

It was 25 years ago and if you wanted to make a phone call you had to do like Clark Kent’s Superman and head for the nearest phone booth and not ‘change’ into leotards and wear your undies outside of your pants but fumble for coins (if you had them) and make that urgent business call. The next challenge was often to find one that hadn’t been vandalized.

Telecommunication companies are removing them and placing them in warehouses ready for recycling or they are sold at auctions for collectors to restore and revive.

The old style phone booths are often displayed as antique pieces in the corner of bars or designer stores as memento and memorial of a bygone era..

The Computer in Your Pocket

How times have changed.. the mobile phone is now your computer in your pocket, your road map to your latest appointment or your movie channel for watching the latest video online. No longer do you have to wait to get home to find out the latest scores you can Google them and even watch the highlights. Contacting your friends is now a choice of do I, SMS, call or Facebook them? Waking up in the morning is quite often not an exercise in turning on the kettle but but logging into Facebook while your head is still on the pillow to check out the latest news from far flung friends and family or polish your ego by quantifying how many new friend requests you have received in the last 8 hours.

The Authors Dilemma

Your books now arrive via ‘bits and bytes’ rather than UPS and if they don’t arive in 2 minutes you start to get worried about the strength of the wireless link or even if you are connected to the world wide web. Publishers and authors are now wondering if they should sell a Kindle version of the book or not, or run with the hardcover release first. Pens must be concerned about their shelf life as iPads are replacing notepads in board rooms and coffee shops. Libraries are desperately trying to work out new business models as people no longer trawl the aisles but stay away in increasing numbers to find their information online while they ride the bus.

So what does the latest research from Nielsen reveal after speaking to 12,000 mobile connected device owners about what we are doing with the 3 mobile gadgets that are changing habits, keeping our eyes ever averted downwards and transforming the way we consume and share information and content

The Tablet

Is the tablet a fad or a revolution? At this stage it is looking like the latter despite critics promoting it as a passing distraction such as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer (Microsoft don’t make one at the moment so maybe he just has iPad envy) . So where and why are we using iPads?

• 70% of people use them while in front of the TV
• 57% while in bed
• 44% of people use them with
  friends and family
• 42% use them while waiting for something
• 25% in the bathroom
• 24% use them in the meetings or classroom
• 21% while shopping and running errands
• 20% when commuting

The question for marketers here is “How can I engage with the tablet user while they are watching TV and simultaneously on the iPad?”

The eReader

The eReader market is growing at 300% year on year when you compare the first 3 months of 2010 to February, 2011. So where are people using the Kindle and its competitors such as the  Noble and Barnes ‘Nook’

• 35% of people use them while in front of the TV (compared to 70% on the tablets)
• 61% while in bed
• 17% of people use them with friends and family
• 32% use them while waiting for something
• 17% in the bathroom
• 10% use them in the meetings or classroom
• 9% while shopping and running errands
• 11% when commuting

The eReader is certainly the king of the bedroom and the only question to ask is will the market over time sustain 2 devices (the tablet makes it into the bedroom 57% of the time)  for reading as the price of tablets surely will reduce reduce significantly over time.

The Smartphone

The smartphone that is connected to the internet and provides a multimedia mobile device anywhere and at any time is impacting our lives maybe more than any other man made object in history… (well apart from the car, the printing press and the television)

• 68% of people use them while in front of the TV (compared to 70% on the tablets)
• 51% while in bed
• 58% of people use them with friends and family
• 59% use them while waiting for something
• 28% in the bathroom
• 23% use them in the meetings or classroom
• 59% while shopping and running errands
• 47% when commuting

What is obvious is that the smartphone is our most pervasive mobile gadget but what is also evident is that the eReader is a bedroom favourite and the new phrase that may be heard between partners could be “Not tonight darling I’m Kindling”

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