Are Adoptive Marketing and User Experience as Strategy the same?

Posted on May 28, 2008 by Dale Larson

In “Viral Marketing is bullsh*t. Adoptive Marketing isn’t.” blog Go Big Always explains why viral marketing is otherwise manipulative, shallow, and correspondingly ineffective. Contrast that with making sure the product itself is designed to create an emotional connection and a high adoption rate.

Is this the same, or different, from User Experience as Strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments….

(See entries from earlier in May: Join the 8% Who Get It (or what do books on Experience Design, Advertising, and Social Media have in common?) and Thunder vs. iPhone: Experience not Features)

Mobile Charity: The $10k SuperBowl Ad

Posted on May 19, 2008 by Dale Larson

No, they didn’t pay $10k for a SuperBowl ad.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that the United Way Superbowl spot asking users to text “fit” to UNITED (864833) raised about $10,000. Of each $5 donation, United Way got about $4.50. By my math, that’s 2,000 $5 donations from a single 10-second spot viewed by nearly 100 million (second most-watched TV show ever).

Could they have done better with what they had?

pSMS (premium SMS) allows interaction with a user which adds small charges to a cell phone bill, typically under $10. In the US, it had been limited to selling mobile content and dominated by ringtones.

According to the carrier rules, you couldn’t make a pSMS charge to deliver a real-world good a service, or to accept a donation to charity.

The rules also have mobile carriers and aggregators keeping a large percentages of the charges as revenue share. Varying from carrier to carrier and negotiated by volume, etc., you might get back only 60% of revenues, and this still requires you to do all the work of programming the service, promoting it, etc. This is as if the credit card companies charged 40% instead of low single-digits for processing charges through merchant accounts, but don’t get me started.

Until recently, the only exception to both rules had been donations to the Red Cross during disasters. Slowly more exceptions are being made, and here’s a little more detail.

I know how mobile works in detail (having run many pSMS programs) and I had questions when I viewed the spot during the game. I didn’t know enough about what I was being asked to do, how it would work, how much it would cost me (“$5” was buried in small print at the end), what the privacy impact would be (would I be solicited for more donations?), and what the benefit would be.

Even remembering the instructions might have been challenging (how many Budwiesers had the viewer consumed at this point in the game?). Why not run the instructions at the bottom of the screen through the whole spot:

Help United Way Reduce Childhood Obesity, give $5 through your cell bill.
Text “fit” to 864833. It’s easy, no hidden charges, no calls.

Did they test this ad by serving chips and beer in a living room and showing it? When doing something fairly new, a little insight goes a long way, and since you’re not after absolutely objective data, a fancy research firm with expensive scientific validation isn’t necessary. Cheap and informal work does great here. Ask folks what they thought about it and watch them while they try to do it on their phones after you answer their questions.

Anyway, since I try every shortcode program I run across, I made one of those 2,000 donations back in February. I wonder if nearly all 2,000 were from mobile industry folks. Here’s what the program looks like on my phone (four text messages):

Me: fit
864833: “To confirm your $5 donation to United Way youth fitness reply with the word YES. For more info visit: mahlp.cc/uwyf. Other charges may apply.
Me: yes
864833: Thanks for your $5 donation to United Way. Donate up to 5 times by sending FIT to 86433. Encourage others to donate. Info reply HELP, Other charges may apply.

They don’t ask for permission to text the user later. Otherwise they might follow up to see if they are interested in volunteer opportunities, tell them about outcomes with the donation they made, ask them to take action in support of some legislation, or let them know about other causes or ways to donate. Would some who gave $5 want to contribute much more if they’d been further engaged?

Also, TV is only one way to promote these mobile donations. How would they do with print? Outdoor? Or with calling for people to take out their phones at events?

The Mobile Giving Foundation is pushing to move this kind of program from rare exception to common practice.

The carriers win when everyone understands pSMS better and sees it as applying to more than ringtones. Allowing mobile philanthropy meets that goal and creates good will, so I hope progress will be made to quickly allow many more non-profits to experiment with mobile donations. For their part, I hope non-profits work to develop and share insights from listeing to and observing those in their target audience so that any hurdles to mobile adoption are most effectively understood and overcome.

ADDED 12:45pm: Mobile Active included many more details about the Mobile Giving Foundation and vendors used in implementing the United Way program.

Thunder Lifetime Exclusive: The New Walled Garden?

Posted on May 16, 2008 by Dale Larson

Rumor is that RIM’s new BlackBerry Thunder will be a lifetime exclusive to Verizon and Vodaphone. This ups the ante from iPhone’s five year exclusive with AT&T in the US, though Apple has inked non-exclusive or co-exclusive deals in many other countries recently.

I’d thought the “walled garden” approach to data access on mobile phones was slowly slipping away as more phones support browsing the open Internet, including downloading media that can be used as ringtones or wallpaper.

(Just two years ago a carrier asked us to shut down a program giving away a free promotional wallpapers. They considered it “revenue leakage” since we weren’t selling it and giving them a cut. Now they charge the brand to deliver promotion content free to the user.)

The iPhone arguably replaced one walled garden with three:

Works only with AT&T
Preventing installation of applications until a future release
Requiring that ringtones be purchased from iTunes

Being AT&T-only did provide the benefits of tight voicemail integration, simplified pricing plans and painless activation. Apple may not have been able to get cooperation for that improved overall experience without the exclusive. Maybe that’s a feature rather than a bug.

M-Metrics reports only 2.8% of US mobile subscribers accessed a downloaded application in February 2008. Arguably, Apple is just as concerned with user experience as with any revenue possibilities here. While there are great mobile apps available for most handsets which should be reaching a broader audience, everything is difficult about the old way of finding, downloading and paying for applications.

Will RIM have the vision to apply pressure for similar innovations in its deals with Verizon and Vodaphone, or is the exclusive just another way to keep customers locked in? Please add your thoughts in the comments…

Thunder vs. iPhone: Experience not Features

Posted on May 16, 2008 by Dale Larson

The Wall Street Journal Reports that RIM is launching a new touch-screen BlackBerry, Thunder, in the third quarter, to be sold exclusively by Verizon, “answering the challenge posed by the popularity of Apple Inc.’s iPhone.”

They go on to say, “The iPhone’s sophisticated touch-screen was one feature that made Apple’s device a big hit.”

There is no list of features that made the iPhone a big hit.

The experience of buying, activating, and using iPhone made it a hit.

How easy it was to show the experience of using it made it a big hit.

Isn’t that the same thing that has already made the BlackBerry a hit in its target market? Show a roadwarrior in need of a workhorse how you scroll through emails with the thumbwheel, then do the same to select and dial a contact from the phonebook. Enter a quick email from the keyboard. You’ve just made a sale.

BlackBerry has less penetration to other markets not only because the features they use are different (in fact, many are the same), but the whole context is different. Who they are, what they use it for, when and where they use it. I haven’t seen the Thunder, but hopefully for RIM they’ll develop the kind of understanding and insight they brought to the roadwarrior, creating experiences for a new market, not just adding features for it.

Interviewed when the iPhone came out, I told Reuters that it wasn’t about the features. In fact, I was surprised in the first few hours with several “missing” features I might have expected, but these surprises didn’t meaningfully diminish my experience. They’d carefully selected features to leave out (or leave for later) as much as features to leave in.

[UPDATE 6/18: Wired ran a great article about Japanese market handsets competing on feature lists: “The manufacturers, who realize the absurdity of piling on features that don’t work well…. The average person only uses 5 to 10 percent of the functions available on their handsets. “]

Before iPhone, you had to do things the phone company’s way and the device’s way. It was all about learning how to deal calls to their support, calls to select plans, learning how to navigate the maze of device features. Even to me it seemed like a constant chore of dealing in arcane lore, and I like tech stuff.

The iPhone “felt like a living sculpture in my hands” because the whole experience was about the system fitting me instead of me finding a way to work with the system. The pieces fit together in a seamless whole. Every part was beautiful, from the box it came in to the physical device to the icons on the screen. My actions and the flowing animation and movement on screen at every step blended together as one and looked pretty.

I said elsewhere, “The iPhone really points out how unpleasant other interfaces are, how ugly and unwieldy. The iPhone responds immediately with rich and beautiful feedback to everything you ask it to do, making it beautiful to look at and a beautiful experience to use it….. When other companies are forced to bring as much attention to design to their devices, and pulling together as many features seamlessly, hopefully the bar will keep being raised for all.”

I didn’t have to struggle with the phone company or the device. For once, I could smile most every time I reached in my pocket.

Join the 8% Who Get It (or what do books on Experience Design, Advertising, and Social Media have in common?)

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Dale Larson

I might summarize the new book Subject to Change: creating great products and services for an uncertain world as a compact and well-packaged appeal to business leaders that focusing an organization on customers and their experience results in competitive advantages of crucial strategic importance.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this as an obvious argument.

A 2005 study cited in the book showed 95% of organizations surveyed claiming to be “customer focused” and 80% claiming delivery of a “superior experience.” Only 8% of their customers agreed!

So the message is needed and every bit of help this book offers is welcome.

The emphasis on developing actionable insight through talking to customers (especially listening and watching) reminds me of two other books I like, and the three of them together make a stronger argument than any one does alone.

Jon Steel’s Truth, Lies & Advertising: The Art of Account Planning is a wonderful read full of great stories. Like Subject to Change, it puts considerable emphasis on the value of research methods such as interviews and ethnography. Steel’s research emphases feeding insight into the development of advertising, but appreciates that the whole customer experience must be considered. Coincidentally, both books are filled with many examples from the authors’ respective San Francisco-based agencies, but all are useful in supporting the argument.

Transitioning with another coincidence, Seth Godin endorsed Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies by Forrester Research analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

While the first two books emphasize more objective research, Groundswell is about the necessity of moving to conversational participation. In blogs, on YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook and elsewhere, customers are talking about products, experiences and companies. Organizations must learn to listen and take part in these conversations, and they must do so across levels and silos to succeed. As you might expect in a book published by Harvard Business Press, there is as much emphasis here on the required organizational change as their is data to justify it.

While any of these books is a great place to start for ways to move to a real customer focus, all three should be required reading at any company hoping to join the 8%, and each cuts across more disciplines than the expertise of it’s authors might imply.

Amazon TextBuyIt: Strategic and Impressive at First Glance

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Dale Larson

Shoppers started using mobile in brick and mortar stores a long time ago: Phone calls (and SMS) to collaborate with a significant other on a purchase; snapping a photo and sending it to a friend via MMS to ask “how does this look?”; running a web browser to check Amazon for reviews or pricing on a book you’re thumbing through at Borders.

In fact, that last case is the one I most often describe to clients as a way that your business will be changed by mobile even if you don’t yet think mobile applies to you. Just as bookstores who understood the Internet shift did well by changing the way they positioned themselves to compete (whether or not that included any online services), they’ll now have to re-position to take advantage of the mobile shift. How will your business (re-)position itself to be a succesful part of the changes brought by mobile rather than a casualty of them?

Starting today, Amazon is accelerating the mobile shift for retailers by launching a new shortcode text messaging service making it easier for more customers to quickly check pricing and place orders from any cell phone (not just smart phones with browsers).

Text an item name (or UPC or ISBN) to AMAZON (262966). You’ll get back text messages with matching items and pricing. You can even place an order by sending a text choosing the item you want (smartly combines with an IVR call to your phone so that you don’t have endless back and forth, and presumably the second order from your handset will be even smoother). It’s integrated with your regular Amazon.com account, so you use your email

This is fantastic for when a friend tells you about a book you should read, when you remember an item to order, or when you’re at a retail store and want to decide whether to pick it up here or buy from Amazon.com. No more adding it to your to-do list of endless things you should think about when you get back to your desk.

Smart offering taking advantage of the shift to mobile lifestyles and integrating well with the desktop web:

service to the customer providing information they can use anywhere
making yourself available to receive orders in any format the customer prefers

CREDO Wireless: your phone bill support progressive causes

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Dale Larson

Formerly Working Assets Wireless, CREDO is an MVNO of Sprint. I’ve been seeing their advertising on the sides of buses here in SF, but I know the folks at CREDO and that they’re good people doing good work. With a CREDO Wireless phone, you get the same quality of the Sprint network, but with better support (you speak to passionate folks at CREDO) and a portion of your bill goes to causes you support rather than to larger margins for a phone company. Whether or not you get one of their phones, you can join their text messaging program (they send a text when you can do something to make an important difference):
CREDO Mobile Action Network – TEXT JOIN to 30644

Get mobile copy on the front page of the New York Times

Posted on November 1, 2007 by Dale Larson

I never imagined that I might write copy that would appear on the front page of the New York Times, but it was there in the print edition, reproduced in a screenshot from the signup pages my team produced.

My client NARAL Pro-Choice America ran into a bit of a problem with Verizon over the text messaging program I helped them put together. It smacked of censorship, so they went public with the issue and got a reversal from the CEO of Verizon within an hour. Still, the potential for this to happen to others is still very real. I’m not quoted in the article, and wasn’t directly involved in getting it published, but congratulations to the savvy folks at NARAL Pro-Choice America who turned this problem into an opportunity and stood up for us all. Fighting the carriers publicly isn’t usually an option for most working with mobile, but the alternatives leave much to be desired.

Even without taking into account free speech issues, the current US shortcode process is overly expensive and difficult. Many choose established shared-shortcodes to avoid as much of it as possible. I’ve helped bring live dozens of shortcodes, and have seen first-hand how good programs are frequently delayed or denied for trivial and/or arbitrary reasons. As a consumer, though, I’ve tried mobile programs which should never have been allowed to go live, violating rules that do protect the interest of consumer and carrier alike.

I’d love the carriers to agree to a uniform set of rules and to delegate program approval and certification to a single body (or trusted aggregators), leaving each carrier to handle technical provisioning only. This would help the whole industry by creating more consistency for protections to the consumer and would reduce costs to carriers and to those who build SMS programs by cutting redundancies and the arbitrary differences of multiple standards as well as regulating the updates to those standards. As it stands now, it is difficult for even the most diligent experts to keep up with all the rules and how they are interpreted — imagine having to file your income tax with five different governments that each have differing rules that are updated quarterly!

As to the free speech issue, I was heartened to read Nancy Keenan and Roberta Combs in the Washington Post. Right on! When the presidents of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Christian Coalition of America agree on something, we should all stand up and take notice. As power shifts, corporate censorship may be a more important issue in this century than government censorship has been in the past.

Mourning Castro Halloween

Posted on November 1, 2007 by Dale Larson

I was on the local TV news last night and this morning on several stations, as well as in the papers. “Dale Larson, Pallbearer” said the caption in the print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The article described us as a “group of costumed partygoers [who] held their own protest march.” I disagree that we were either partygoers or protesters. The caption got it right: we marched a few miles up Market street to mourn. Then most of us left to go home on the last train — Muni closed down at 8:30pm.

In all the coverage I saw about Castro Halloween, the issues were presented as a matter of controlling a party and how that affected cops, businesses and the public. Of course something had to be done to fix an annual celebration that had grown to hundreds of thousands and included nine shooting victims last year. But nowhere did I see mention of the tragedy of a cultural loss, or of a desire to reclaim values that once dominated this celebration.

The essential point to me is that Halloween in the Castro originated as a neighborhood party in a predominantly gay neighborhood that was dominated by overwhelming friendliness and spectacularly dazzling drag queens and their tolerant friends. Over the years, it attracted elements from outside the city who don’t share value for diversity and spreading love and joy. Shutting it down means they win. What a shame, and certainly a loss to be mourned.

I hope we find a way to reclaim the values of being fabulous and friendly over poorly costumed, sloppy drunk, intolerant and violent.

Another group of costumed partygoers held their own protest march, carrying a cardboard coffin up Market Street from Beale Street to the Castro, all the time chanting, “Come mourn the death of Castro Halloween.”

“If you’re going to kill Castro Halloween, you have to have a funeral,” said Mark Tyne, whose all-black ensemble was crowned with a top hat.

Dale Larson

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