Approaching mobile advertising in a new (and scary) way

Despite my mobile marketing background, sometimes I doubt the effectiveness of mobile advertising.

Take mobile video ads, for example. These ads are perfectly catered to our short attention spans since they’re (for the most part) brief, full of stimulating graphics and rewarding, oftentimes promising extra in-app currencies or extra plays upon viewing.

And even though these ads don’t let you skip (unlike YouTube’s video ads), there’s nothing stopping users from putting down their smartphones or tablets for a quick couple of seconds while the ad is playing to look up at their television or computer.

It’s the downside of our second-screen world. Though commercials on television can be a pain sometimes, we have come up with a number of ways to successfully ignore them. With DVRs, people can record shows and blissfully fast forward past all of the commercials. No DVR? No problem. Commercials signal to many a time to get up and grab a snack or take a quick bathroom break.

Not all people try to avoid ads, of course. But what if there was a way to figure out how many people don’t actually watch these video ads, giving advertisers another, more detailed way to measure the effectiveness of ads?

The answer? In-app video recording SDKs.

I know this sounds terrible, but I only say this because I’m pretty sure there are advertising companies out there that are already working on this type of user-tracking, if not perfecting it by now.

Eye-tracking, for example, is nothing new. When companies are optimizing websites or mobile apps for user experience, volunteers in test groups will have their eye movement tracked so that these companies can figure out how users navigate through a website or app.

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 uses eye-tracking to determine when users look away from the phone, as well as when they want to scroll down a webpage or news article.

And perhaps eye movement is one way to measure the effectiveness of ads. If virtual rewards are guaranteed by watching an entire video ad, when a user turns away from an ad that can track eye-movement, the ad can pause until the user returns to the ad.

But what about recording users during video ads?

Everyplay is a mobile gamecasting tool that allows users record videos of their greatest in-game moments and then give them the option of sharing these clips on social media. Rovio’s Bad Piggies uses Everyplay’s SDK so players can record their triumphs (and occasional failures) in building a working cart.

But as of late June, Everyplay has introduced a way for users to record their games as well as their faces during game play, which could mean big things for advertising.

If there was a way to record where a user is watching a video ad in real-time without the user knowing, advertisers can determine (in addition to whether or not a user actually watches the ad): 1) where the user is, 2) what the user might be doing instead of watching the app and 3) the user’s reaction to the ad.

Though this all sounds creepy, it’s not a very likely possibility. Collecting and storing videos of every person watching (or not watching) every video ad being played would result in an incredible amount of data. Let’s not forget to mention the security concerns involved in this type of an SDK. An app would most likely have to ask the user’s permission to be recorded, like push notifications, and chances are, not too many people would agree.

But if technology has advanced enough by then, programs can be created to determine user information based on videos, and the data that is extracted can then be filtered through an analytics service such as Flurry or AdColony.

Right now, to the dismay of marketers, there probably is a ban against this type of super smart but super private tracking (though who knows what the government is up to). It’s a beautiful concept in the advertising world, but also quite invasive.

Do you think advertising will ever reach this point? Where do you think the future of advertising is going next?

What’s so daunting about data?

The phrase “Money makes the world go around” can only be considered half-true these days. With the proliferation of business intelligence platforms and continually growing interest in data analysis, data — in addition to money — make the world go around.

Before the advent of major social media players like Facebook and Twitter, data for marketing used to be much simpler. In most introductory marketing classes, professors emphasize the importance of learning, living and breathing the marketing mix and the four Ps of marketing.

But as pleasant as it would be if these were the ingredients to every successful marketing campaign, unfortunately, it’s just not as effective anymore. People have become more skeptical, especially with the recent NSA outings and Edward Snowden’s whistle-blowing ways. People know that commercials are made to sell you products. People know that, despite the many feel-good commercials that air on television, in the end, corporations just want your money.

A silly jingle or a goofy-looking spokes-character isn’t enough to get potential customers to buy your product.

Marketing isn’t what it used to be. People aren’t as naive as they used to be.

You. Need. Data.

I’m no expert on this topic (yet), but what I do know is that there are several layers of data-tracking and more than a number of ways to collect, analyze and apply data.

If you’re only looking to find out, for example, which pages of your website are the most popular or how many people per day visit your website, a free version of Google Analytics will do. Or if you have a WordPress blog, WordPress can track not only the above, but also the countries your readers are from, what sources led them to your website, which external links your readers clicked on and more.

Let’s say you want more information than that. In addition to the pages you have, you also want to track which links within your website or app are clicked the most. Take a mobile game app, for example. Using an analytics service like Flurry, you can enable event tracking, which allows marketers and analysts to see what types of decisions users make. Your game might allow users to choose between two colors: red and hot pink. If your data, through event tracking, shows that 99% of users choose red over hot pink, it might be time that you introduced a new color.

Even though event tracking provides a great amount of insight on consumer decisions and tendencies, for many companies that utilize data and analytics, this is probably not enough. In fact, you want data on every single one of your customers. Sure, it sounds frightening, but it’s nothing unusual anymore. Every time you give an application permission to let you log-in through Facebook, guess what? Now that application knows your name, your email and a whole lot more.

And though signing up for accounts can make storing information such as saved preferences more convenient for the user, remember — the site you signed up for now knows what you like and can do a better job of targeting you with more appropriate advertisements.

But I’ll stop myself here because, as bad as this all sounds, in other ways, data can also benefit the user too.

For example, if you’ve been assigned to research A/B testing services and find yourself having a hard time, ads can help you out. After you look up a couple of A/B testing sites, other recommended sites will come up as ads on websites that support cookie-enabled advertising such as AdChoices. From experience, I’ve been able to discover a number of different (and bona fide!) services just by clicking on ads.

And let’s face it… as much as we love to support our right for privacy, whether you like it or not, we’re all guilty of taking advantage of data in one way or another.

LinkedIn is just one site that serves as a testament to our data-loving ways. Who doesn’t get a kick out of seeing how many admirers (or stalkers, depending on how you look at it) view your profile?

Even in games such as Temple Run, users can see stats on what their longest runs or highest scores are.

And don’t get me started on infographics, those pretty visual representations of data which people from all over the world have come to adore. (And if you don’t like infographics now, maybe this one will change your mind.)

In a way, data is a lot like gossip.

We know that too much of it can be bad, but we love it anyway. Humans are nosy. We like to know about everything, especially when the information pertains to us.

I’m guilty of loving data. I feel flattered when I see that someone has visited my LinkedIn profile. When I play Tiny Tower, I love going to the stats and seeing how many sales are being made per minute. And I can’t get enough of those charming infographics. (Here’s my Pinterest to prove it.)

But at the same time, the amount of data that websites and apps want to access can be alarming. Recently, I bought a new computer and installed Firefox along with a number of add-ons including Self-Destructing Cookies, which “gets rid of site’s cookies and LocalStorage as soon as you close its tabs.” Though it’s a little unsettling to see the amount of times these self-destructing cookies notifications go off, by the same token, I can also understand these websites and apps just want to target users more efficiently.

Data has become a very important, very essential part of marketing, and as people become more skeptical and as more companies compete for customers’ attention and money, the more advanced business intelligence and analytics platforms will become.

What do you think? Have you had enough of websites tracking you, or have you found that ads can be surprisingly helpful? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this controversial topic.

Warning: These Games May Be Extremely Addicting

There’s no question that the mobile gaming industry has evolved quite a bit over the past few years.

The majority of the top grossing apps in Apple’s App Store are games, and everyone is hungry for a slice of the profit pie.

A perfect example of a company benefiting from this mobile gaming boom is Supercell, a startup based in Helsinki, Finland.

If the name sounds familiar, chances are you’ve probably played one of their two hit games: Clash of Clans and Hay Day.

Each game is designed in a way that caters to a particular target audience. The former game, which has users defending their village from outside enemies (clans), is a little rough. On the other hand, Hay Day is more bucolic, and gives users the chance to tend their virtual farms and raise livestock.

On these two games alone, the 95-employee company churns out approximately $2.5 million per day.

You could buy a lot of virtual pigs with that kind of money.

The two apps have received 85 million downloads and counting. Supercell’s games have also stayed in the top 10 grossing apps for a while now, which is no easy feat whatsoever.

So what’s Supercell doing that’s making them so much dough?

As much as I didn’t want to download Supercell’s games, knowing that I would most likely get addicted, I had to figure out what separates Supercell from the rest of the pack.

That left me with no other choice but to download Hay Day.

The moment I started playing , I realized there was something unmistakably special about  Hay Day.

For one, Hay Day has one of the best game tutorials I’ve ever seen. Each step, from planting crops to feeding animals, is carefully explained with photos and movements. Tutorials must be completed in order for a user to move on — but everything about swipes and taps are intuitive anyway.

The outcome? Each user is thoroughly educated on how to play Hay Day. One of the top reasons I delete games is because the game is A) too complicated or B) the instructions are terrible. What many game apps tend to lack are solid tutorials, which is deadly for user retentiveness — if a game is too confusing for a player, he or she WILL delete it.

There are also timers for just about every action made in the game, which keeps the player in suspense and has them return to the game and check on his or her progress. As a user becomes more involved with the game, more objectives, features and even animals and structures can be unlocked. This concept — making users work for rewards — can be attributed to stimulating the reward pathways in the brain.

This is where monetization comes in.

Most, if not all, top-grossing games have some kind of virtual currency, be it coins, tokens, tickets, etc. This is why so many casino-type mobile games make so much money. The way the App Store charges users is reminiscent of the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Once you start purchasing items from the App Store, it gets easier. Users become less and less reluctant to dole out money via the App Store.

So for users who aren’t particularly fond of the timers in the game, they can simply use diamonds to speed up the process of waiting for their crops to grow. But once they run out of diamonds, you’ll just have to buy diamonds with REAL money. The attention spans of this wired generation are pretty short, so why not take advantage of it?

Another ingenious way Hay Day gets people to pay up is through coupons — in-game, super time-sensitive coupons. What makes them work so well is that A) they are personalized (“You’ve been selected for this special offer”) and B) they expire within 24 hours or less. Not only does Supercell make its customers feel special, but this company knows how to get its users to act on impulses… and spend.

As I mentioned before, it’s no secret that casino games are lucrative, and Hay Day incorporates a lottery feature of its own in the game: the “Wheel of Fortune.” Every day, this wheel comes by the farm and lets users spin the wheel for a chance to win some sort of prize, be it coins or another spin. Each additional spin after that costs a diamond.

There are other features in Hay Day that games in the same genre also use, such as social media integration and in-game communities.

Singing Monsters, published by Big Blue Bubble, Inc., for instance, attracts gamers with the different musical sounds monsters make. It’s a charming game, but the timers are just a bit long, the prices for different actions and items are just a tad high and there isn’t enough customization options as there are for Hay Day. Singing Monsters does have scratch cards and games that users can play to earn more of the in-game currency.

There’s also The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which brings the humor of Matt Groening’s characters to mobile. Though the anecdotal aspect of the game is hilarious, the game experience is not as positive: Tapped Out is not very touch-friendly and the time to wait for characters to finish tasks can take too long.

TL;DR: For games that aim to have great user retention, there must be 1) easy-to-understand tutorials (user groups are recommended); 2) timers for in-game production, but don’t make them too long (e.g. In Hay Day, when a user plants crops, he or she will have to wait a certain amount of time to harvest them); 3) incorporate in-game currency/currencies, 4) give users limited-time only offers, 5) incorporate some sort of casino-aspect to your game.

I could go on and on about these “lifestyle” games, but I won’t for the sake of our shrinking attention spans. I will end this post by mentioning that I did get very hooked on Hay Day, and ended up having to shove the game into one of my app folders because I was checking my phone too often.

I haven’t touched Hay Day for a while now. But if I start receiving “We Moos You” push notifications on my phone… there’s a good chance that I’ll be back on the farm.

Favorite Things of 2012: Typography

With 2013 just around the corner, I wanted to share with you all a rather new obsession of mine that I know will keep me busy during the new year: typography. Typography is more than just creating a pretty font. It’s about branding. It’s about marketing. And it’s playing more of a role than ever in terms of sustaining the print medium and adding that extra touch to websites and apps. An excellent font sometimes means the difference between an average product and an extremely attractive and marketable one. Here are a few of my favorite typefaces from 2012…

F37 Bella

If I were to nominate any typeface to be the savior of magazines and newspapers, F37 Bella would be that typeface. Designed by the talented Rick Banks, F37 Bella is based on the letterforms of American typographers and adds a classic feel to anything this font graces. Though F37 Bella will cost you a pretty penny, it’s an elegant typeface that is unmatched and is definitely worth purchasing.

Typometry

A font that Emil from Behance made for a school project, Typometry is a geometric work of art. With subtle and sleek contours, the alphabet has never been more grateful to be given such a typeface makeover.

Frontage

Frontage is a typeface that could easily be used for a classy menu or the logo for a cutesy cafe. Made by Juri Zaech of Paris, this font can be used and changed in various ways to create stunning visual effects.

Deco Neue

Another talented student by the name of Jonatan designed this versatile font for his typography class. With its unique look, Deco Neue could be used in just about anything – from magazines to clothing brands.

Goon

If you are a user of the Over app, you might recognize this fun and crafty font. It’s a featured font on the app and makes for a great way to spice up any photo as well as any letterhead. Made by the creative Jeremy Booth, it’s a typeface that is sure to stay around for many years to come.

And with that, Techvolo’s “Favorite Things of 2012” series has come to an end. Was there another topic you wanted to see more of? Do you have any type face recommendations? Let me know in the comments below!

Have a happy new year, everyone!

Ye Olde Mac vs PC Debate

I have a confession to make.

Every post I put up on Tech Volo is done using, not a Mac, but a PC.

Surprised? I don’t blame you. After all, I’m 19 (Mac users are 22% more likely than PC users to be between the ages of 18-34), I like to snack on hummus and banh mi (PC people supposedly prefer tuna fish sandwiches and patty melts) and I’m a big fan of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report (PC people tend to enjoy The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and 20/20 more).

Where am I getting these facts? The fabulous people at the Hunch Blog surveyed over 700,000 Hunch users between March 2009 and April 2011 about their personal preferences as PC or Mac users and organized everything into a neat “Profile Of A Self-Described Mac Person vs. PC person” infographic.

Sure, it’s all a little silly, but it’s also very interesting to see just how differently these two brands (sorry Linux) portray themselves through the users of their products and not primarily through their products.

Remember those good ol’ Mac vs. PC commercials? Apple made it so easy to laugh at the uptight, suited middle-aged man with the spectacles and so difficult to root against the smooth, relaxed and confident brunette yuppie in the slacks. Instead of being subtle, Apple went ahead and boldly showed the world what they thought a typical Mac user and buyer should look and act like. These commercials were flattering for Mac users but terribly embarrassing for PC users. Nevertheless, the commercials worked. Apple successfully branded themselves as the “cool” operating system and to this day, never fails to maintain that image (except when they started to run those Genius Bar ads… read more about it here).

But what if you’re a PC user, like me? First of all, don’t feel bad. I did at one point, while those ingenious Mac vs. PC commercials were running, but once I realized it was all a marketing tactic, I was once again happy with my trusty PC.

But what if you actually want a Mac but just can’t afford to have one or have to wait a while until you can get one? Well, right now my computer looks a little like this:

Like what you see at the bottom? Though you can’t completely change your PC into a Mac, you can just pretend for the time being. All you have to do is download ObjectDock here and you’ll have a new Mac-esque widget on your PC!

So are you a proud Mac user or a proud PC user? What do you like about your operating system of choice? What do you not like? Let me know in the comments below!