Mobile Futures (Global Innovation Review )

So you’re probably expecting me to blind you with science on how the consumer of tomorrow will be using his mobile as a wallet, TV, personal navigator, visual search tool, home security device and more. This is true, but hold on a minute. As interesting as these solutions might be there are some more fundamental trends that are already bubbling away under the surface today that will be the driver for their adoption and success. 

Context and location will transform the way consumers live their lives, and ultimately how we communicate with them. In fact let’s talk like a consumer would, and call them people and places. People is all about you, or your friends and family, or about something you like that others like. It’s about what makes consumers tick, what they play, eat, like, drink, think and what they’ve done. It’s all the stuff you’ve started sharing with friends through Facebook, the clickstreams of your shopping behaviour online and much more. Places is all about where you do the above, where you are now, what that place is like, what you are doing there and where you’re heading next. 

When you blend people and places together you can create powerful experiences for consumers, and opportunities for marketers to be there at the right place and the right time, with the right service. 

Building the foundations 

We’re already seeing a lot of advertising that’s based on ‘people’ making waves. 

Although no social network has yet emerged as an advertising behemoth, these sites have collected huge amounts of very interesting data on consumers. Groups, communities and profiles are being matched so that one conversation you have, or an opinion you express, can be matched to many. Some networks now run sophisticated, targeted campaigns on this data, and consumers are responding positively. But this is just the beginning and the brand view right now is that social networks are only just starting to show signs of being an effective advertising channel. 

The main thing today’s environment tells us is that consumers are living their lives in a much more open way. But according to market research specialists TNS, 72% of them find online advertising annoying when it is not targeted to their needs, while relevant ads are most often perceived by the consumers as ‘information I need’. Customers are becoming more willing to share information about themselves and are pleasantly surprised when advertising is actually relevant. 

Convergence and the ‘digital passport’ 

But who actually wants to have seven profiles and address books across their social networks? Or to tell Twitter, Linked-in and MySpace individually ‘what you are doing’. 

Convergence will be so apparent in a few years from now that the idea of moving all this data around to different services manually will seem like a totally ridiculous idea. Many of us have just made the move from having two or three contacts books to one. My rolodex died years ago, and now I no longer worry about losing all my mobile’s contacts as I sync them up with my Ovi account online. Thank god for one address book. 

But we need to take this idea further. The big revolution over the coming years is that you will have one profile that reflects your likes, dislikes and location and is open and shared through all the services and products that you use. As consumers get more comfortable with this idea, and information security and transparency improve, these information flows will permeate everything we do and ultimately make life much easier. 

Before you all sound the consumer privacy alarm bell and start spouting Orwellian warnings, the information passed will be anonymous (as it is today in mobile advertising), and consumers will have the option to pass on profile information in exchange for more relevant services, or decline. And just as you do with your instant messenger today, you can also choose to be online or invisible. 

Places is an area which we’re getting very excited about. With mobile map products such as Nokia Maps, personal navigation has been a buzzword for early adopters, and is now becoming a mainstream function as tens of millions of devices are shipped with map products. And not only will mobile help you find what you are looking for when you are out and about, it will also give you information about that building, tell you what your friends think about that bar and allow you get instant pointers on what else might be of interest to you in the area. 

The idea of having converged services that track ‘people’ and ‘places’ information no matter what device is being used is within touching distance, and not a far-off dream. But to empower it all to work for millions of people we need to ensure they have ‘digital passports’ with all their profile information that they can take with them to their favourite destinations or services, without the hassle of having to organise a visa every time. Signing up to a new service from scratch or using the mobile version of a service must be seamless. 

Click to connect 

Web 2.0 is alive and well, but we’ve not seen the real effect yet. Most people use the web for two-way interaction; some have a blog but they are not in the majority. When people tell me that digital media has changed the way everyone lives I beg to differ. By 2015, however, it is predicted that there will be more than 5 billion internet-enabled devices on the market, and the majority of them will be mobile. The humble mobile phone, initially just a simple device for making calls, will be responsible for opening up the majority. 

However, just as importantly, mobile will be responsible for opening up what we like to call ‘the clickable world’, allowing brands to tie together the physical and digital worlds, instead of treating them like two separate entities. 

In the clickable world, the world around you becomes your web, and the mobile device is your cursor. Your device allows you to point your phone at objects or products to find out more about them. It gives you the power to bring everything you love with you and to post it to any screen. It becomes your payment method, loyalty card and deliverer of personalised offers. It becomes a sensor, of what you are doing, of movements of people, for the benefit of all. And, importantly, it allows you to have very open and frequent conversations with your own digital world and, when you want, with brands. While the industry has been trying to project the web onto mobile devices, the device will increasingly project itself onto the web, instantly and invisibly providing context through location information, contacts and mobile-generated content such as video. 

Through all this, the consumer has assumed total control of how they behave and what branded communication they receive, but advertising remains absolutely core to them. Except it’s not really seen as advertising as the lines between providing a service and advertising a product have become so blurred.

Brand involvement in the clickable world

Brands will have a more complex ecosystem on their hands and have to make a lot of judgment calls about what is appropriate when. The future will be about collaborative and consumer-driven innovations. Brands need to take the ‘people’ and ‘place’ information that is open to them and ensure that their products, campaigns and offers are truly relevant.

If consumers are more open with their lives in the digital world, then relationships with brands need to be more transparent. Companies with no core values or foundations will be found out through the increasing number and volume of conversations that they are having. Brands can no longer be based on an image, lifestyle or sponsorship programme alone.

So what does Nokia believe? Well, we think that mobile products and services can help you every day, in a myriad of ways. We also know that consumers want access to affordable and often free services that they expect to be supported by relevant and respectful advertising.

Which is why, at Nokia, we have created a dedicated unit – Nokia Interactive Advertising – to help brands engage the mobile consumer. Nokia Interactive Advertising is building a global open marketplace for mobile advertising with the Nokia Media Network, an advertising network of quality mobile publishers and Nokia services that reach millions of consumers worldwide.

We are also providing brands with creative and strategic services through Nokia Interactive Solutions, which creates high-performance mobile campaigns for brands, from banner ads, mobile internet sites and location finders to mobile coupons, click-to-call and other advanced mobile mechanics.

Nokia’s focus on being a consumer services company, as well as a device company, makes advertising an important revenue stream and will be a key driver of the quality of services we provide. Brands must now focus on morphing from old school, mass-media broadcasting techniques towards having regular, more contextual, personalised conversations.

Conductive, sensor-like marketing will be on the ascendant in the clickable world, with brands simply facilitating where consumers go next. Despite the complexity in the background, consumer experiences will be more seamless, simple and enjoyable. Advertising can still be rich, engaging and entertaining but if it is not making their lives easier and providing clear value, consumers will turn their backs and shut the door to their world on you.