There was a time when mobile marketing essentially meant phones, but all that has changed. Today, iPads and other tablet devices have joined the fray. A marketer could be promoting a product or service through an app, a QR code, or a Facebook link, or using all three depending on the type of campaign.

Marketing campaigns through iPads and other tablet devices are focused on creating a memorable user experience. Interestingly, there is no standard set of rules for this marketing method yet, and since the technology happens to be open-ended, a marketer is only limited by her imagination.

An example is Realtor Coldwell Banker’s iPad app which was promoted with a new Google ad format termed the “branded video” featuring a clickable video ad.  This ad was first released as a banner, and users could click to see more. Interaction rates were over 7%, compared with the standard 0.01% click-through rate for banners.

Many businesses are either already invested in a mobile marketing campaign or have plans to, considering the rapid increase in the use of smart phones and how people access content and services on the move.  comScore reported, in late October 2011, that smartphones and tablets drive nearly 5% of digital traffic in EU5 and a 45% increase in  mobile banking app usage in the U.S. Q4 2010

Mobile marketing is a unique way to engage and connect with consumers, as it can entertain or offer useful services. Here are some of the top campaigns using iPads and other tablet devices:

• The dual screen ad from Heineken: Heineken, the global brand, realising that people access their mobiles while watching TV, promoted a mobile game called the StarPlayer, around the Champions League. Fans could interact in real time. Around ten minutes before the game, users could unlock this game and answer a bunch of predictive questions related to the game. This was highly successful, as the app got fans engaged with the brand and their favorite football team simultaneously.
• Another example is Wal-Mart, the retailer giant, which is gearing up to connect with millions of customers before the holiday season using the mobile platform.   They will be releasing new mobile apps integrating coupons and voice recognition in the browsing and shopping experience. The iPad and iPhone apps allow online shopping as well as finding out the availability of the product. After ordering via these apps can be shipped or personally collected from the store. Besides mobile coupon access, the new iPhone app shows a shopping list that integrates voice recognition.
• Automobile giant Toyota is using rich animated media banner ads on Yahoo Fantasy Football iPad, iPhone and Android apps to engage its users with its brand.   This interesting campaign has animated banner ads that access Yahoo content feeds and the ad links to the Toyota site.

The growth of smartphones and tablets devices are driving social media campaigns, and Social TV is expected to offer tremendous opportunities for both brands and mobile marketers. On top of the list of beneficiaries are event-based programs like live shows and sports where the level of engagement is highest. Tablets are especially one up on smartphones because of their size, allowing the user a better visual experience. Mobile marketers are naturally quite keen to take advantage of this rapidly growing market by giving the users what they want.

The next time you visit a museum, your experience could be very different from what you expect. Technology has transformed the way we interact today, and some of the world’s biggest museums are experimenting with augmented reality to connect with the tech-savvy generation, to offer them a multi-sensory experience.

The Asian Civilization Museum in Singapore has a new iPhone app combining augmented reality and location-based gaming for its Terracotta Warriors exhibition. iPhone users can watch the museum exhibits come to life on their phone screen, engaging them in a more interesting way.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City uses a free app called Explorer with free devices to demonstrate it. This app helps navigate the museum, acting as a personal guide for a custom tour, letting you choose the exhibits you want to see. The app also steers you in the right direction, enhancing the experience and providing information about each exhibit.

At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, media artists used augmented reality to create a show for the Conflux festival in October 2010. They used Layar, the augmented reality browser in a smartphone, to show visitors the museum’s galleries via the phone’s camera. The GPS and internet connection projected the virtual art on the camera’s image.

In Australia, the Powerhouse Museum has an augmented reality mobile app which pulls images from the museum’s Flickr archive and shows them through the Layar browser.

Apps combining augmented reality are poised to revolutionise visits to the museum in a futuristic way. The apps being experimented show how augmented reality can add a new dimension to audio guides. The visitor can see the original artist standing beside their creation and talking about it.  An example is artist Jan Rothuizen who had an augmented reality exhibition of his work at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

It is not just museums that are embracing augmented reality. Other cultural institutions use augmented reality to integrate digital content with the real world. With the Museum of London’s iPhone app, users can see the museum’s collection of archived photography on their phones based on their location and orientation.

One of the most interesting augmented reality museum apps is the one at The Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam which offers two versions of its tours, a real one and the second via an augmented reality app, using 3D augmented reality and Layar technology that describes the history about the various monuments in the city. It uses images, audio and other information and shows 3D models of future buildings and shows what they may look like in the future. Users found that while the human guide was attentive, the augmented reality app could provide more information, offering more flexibility according to the visitor’s individual preference.

According to ABI Research, about 6 million augmented reality apps were downloaded last year. This number is expected to reach 19 million downloads this year and about a billion by 2016.  It will be exciting to watch future trends and see how augmented reality enthralls museum visitors, while enabling museums present them with an unforgettable experience.

The Management World Africa 2011, organised by TM Forum, in September 2011 in Johannesburg, brought service providers together to get insight into running a service provider business in the communication industry. Naturally, at the forefront of the proceedings was a detailed discussion and review of Africa’s mobile industry, and the opportunities that exist in it.

One of the most exciting things about the African mobile market is the opportunity to explore and capture markets. Since many services are barely existent for most customers, this opens up the market for service providers who can make their offering available to the market. The chance for saturation always looms ahead, as with any market. The Africa mobile market is growing rapidly each year, and it is likely to get saturated in five or eight years. In such a market, only service providers who have a strong infrastructure and customer support system can hope to survive.

In a market that is slowly getting saturated, operators and service providers must not only focus on new customer acquisition, but also lure their competitor’s customers towards themselves. How successfully they do this will depend on their products, their innovativeness, their understanding of the customer and how they serve them. This is possible with a dynamic business operation supported by IT.

An innovative market

Africa has emerged as one of the most innovative markets and one prime example of this is the way the market has embraced mobile payments.  This was initiated by Kenya’s M-Pesa which will soon expand to Afghanistan and later to India. Africa’s opportunity is in reaching out to global markets where they can capture a significant market share. The Africa mobile market has grown at an unexpected rate. Although local companies like MTN have their share of the market, names like Etisalat and Vodafone, recognising its huge potential, are poised to grab theirs.To retain their market share, the local providers must find ways, and formulate strategies to tackle their challenges, since those outside of Africa already have the experience to do this.

What does the future hold?

For Africa, the impact of mobile phones is different than in other parts of the world. Mobile phones allow people to work remotely, enhance communication and also promote ecommerce to some extent. While some parts of Africa have no connectivity of any type, some parts depend on the mobile phone to get their news and entertainment, and use their mobile phone to interact and conduct business.

In such a scenario, the future looks attractive, and it is the service providers in this market who will make the difference. Africa’s mobile market’s growth drives mobile communication trends. Considering that the market is yet to reach saturation, there is a lot of scope for new subscribers. That, and mobile banking are the two exciting drivers inviting outside investment.

Although the future looks bright, there also exist challenges for service providers.  One is the low revenue per customer, and the tendency of a majority of people to be on prepaid tariff. This brings up a security issue for service providers. Therefore, it all boils down to innovative customer service, while keeping an eye on the competition to survive and thrive in this exciting market.