Shopping in the Age of Mobile
Smartphones are everywhere. The number crossed the 1 billion mark in Q3 2012, according to Strategy Analyst in its report Global Smartphone Installed Base by Operating System for 88 Countries: 2007 to 2017. Now one in every seven persons on the planet owns a smartphone, signaling a gigantic trend: Smartphones will soon become the most ubiquitous piece of hardware to rule the planet. Naturally, consumer goods (CG) organizations are connecting their brands to shoppers and consumers over smartphones, wherever they are.
An avalanche of mobile advertising, promotions, coupons and a dizzying variety of mobile apps are being sent to CG shoppers. Result? By the end of last year, a hefty 38 percent of smartphone users in the United States had made a purchase at least once during the course of owning the device. Brands, like Nestle, Starbucks, Tylenol, Tide and Pedigree, are using mobile strategies to keep brand top-of-mind and point shoppers to retail partner locations.
Nabisco’s Oreo launched its new line of fudge crme cookies in early October with a mobile campaign that has users playing a game with the cookies. Oreo’s rich media mobile game has Facebook and Twitter features. As shoppers and consumers interact with the product, brand awareness increases — and spreads through social networks. You don’t need a fortune cookie to tell you that the CG segment is innovating around mobile to connect shoppers and consumers to reviews from their social networks, create personalization, use features like click-to-call and connect consumers to their call centers, and work with retail partners to entice the shopper through strategies such as mobile co-couponing.
In addition, imagine how technologies such as AR, QR Codes and Near Field Communication (NFC) are changing how CG organizations reach out to shoppers and consumers. In June this year, Walmart and P&G stickered bus shelters in Chicago and New York with images of their products, just as shoppers would see them on retail shelves. The “stores” came up overnight, without conventional infrastructure. Mobile shoppers could instantly purchase from brands like Tide, Iams Dog Food and Gillette by scanning the QR code on the product pictures and adding the items to their mobile shopping carts. Once they “checked out” the products were delivered to their address the next day.
The CG industry is not new to technology. However, smartphone usage represents the most chaotic and rapid shift in technology in the recent past. As more shoppers and consumers use mobile devices, they want to go beyond smart marketing and simple convenience, forcing CG organizations to rapidly innovate and differentiate.
The bottom line is that CG organizations need to embrace mobility as tightly as its shoppers and consumers. It must ensure that mobility becomes part of every conversation within business.
An avalanche of mobile advertising, promotions, coupons and a dizzying variety of mobile apps are being sent to CG shoppers. Result? By the end of last year, a hefty 38 percent of smartphone users in the United States had made a purchase at least once during the course of owning the device. Brands, like Nestle, Starbucks, Tylenol, Tide and Pedigree, are using mobile strategies to keep brand top-of-mind and point shoppers to retail partner locations.
Nabisco’s Oreo launched its new line of fudge crme cookies in early October with a mobile campaign that has users playing a game with the cookies. Oreo’s rich media mobile game has Facebook and Twitter features. As shoppers and consumers interact with the product, brand awareness increases — and spreads through social networks. You don’t need a fortune cookie to tell you that the CG segment is innovating around mobile to connect shoppers and consumers to reviews from their social networks, create personalization, use features like click-to-call and connect consumers to their call centers, and work with retail partners to entice the shopper through strategies such as mobile co-couponing.
In addition, imagine how technologies such as AR, QR Codes and Near Field Communication (NFC) are changing how CG organizations reach out to shoppers and consumers. In June this year, Walmart and P&G stickered bus shelters in Chicago and New York with images of their products, just as shoppers would see them on retail shelves. The “stores” came up overnight, without conventional infrastructure. Mobile shoppers could instantly purchase from brands like Tide, Iams Dog Food and Gillette by scanning the QR code on the product pictures and adding the items to their mobile shopping carts. Once they “checked out” the products were delivered to their address the next day.
The CG industry is not new to technology. However, smartphone usage represents the most chaotic and rapid shift in technology in the recent past. As more shoppers and consumers use mobile devices, they want to go beyond smart marketing and simple convenience, forcing CG organizations to rapidly innovate and differentiate.
The bottom line is that CG organizations need to embrace mobility as tightly as its shoppers and consumers. It must ensure that mobility becomes part of every conversation within business.