Mobile Youth Survey

For a consumer to be loyal to a brand, the consumer must connect with it at an emotional level. If the response to a brand is driven purely by rational evaluations, loyalty if exhibited, is spurious. A switch is imminent, and will happen as and when a competing brand scores over the present one, on parameters important to the consumer.

An emotional connection is a result of a higher level of involvement on the part of the consumer with the category in question. The intensity of decision making involved could be as a result of a higher level of cognition employed. Once a brand is chosen post evaluations, ie., purchased, and should it 'connect', loyalty in all probability will follow.

Coming to Soft drinks, in India, there could be a set of consumers who connect with the brands available, at an emotional level. Maybe its the GenXers taking to what Pepsi projects itself as. Pepsi's youthful image may resonate well with the youth, which may then translate into purchases. As long as Pepsi reinforces that image, brand loyalty will be sustained.

But then again, there could another set of consumers, me included, who see 'Youngistaan' as the corniest idea there ever is, therefore are unmoved, therefore are not loyal. Also, don't discount the fact there could still be another set who are loyal to a cluster of brands, not just one, that may even include competing brands.

The teen market in the U.S. has typically been among the fastest growing in the wireless industry and by the age of 17 at least 91 percent of girls and 78 percent of boys own a mobile phone, according to a new study from Multimedia Intelligence. That market's now reaching a point of saturation, so the firm looked into key ages where cellphone ownership appeared to surge or slow down. (Release.)

Some interesting findings from the survey that reached 2,000 to 2,500 teens:
-- At age 13 there's little gap in cellphone ownership between genders with 57 percent of all teenagers having a cellphone.
-- Strong ownership gains are seen among teen boys at age 13 and 16. In 2006, 13-year-old boys accounted for one million subscribers, 40 percent higher than 12-year-old boys. At 16, boys accounted for 1.6 million subscribers in 2007, almost 30 percent higher than 15-year-olds.
-- The difference between 16-year-old and 15-year-old girls was only 6 percent, by comparison.
-- Hispanic teens are projected to be one of the strongest growth areas for new subscribers, a segment that should approach 3 million by 2012.

"The teen market is an especially appealing market for two reasons. First, it is a primary source of new subscribers for carriers. Second, teens teach older demographic how to use their handsets, " Frank Dickson, the firm's chief research officer, wrote in the report. "However, the differences in the cellphone consumption patterns among the teen segments are remarkable and need to be noted. Targeting teens at the right age and gender is critical to maximize subscriber gains. Targeting teens at the wrong age and not considering gender will cause operators to miss the boat."

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Is Google a threat? This was a hot topic during the Mobile Search Masterclass, and I encourage your feedback.

In a nutshell, the debate centered on whether Google - given the popularity of Google Maps and the utility of its recent upgrade (which Andrew Grill explores in this post) - will ultimately dominate location search and services. With rumors circulating that Google may soon open up its Cell-ID database API to third parties, it’s not only possible - it’s highly probable that Google will dethrone the mobile operators who have long been in charge of this information and in search of a model by which to monetize it.

If (or shall I say when?) this happens, would operators merely be getting the payback they deserve? Their combined greed or lack of vision (or both) has made location look-ups prohibitively expensive for the growing number of developers, brands, and providers jockeying to offer location-based services or proximity-based advertising. (Location checks are equivalent in price to SMS messages. Checking where users are, just in case they might want content or be in buy-mode, several times an hour will drive a company bankrupt.)

Kudos to Andrew Grill for an insightful and entertaining presentation that tells us all - once and for all - why the Starbucks example (using network-based polling) is nonsense.

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Kudos to Jonathan Raper for a job well done! The feedback from the first Mobile Search Masterclass, which he expertly organized, is overwhelmingly positive. In fact, there are already discussions underway to create a series of masterclasses, each focused on a particular aspect of mobile search. It’s all in the planning stage at the moment, but it’s easy to envision a wide variety of in-depth seminars covering topics ranging from search advertising to mobile SEO. More on that soon, so please check back regularly.

I’m honored that Jonathan has asked me to speak at upcoming workshops, and proud to present with esteemed colleagues such as David Mountain, Lecturer and Technical Director of Placr Ltd., a mobile location services/search provider I will showcase soon on MSG; Andrew Grill, whose blog has deservedly become synonymous with proximity services and mobile advertising; and Ayse Göker, Lecturer and CEO of Ambiesense Ltd., a super-cool company that takes a distinctly user-centered approach to mobile information systems and search.

Ayse shares my passion and values, and has signed on to write thought leadership columns for MSG. The chemistry is right and I expect great things to happen. She’s also agreed to be on the MSG Advisory Board for a project my colleague Peggy Albright will tell you more about in a summary post later this week.

Speaking of summaries, I’d like to hone in on some of the masterclass highlights beginning with Jonathan’s examination of the location services and search schemes that matter. (Jonathan is also Editor of the Journal of Location Based Services, and CEO of Placr Ltd. His insights and articles are invaluable, and I will collaborate with him to make both accessible to the wider MSG community.)

Fortunately for us all, Jonathan did more than merely discuss the exciting new companies and segments high on his radar; he posted a complete list - which he aptly named the LBS Hall Of Fame.

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I'll be presenting word of mouth marketing at the prestigious Youth Marketing Forum 2008 and running a workshop with Sam Flemming (CIC Data & China I WOM Blog ). Conference Dates: 2 & 3 Sept. Workshop Date: 1 Sept. Place: Singapore ...

Move over, guys. Mom wants to play.

Three parent Hutchison Whampoa has waded in is calling for roaming data charges to be lowered across Europe. It said it had reached a million mobile broadband subscribers across the continent but is being stifled by high costs.

European telecoms director Christian Salbaing: "Consumers are rightly fearful of the excessive charges faced when they roam off our networks. Some networks are charging the equivalent of €12 to watch a three minute YouTube clip or up to €180 to download an hour of television, this could inflict serious harm on a growing market.

"Typical retail roaming prices are literally hundreds of times what customers expect to pay domestically. A European consumer might pay around one euro cent per megabyte at home, yet pay a premium of 360 times that simply to cross a border."

Europe's telecoms commissioner Vivianne Reding had threatened to cap cross-border data and SMS charges this month if carriers couldn't lower prices. Bt her director-general Fabio Colasanti backed out of that last week, arguing data is a less mature market than SMS, instead calling for greater price transparency so that the ball is in consumers' court on bill shock. Reding capped voice roaming charges last year, just in time for Europeans' summer vacations.

But Salbaing disagrees that the mobile web is still immature: "Mobile broadband is already a mass market proposition." As evidence of what cost cuts could do, he said Three's 3 Like Home tariff, which lets subscribers use their domestic rate abroad, had resulted in roaming data volumes increasing 2,500 percent in the last year. Three, KPN, BASE, E-Plus and Play in February agreed to a wholesale rate of 25 euro cents ($0.36) per megabyte.

Related

• EU Telecoms Chief Gives Final Warning To Cut Texting And Data Roaming Charges
• EC Launches Consultation, Mulls Data Roaming And SMS Price Caps
• $21,852 Bill For Downloading Friends Points To Excessive Roaming Data Costs

ContentNext's EconCeleb Seminar examines what drives the economics of celebrity content. July 23, 2008 at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood. Learn more.

We're kicking off the afternoon with a chatty keynote interview by Kara Swisher of All Things D with Bonnie Fuller, most recently EVP and chief editorial director of American Media, Inc. and now the head of a self-named digital startup. For a little context on how serious Fuller takes celeb content, when Swisher suggested something might be doing better online, she quickly replied: "It may even be more successful than porn at this point." (I was going to suggest that celeb content is the gift that keeps on giving for Fuller but really it wouldn't exist as we know it without her work so can't call it a gift. Then again, Britney Spears might as well come with a bow.)

Fuller's new venture—she's coy about scope and funding just now—will start in the digital realm. She's particularly intrigued by the potential for interaction: "I want to be able to not just connect … I want to have conversations, be interactive." She says she's always learned a lot as an editor by interacting with her readers—"I'm going to be able to do (it) on a daily basis, an hourly basis."

-- POV: Will her new effort be bitchy? Snarky? Fuller: "I put myself in there as a best friend. I've always been my readers' best friend ... I'm a welcoming person to my audience. They're not going to be afraid of me. You can be fun without being nasty." Swisher reminded her about Star and Us Weekly but no real response to that.

-- Back to print?: Will print go away? "I don't think it will ever go away. I love magazines but like Time and Newsweek they're going to have to adapt." She wouldn't rule out a magazine emerging from her new venture.

-- Growth industry?: "I think it's going to absolutely continue ... because human beings since the dawn of time have been born with the gossip gene" especially about the rich, powerful and famous. "Think of high school—everybody was obsessed with the 'in' crowd … Hollywood's our 'in' crowd. We cant help being obsessed with them."

-- Q&A: How will you stand out from the competition? Fuller: "Look, design, accessibility and mix if I do it right—and I have a history of doing it right with this audience."

Related

• @ EconCeleb: Harvey Levin: 'We Don't Want To Be A Red Carpet'
• @ EconCeleb: Advertising Across Big And Small Brands; Cross-Platform; International
• @ EconCeleb: New Voices: Blogs And Social Media Get In The Game
• @ EconCeleb: Paparazzi Photos A Booming Business And 'We're All Whores Making Money'
• @ EconCeleb: E!'s Kolb: 'A Lot Of Our Talent Have Gone To Jail And We've Been Very Clear On That'

ContentNext's EconCeleb Seminar examines what drives the economics of celebrity content. July 23, 2008 at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood. Learn more.

--Independent Artists Gain Mobile Outlet: A new service available over SMS and online enables artists to sell original works as wallpapers for mobile. Hands-On Mobile launched mixtArt today and many of the first artists featured on the platform will be at ComiCon later this week in San Diego to unveil the art pieces that have been made into wallpapers thus far. The project is expected to get refreshed with new wallpapers every month. (Release.)

--Pre-Installed Mobile Browsers To Drive $492 Million By 2013: Mobile browsers that are pre-installed on mobile phones is expect to bring in at least $492 million by 2013, according to a new report by ABI Research. (Release. Keep in mind this is information gathered from only one source, so it may not be accurate.) The firm also pointed out the growing strength of open-source browsers such as WebKit and Gecko, which power the iPhone's Safari and Firefox browsers respectively, however commercial browser vendors such as Opera and ACCESS are seeing business growth as well, the firm said.

--iPhone Development Surged In Three Months Leading To App Store Launch: The iPhone was the most popular testing platform for developers in the previous three months out of more than 1,500 handsets available for testing with DeviceAnywhere, a mobile testing and monitoring company. (Keep in mind this is information gathered from only one source, so it may not be accurate.) Following the release of the iPhone's SDK, the firm says it saw an unprecedented rise in the amount of hours developers spent testing for the platform, logging 1,155 hours over the three-month span.
Five most popular handsets on DeviceAnywhere's testing service over last three months:
1. iPhone – 1,155 hours
2. Blackberry Pearl – 1,050 hours
3. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N75 – 1,006 hours
4. Blackberry Curve – 871 hours
5. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) V3m – 609 hours
Lemonquest has taken part in this...it has released Circulate Prologue, a teaser for the full game to come later. Players move the phone itself to play the game, rotating the entire game board by doing so in order to guide balls to their required places. (release)
For its part, WashingtonPost.com has launched a City Guide iPhone application for Washington DC, which lets people turn their iPhones and iPod touches into an entertainment guide for the city. It has GPS, search, reviews and so on.

Science Via Mobile And Baseball: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is sponsoring a competition powered by Hot Lava Software dubbed Sports Bytes Competition. It aims to get kids interested in science by interacting with them through their mobile phones during the downtime of a baseball game. The idea is to ask trivia such as "which goes faster, a softball or a baseball" and use that as a launching point for baseball-related science. (release)

Presidential Comics: IDW Publishing and GoComics are publishing a pair of graphic novel biographies: Presidential Material: Barack Obama and Presidential Material: John McCain at PresidentialComics.com. Because it's GoComics its also on mobile, downloadable through gocomics.com/presidents, on some US carriers and on the mobile web. It will be interesting to see which format sells more…

Great summary of youth marketing and media usage of today’s youth.