Insightful articles, opinion and commentary about mobile and web.

Currently, high street icons are way behind the curve in meeting their customers’ mobile expectations - yet Forrester expects that by the end of 2012, most noteworthy Australian online retail websites will be optimized for mobile (up from 20% of all sites today) or complemented by mobile apps (up from 6% today).

In this podcast, Simon van Wyk talks to Paul Marshall former executive general manager, Digital Innovation at Salmat and former executive general manager at Lasoo about the enormous opportunity that mobile presents to retailers and how to meet the needs of increasingly mobile-savvy shoppers.

 

 The State of Australian Retail from your Mobile: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week showed desperately soft retail spending in December last year on the back of lacklustre trade during November. The figures didn’t surprise anyone and only serve to underline the gloom enveloping the Australian retail sector.

But it’s not as if consumers aren’t spending. You see, online commerce is alive and well and growing exponentially. Forrester predicts that Australian online retail sales are set to balloon from $16.9 billion in 2009 to A$33.3 billion in 2015. So rather than soft consumer sentiment and worries over the global economy, I think Australian retail is being held back by a lack of foresight and innovation.

Australian consumers are enjoying renewed spending power and choice and Australian retailers need to play catch up. They also need to wake up to the consumer shift to mobile everything as shoppers increasingly use mobile devices like smartphones and iPads while they shop. According to Forrester, Australian smartphone users purchase an item every four seconds through eBay’s mobile apps.

read more

HotHouse will be discussing mobile at this year’s Red Rock Oracle Leadership Forum for IT professionals which will be held in Sydney on 8th March.

This is one-day conference covers all aspects of Oracle applications and technologies, and HotHouse will focus on WebCentre technologies expertise and how to manage and mobilise content.

The explosion of mobile usage offers big opportunities. But to appeal to mobile users and take advantage of this space, businesses need to provide mobile optimised websites.

IT professionals across the country will be required to implement mobile platforms to support their business. But where do you start? How do you overcome the mass fragmentation and how do you leverage your existing infrastructure and investment?

In our presentation, we’ll give you the facts and figures of a rapidly mobile nation.

We’ll talk through the issues of delivering optimised content across a confusingly fragmented landscape of devices and operating systems.

We’ll show you how you can leverage your existing investment in WebCentre technologies.

As a sponsor of the Leadership Forum, HotHouse has 10 complementary passes to give away. If you’re a HotHouse client and would like to go to this year’s event, please get in touch with Victoria Kerr on 02 9432 3600 or enquiries@hothouse.com.au.

Published in Marketing: Monday 09 January 9, 2012

As you work out how to exploit mobile in 2012, you need to start by working out which relevant and compelling consumer problem you’re going to address and how it delivers a benefit to your business.

It’s also important to understand that mobile represents just one of the many consumer touch points that you need to serve as part of your overall marketing strategy. Mobile marketing should not be treated in isolation.

More

In October 2011, Mary Meeker, the feted venture capitalist at KPCB, released her highly-regarded Internet Trends 2011 report. The report captured 11 key trend s and what she labelled as the Mega-Trend of the 21st Century: The empowerment of people via connected, mobile devices.

Of course, this trend is a reality everywhere. More and more of us are armed with our mobile devices of choice and use them more or less non-stop, 24×7. Just walk down any busy street and take a look around - almost everyone, regardless of their demographic, is interacting with their mobile devices.

And the more we interact with our mobile devices, the more we will want to explore the mobile web. We’re already hovering tantalizingly close to the point where more people access the Web using their mobile devices than they do using a PC. To me, it’s clear that 2012 will be the year the mobile web comes to the fore.

And so, brands will start to realise that their mobile strategy can no longer be treated in isolation. From now on, every digital experience will need to be built with mobile devices as the starting point and brands will have to develop digital experiences for three screens: the smartphone, tablet, and personal computer.

read more

Published in Campaign Brief:  Tuesday 03, January 2012

They say that 2011 saw the dawning of the post-PC era. With the accelerated shift to mobile everything, I can certainly understand why. While I don’t believe the PC is dead, I do believe that mobile is moving at such a high speed that in 2012 it will be imperative for marketers to own the mobile screen - no matter how daunting the task. While 2011 might have been the year that brands “did” mobile by creating a native app, in 2012 marketers will understand that mobile is so much more.

For me it’s not that very different from those brands that back in the day that created brochure ware websites and those that realised the full commercial potential, connectedness, and power of the web.

More

Back in September, Google/IPSOS published some interesting research findings on smartphone usage around the globe. While Australia scored second highest for smartphone penetration, the research found that only 20% of Australian businesses actually have a mobile-optimised website.

Furthermore, the research claimed that many businesses were confusing having a mobile app with having a mobile strategy. Believe me, it’s not the same thing. A mobile strategy includes acknowledging the multifaceted mobile landscape instead of focusing on just a few devices.

So, in the process of conducting some of my own research prior to an event I was attending I searched for a handful of banks and financial institutions to see what they looked like on my iPhone.

It wasn’t pretty.

read more