When was the last time you flipped through a newspaper? Last week? Last month?

There is no doubt that we now rely more heavily on different digital platforms get easy access to more information. The remaining question is how we can create a digital platform to deliver the best user experience.

Hong Kong Daily News, a news agency that is renowned for its detail analysis on horse racing, saw the need of creating a digital platform that not only allows its current readers to browse the content via their mobile devices, but can also attract audiences who are only the beginners in horse racing.

This task is challenging. To foster better user experience, the design of the platform must comprehensively enable displaying the vast amount of information and allow audience who are new to this sport to easily understand the analysis. Last but not least, interactive elements to enable users to make their own rating, as they usually do on newspapers and magazines, would provide an extraordinary convenience for them.

Launched last week, iRACE has successfully answered all these questions. The interchangeable views of information cater different user habits; card view includes pictures and condensed summaries which allows users to quickly browse and easily comprehend each horse’ condition while the list view provides detail content and sorting function by which users can re-arrange information according to their personal preference for the more in-depth analysis.

As users would usually make their own rating when they read the analysis on newspaper, this App also enables users to mark personal preferences, so that they can review their choice for each race at just a glance.

To download iRACE, please click the link below:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irace-digital-racing-booklet/id520119497?mt=8

Without a doubt, iOS and Android are currently the two mobile platforms with most market share, therefore the majority of mobile marketing strategies have been focusing on these two platforms. Yet marketers might have overlooked another up and rising mobile platform – Windows Phone. According to a study released earlier this month by ABI Research, Windows Phone 7 is a promising platform that will drive at least 720 million applications in 2012 – a potential number of audience that will receive your marketing messages.

Although the market share of Windows Phone devices is relatively small compared to the other platforms, it has great potentials to become an effective mobile marketing channel, as “it turns out to be a platform for relatively high-end devices”, according to senior analyst Aapo Markkanen. That means adopting mobile tactics on the Windows Phone platform not only leads to greater exposure for your brand, but exposing it to audience of higher purchasing power.

In Hong Kong, some media have already made the first move. ETNet, a popular financial App that has been available at App Store and Google Play, will soon arrive at the WP Market Place. The application caters every function available in both iOS and Android version, including real-time indices performance report, market views and personalized stock tracking.

But this WP version is not merely a clone. Its navigation bar, which only appears upon swiping, was designed specifically to comply with the behavior of WP users. The design of this App truly demonstrates how to create a consistent impression and platform-specific user experience.

The smartphone penetration in Hong Kong is forecasted to rise up to 78% in 2012, as stated in the Hong Kong Digital Insights Report last November, mobile devices is new and impactful communication channel between a brand and its targets. Mobile strategy is certainly important, but user experience is just as essential to an effective and intriguing “conversation” between a brand and its current or potential customers. With Android and iOS being the most popular operating system in Hong Kong, marketers should ensure consistency, yet still be sensitive to user experience according to the nature of these platforms. The back button, for example, is considered to be one of the core differences that should be treated with care when design a cross platform campaign.

Android devices have a physical back button, whereas iOS devices do not. The Human Interface guideline provided by Apple suggests that back button should be placed on the top left hand corner, as this would best suit the iOS users’ habit. On the other hand, as the back button on an Android device can trigger a series of actions, it should be taken under consideration when designing applications or web for both platforms.

As users of these two platforms have developed different using habits according to the operating system in use, mobile strategy must complement with both (or more) systems to ensure good user experience that leads to effective communication. Marketers should partner with experienced mobile strategy consultant that can provide professional advice on user experience, to maximize ROI for your mobile strategy.

The Hong Kong ICT Awards were established in 2006. The Awards recognize, promote and commend the excellent achievements to which Hong Kong ICT professionals, business corporations and organizations contribute.

While most of the award winners were IT companies, New Town Plaza was the only shopping mall recognized in the HKICT Awards 2012. New Town Plaza shows how a successful mobile marketing campaign helps to drive customer loyalty and sales.

As the first mobile application in Hong Kong to offer mobile table booking, it creates a big echo to the market. The app allows customers to make reservations at users’ favorite restaurant on their way to the mall via mobile. It helps to uplift the dining experiences at NTP.

The Push Message will come to the shoppers’ phone when there are less than 10 tables to come to their turn. This intimate design can let shoppers avoid missing tables when they are shopping around in NTP. It could ultimately turn the waiting time into shopping time as shoppers no longer need to wait in front of the restaurant, finally uplift the shopping experience and sales within NTP.

A stunning HTML5 mobile site “Make a Wish” is designed for the Christmas Eve Countdown Event. The theme of the site is full of Christmas starlight, which matches the “Starlight Garden” festive decoration at NTP. A live poll of “Which bad news in 2011 would you want to remove the most?” was held and shoppers could make a wish with their phone browsing the campaign mobile site. The atmosphere and experience were substantially enhanced by this engaging interactivity during the countdown.

Mobile platform has become a valuable asset to NTP, allowing NTP to keep communicating with target audiences. The success of the mobile marketing campaigns in 2011 made NTP a new benchmark in the industry.

With more than 70 attendees, the Mobile Friday Social event last week had claimed a big success. Alongside with all mingling and networking, the event also brought current mobile CRM insight and latest mobile m-commerce technology to marketers and advertisers. Here is a recap of all the fun and insight we had at Mobile Friday Social!

Mobile commerce and CRM is inevitable

Mr. Keith Lee, General Manager – Group Innovation of Gravitas Limited and Founder of Mobile Friday, shared how mobile can transform and extend the current shopping experience, as well as the trending demand of mobile CRM. Keith pointed out that local retailers are facing many cost-raising problems. From the showcase on mobile CRM and m-commerce he shared, we saw that mobile platforms can indeed combated these issues. With the continuously increasing smartphone penetration and user behavior becoming more adapted to mobile devices, mobile facilitated commerce will inevitably become a mainstream shopping approach.

Current technology makes mobile payment possible

Mr. Hans Wong, the Chief Technology Officer, ASAP Transaction Processing Corporation Limited, shared the future of mobile payment – the mobile wallet. His sharing allowed marketers and advertisers to gain a more profound understanding on how current technology can facilitate the demand of m-commerce.

Networking opportunity

Between refreshing snacks and beverage, attendees across different industries at this 3 hours event exchanged their ideas on mobile marketing strategy, experience from the past as well as possible future collaboration.

We would like to thank all the attendants who made the event memorable and insightful. Mobile Friday is fuelled to do better with all your support and we hope to see you all soon in the future.

Trials and sample redemption are common promotion tactics for the beauty and cosmetics industry. A lot of brands rely a lot on direct mailers sending to their member base to induce trial, but that does not help a lot to recruit more new customers. Some of the brands insert redemption coupons in their print advertisement or run join promotions with 3rd party in a bid to extend the coverage for new prospect, which could be costly to implement. Apart from these traditional tactics, how can cosmetics marketers ride on mobile to improve the trial campaign response and to increase the ROI?

There are a lot a marketer can do. The most straightforward way is by sending SMS to induce trail and redemption for their existing customer base, in addition to direct mailer or eMail sent to their customer. Some brands extend their invitation to recruit new customer via mobile advertising such as co-operating with telecom operator or content providers and invite their customers for trial, other tactics like Location Based SMS and also banner advertising also proved to have better response than traditional offline coupon.

On top of it, mobile can do even more to achieve bigger impact and to collect more customer insights and to engage with the audience. For its latest S/S 2012 collection, Joyce Beauty recently launched redemption campaign through mobile, which enhance and improve the effect of this old trick of sales promotion.

Beauty and cosmetics consumers require highly personalized products that fit their skin conditions and their preference, marketers who can address their needs properly can outperform their competition. Joyce Beauty and its mobile marketing partner Gravitas understood the importance of listening to what customer really need and therefore include a skin condition survey in this campaign. By answering just a few questions on their skin conditions, Joyce Beauty will custom design a trial package that match the customer preference, which in turn would raise their purchase intention substantially for the products after the trial, as the trial package is much more relevant to their need. The survey can also help Joyce Beauty to acquire their potential customers’ data, which should help them in planning future sales promotion strategy.

Low conversion rate is another problem faced by traditional redemption campaign, as customers do not usually carry the voucher with them, or they loss it quite easily. By replacing the paper voucher with a SMS confirmation, customers would now carry the voucher with them all the time, thus increasing the conversion rate, amplifying the impact of the campaign.

Apart from enhancing the effectiveness of the campaign, registration through mobile can instantly record and reflect the amount of trial packages needed for each branch, so the number of packages can be prepared accordingly in advance, improving the management of the campaign’s logistics.

Ever thought of a campaign that can be exposed to your target customers whether they are stuck in traffic or sit in front of a TV, and they would repeat the experience again and again? A HTML5 web campaign recently launched by Skechers has successfully reached this goal – the campaign has already attracted over ten thousand visits within just a few days after launch. How to make it a success?

Gamification encourages participation

Mobile strategy is part of the key initiatives of the recent GOrun campaign of Skechers. How to implement a mobile marketing campaign that allows Skechers to strengthen its brand image and connect with the target audience? Skechers partnered with Gravitas to create a mobile marketing campaign with a mobile site built based on HTML5 technology. The site features a mobile game contest that invites players to finger race on their smartphone screen. The player who “runs” the fastest with their fingers on Skechers shoes can have a chance to win a smartphone!

Gamifying promotional strategy not only encourages target customers to participate in the campaign, the simulation of running motion also echoes Skechers’ marketing message of their trainers, GOrun, being the lightest trainers yet in the world.

As an incentive to draw more visitors to Skechers stores, the game also enables a faster running mode if players are detected to be at the stores when they play the game so that they can increase their win chance and climb up to higher rank! This allows Skechers to be able to reach more customers not only in the virtual mobile environment but most importantly to bring the customers to the store front to drive sales.

Going viral

The campaign exploits social media to promote the campaign as it strongly highlights sharing, which enlarges the campaign’s scale by making it viral. Not only can the players share their records on Facebook, they can also share the fun and team up with their friends by simply scanning the QR code posted on their friends’ wall. The individual who team up the most can win a “social activator” prize! This further incentivizes players to share this campaign with their friends to broaden the campaign coverage.

Integration with other media maximizes exposure

The mobile campaign integrates with offline media such as outdoor and print ads of Skechers. A QR code accessible to the mobile site is featured on the ad, that allows target audience to just scan the code and start playing the mobile game and participate in the contest anytime on their phone. The campaign extends the once static experience in to a vivid and lively one. Its web-based HTML5 nature allows it to be available across all platforms, maximizing the exposure of the campaign.

Marketers scratch their heads everyday and try to figure out new ways to enlighten their customers and deliver their messages across. Although mobile marketing or the utilization of smartphone and apps are now part of the media mix rather than just a gimmick, the flexibility of mobile devices allow messages to be presented through integration with various media. The example below can demonstrate just how message delivery is uplifted through the use of mobile.

One Oasis, new residence located at Cotai South, Macau, is developed by a joint venture of well-established property developers including ITC Properties Group, Linkeast Investment Ltd, Nan Fung Group, ARCH Capital and Success Universe Group. One Oasis has recently included mobile in their new wave of promotion, bringing user an exceptional interactive experience.

Integration with other media

One of the core features of this app is image recognition, where users can take picture from the brochure and trigger videos that explore the environment and facilities of One Oasis. The representation of the residence is no longer restricted to static, flat images on the brochure, as mobile can extend that 2D experience into a more vivid demonstration.

On-the-go

Seldom would buyers bring the brochure with them. With the help of mobile, users can get in touch with any information of the residence, from the layout plan to the materials used to the transportation information, users would be able to know anytime, anywhere. As users become more frequently exposed to these images, chances are these target customers’ interest towards the product would rise, giving marketers a competitive advantage against their rivals.

How would marketers investigate whether their marketing campaigns are successful or not? By traffic? Sales? Or media attention? All of these seem too vague and indirect, which could be hard to compare and measure.

Recently, a global survey shows that while 82% of marketers say their executive management expects every campaign to be measured, less than a third can effectively evaluate the ROI of each channel. When asked to choose the most difficult type of campaign to measure, more than half of marketers chose offline channels. 33% cited public relations, while 27% say print advertisements as the most difficult to track.

All investors would like to measure and evaluate the performance, return, interest rate, level of risk etc. for their investment (think about your own MPF). The marketing budget a marketer spent is just like an investment, it is crucial to measure the ROI.

Mobile marketing becomes more and more popular and is now an indispensable tactics most marketers will include when they plan their marketing campaign. One of the reasons for the increasing popularity is the effectiveness of many mobile marketing campaign are easily measurable. Below are some key metrics to evaluate campaigns on mobile marketing with smartphone application:

1. Number of download;
2. Users’ traffic;
3. Number of active user;
4. Number of Users response (if applicable); and
5. Ranking and rating in App Store or Android Market (if applicable).

With this valuable information in hand, marketer can easily investigate the result of the campaign, and plan what to do next step to maximize the impact of the campaign.