Subcultural Moments + Amusements (as dictated by one with a short attention span)

Last week, the smart fellows at Jumptap hosted The Mobile Upfront – an all-day event that brought together the top people working in mobile phone advertising. The army of panelists talked about the State of the Mobile Movement – the mistakes ad agencies make, and predictions on how mobile will further change the already chaotic media scene.

The Mobile Upfront was 10 days ago, so I realize in regards to the Speed of t eh Netz, this blog post is a total dinosaur. Please allow me, this humble plesiosaur, to talk about some of the things discussed that day.

And lo, A Bushy-haired Man Will Show Us The Way

Bob Greenberg, Visionary Leader (or as I think of it, The Great Seer) at R/GA, started the day off with a 1-on-1 interview on all things mobile. Crammed into that half hour were many tasty gems of mobile knowledge, which I shall impart to you (like the good disciple that I am).

-Greenberg Prediction One: Mobile Will Become The 1st Screen

Most advertisers work off a hierarchy of screen importance:

TV = 1st screen – the most important, most far reach touchpoint
Desktop/Laptop = The 2nd Screen
Mobile Screen = 3rd Screen

Greenberg points out that the coming of 4G Networks (broadband speed on phones!), streaming mobile video will take off. GPS and geo-location will become increasingly used on a daily basis. Better voice recognition means voice search, armed with the possibility of your phone becoming truly a Personal Assistant, and further become a Personalized Entertainment Device. Thus, we see how the smartphone can evolve to become the 1st Screen.

Not quite covered by Greenberg, but discussed throughout the day:
The other effect of people becoming increasingly attached to their mobile screen (much more than now, when a large amount of people already sleep with their iPhones next to their pillows), is that the smartphone becomes a very private, personal screen.

It’s not like a TV, which is meant for groups of people to partake in (even if one watches TV “alone”, its still an experience potentially shared by millions).

The mobile device is becoming a utilitarian, and entertainment, device. As the mobile user customizes and personalizes his smartphone to run all the things she is interested in. A device that can be intrinsically in-tune with its owner. Of course, this is another step in humanity turning into cyborgs, which I support wholeheartedly.

However, that phone also holds a cache of very valuable data on the owner – which marketers would love to have access to. But if marketers do get access to that data, how can we use it without creeping out the owner?

Already, I can foretell people being creeped out by overly-pushy geo-location advertising. When I had a cellphone in Tokyo, I would get spam emails on my phone about 3 times a week. For whatever reason, I always felt more creepy about spam hitting my phone, instead of my computer. Because it’s my phone. If marketers started pushing (read: interruptive advertising) more into my mobile phone space because of what they have learned about me, then I very well might feel violated.

Thus, when pursuing mobile marketing ideas, we need to make sure we think about and respect the privacy of the mobile user. Nothing revokes trust/loyalty faster than not respecting the privacy of the person.