For years, tech enthusiasts have talked about interactive TV. On Sunday, it will be at the fingertips of more than 100 million people. Only the interactions won’t be on viewers’ televisions, they’ll be on smartphones and tablets. Which is no surprise when you consider a 2011 Nielsen/Yahoo report that found about 86 percent of people use mobile devices to access the Internet while watching TV.

Advertisers are hoping to capture viewer attention by embracing ‘second screening’ and launching enhanced experiences via audio identification technology. So tablets and smartphones with the Shazam and IntoNow apps will be able to ‘hear’ commercials and trigger related mobile device interactions, featuring extended offers and bonus content.

Among the brands using Shazam are Anheuser-Busch, Best Buy, Cars.com, Pepsi-Cola, Relativity Media, Teleflora, Toyota, Walt Disney and the Super Bowl halftime show itself. Viewers will have a chance to access music, download a free video and get discounts. Toyota is even letting people use Shazam to tag music in its commercials and enter a sweepstakes to win two Camrys.

While Yahoo’s IntoNow may not match the sheer volume of Shazam’s brand partner list, it did manage to land what could be one of the most impactful campaigns. After viewers use the app to tag the Super Bowl, IntoNow will sync automatically when Pepsi MAX’s commercial airs. People will then be able to enter for a chance to win Pepsi MAX for life.

Smartphones and tablets have changed consumers’ behaviors, attitudes and attention spans. We’re entering a time when watching TV will mean having a remote in one hand and mobile device in the other. That means companies will have even more opportunities to connect with consumers in ways that move them from discovery to consideration and from consideration to purchase.

Whether these second-screen experiences start with soundprinting and offer behind-the-scenes videos and exclusive offers or begin with a hashtag and invite consumers to join a conversation and enter a contest, this new, interactive viewing experience has to do more than yesterday’s entertainment. It has to inspire and delight consumers while increasing engagement, deepening relationships and creating shopportunities in an omnichannel way. When messaging begins to do all this, we’ll have something that sounds good to everyone.

Laughs are no longer enough. What about interaction? What about inviting consumers to DO something? To BUY something? What about creating multi-screen experiences, recognizing that millions of viewers watch TV with tablets, smartphones and laptops powered up with Facebook gaming apps, Twitter and texting? Why is that it’s 2012, but most advertisers show up on Super Bowl Sunday as if the commerce revolution, the tablet revolution, the mobile revolution hasn’t transformed consumer behaviors, attitudes and attention spans?

Last year, Pepsi, Doritos and Best Buy primed social networks before the Super Bowl, which helped consumers recognize these ads and pay attention. And while we saw the first hashtag in an ad for Audi USA in 2011, I think consumers are ready for more—way more. For starters, brands should:

• Execute trans-media content – Extend the 30-second spot with more content that moves consumers from discovery to consideration or consideration to purchase
• Provide opportunities for consumers (especially advocates!) to join a conversation—to provide an opinion or feedback—and then join the dialog and monitor for insights
• Invite consumers to follow, to share, to win—simply put, give them ways to take action and engage with the brand beyond a momentary chuckle
• Be search-friendly – Buy and optimize for the words that consumers will intuitively connect to the TV spot
• Mobilize – Make sure your brand is ready to deliver the appropriate experience on the small screen, too

Even when I smile, giggle or howl, I often can’t remember who any given Super Bowl ad is for. It’s time for these costly experiments to work harder, to utilize digital technology to do more, to engage consumers in new and exciting ways, to make them feel and be part of the story. To move consumers closer to a sale. Now, that’d be super for business, too.

Coupons have long been one of the most reliable tools in the brand marketing toolbox to promote sales—and consumers can’t seem to get enough of them. But the transition from paper to mobile devices has been challenging, and one of the root causes is actually found in the venerable laser scanners that are part of most store checkout systems. These were designed decades ago to read the light pattern reflected from barcodes on printed coupons. But the backlit, reflective polarized glass of smartphones actually makes an on-screen barcode image invisible to most laser scanners. So we need new ways for smartphones to send information to point-of-sale (POS) terminals—crossing what I like to call the “last inch” barrier. This need has given rise to a game of “chicken” being played out right now between smartphones and retailer systems, and it’s going to be very interesting to see who swerves first. Here are a few of the technologies:

•    Optical (POS): If the retailer is willing to swerve first, one very straightforward solution is to add camera-based barcode readers to their checkout systems, enabling them to work with smartphone displays. Retailers like Target, Starbucks and most recently Walgreens have rolled these out to enthusiastic consumer acceptance. While this is great for the retailers who can do this, CPG manufacturers need their coupons to interoperate with dozens of major retailers who may not have this kind of technology yet.
•    Optical (phone): San Francisco startup Mobeam takes the opposite approach, where the smartphone industry swerves first, allowing mobile coupons to work with retailers’ existing laser scanners. They plan to do this by enabling phones to transmit data to the POS terminal using pulses of light that mimic the laser scanner’s reflected beam. This won’t work with any existing smartphones, but Mobeam claims that new models equipped with their technology could roll out as early as this quarter. P&G is already partnering with them to help get this off the ground.
•    Radio: Near field communication (or “NFC”) enables phone-to-POS communication via low-power radio signals. Being driven most visibly by Google with their Google Wallet payment system, NFC requires the addition of new radio technology to both the phone and the POS terminal. There are a handful of NFC-enabled phones on the market already, and Google got a head start on the POS side by partnering with MasterCard PayPass. Although initially targeted at payment solutions, widespread adoption of NFC technology would open plenty of new possibilities for both retailers and manufacturers to provide mobile offers to their consumers.
•    Audio: Another solution that gets phones and stores talking to each other involves the use of audio signals. All phones of course have microphones—and systems can be installed in retail locations to broadcast data to them using ultrasonic audio signals. ShopKick started this off in 2009 and is well-established with several major retailers, offering rewards to consumers through their app as they walk into the store. Naratte, with their Zoosh offering, is another pioneer in this space, and is working on POS solutions among many other possibilities.
•    GPS: Taking advantage of yet another smartphone capability, Placecast offers a geofencing solution called ShopAlerts, where subscribers receive offers via SMS whenever they enter designated geographic areas. This service works with existing smartphones and does not impact the retail environment, but it would need to be integrated with other solution to provide a complete offer and redemption solution.

While it’s not yet clear how these technologies and standards will play out over the next few years, we can be assured that widespread industry changes will be taking place across multiple channels. There’s a lot at stake, with investments needed in new technologies, consumer awareness and adoption, privacy considerations and even environmental impact. But we stand to make huge gains in terms of taking customer loyalty in new directions, improved data and analytics, and in finding new ways to layer great digital experiences into the consumer journey.

So who do you think will swerve first?

1.   eBay (iPhone) has been around since the emergence of the dotcom and their site shows the wear of the years.  I’m guessing a separate team went off and designed their iPhone experience—focusing on the key features of what most customers are doing with eBay and it pays off. I can do what I’d expect to and all the surrounding noise is gone. Voila—bid, buy and sell.

2. Flash sale sites (iPhone) are a fairly new phenomenon. Gilt Group, Fab, One Kings Lane, Rue LaLa have all done a great job on mobile in large part because it supports their business model.  The experience allows for casual, real time, quick flip through the curated merchandise to drive an impulse purchase. (Sometimes an image and a buy button is all it takes.)

3. Pulse (iPad + iPhone) has reinvented my Google Reader.  Before Flipboard integrated this feature, Pulse allowed me to snack on information across the sources and topics near and dear to me.  I now control what content I see and I can choose to read the headlines, view pictures or go deeper and actually read the entire article or post.

4. Who would have thought that a bank would make me appreciate my iPhone more?  Chase (iPhone) has created a tool that virtually eliminates a need to go to my physical bank (yeah, apparently they still exist) with its QuickDeposit feature where I take a picture of my check and…ta-da! It’s in my account.

5. DirecTv (iPad) transforms my tablet into a mega remote control, which allows access to each of the 3 DVRs in my home and allows me stream shows live to my iPad in case I’m not near a TV.  I can schedule recordings, control my live TV and see what’s on TV according to my favorite channels, shows or types of content. One enhancement I’d love? To watch my recorded shows on my iPad .

These examples remind us to focus. Eliminate extra bells and whistles and create experiences that are most critical for that device, and the moment when a consumer is likely to interact.  All of these experiences also fulfill my trifecta of a good experience: emotion, utility and usability.  I am happier when I use them; I have a purpose and can complete a specific task.

What are your must-have mobile experiences?

In an Everywhere Commerce world, marketers are faced with a dilemma: to invest heavily in the people and technology needed to put Big Data Analytics into action in the hope that high-impact insights emerge from the effort, or to focus on consumer insights, logic, strategic thought, and measurement and optimization of individual channels and activities.

For the foreseeable future, the full set of Big Data that marketers really need to develop usable predictive models is going to be a struggle. To truly stitch together all of a consumer’s interactions with a brand—digital and otherwise—requires identifying who each person is as they interact with your brand across an ever-growing number of probable touch points. That brings us to a persistent tension between consumers’ wishes and marketers’ wants:

• Consumers, even as they publicly tweet their opinions, engage with brands on Facebook, visit brand websites, download branded mobile apps, and check in at stores using Foursquare (and Facebook), remain leery about being fully identifiable by brands across all of those channels. And, legislative and regulatory bodies across the globe are all hard at work to mitigate consumer fears by tamping down on how and where consumers’ behavior can be tracked.

• Marketers, in order to mine Big Data to build meaningful models, require being able to identify individual consumers—or at least a meaningful sample of them—and their interactions across channels.

Historically, marketers were able to rely on aggregated advertising and revenue data to inform their marketing investments, but the digitization and fragmentation of the consumer experience has broken media mix modeling in multiple ways. At the same time, panel-based data from companies like Nielsen and comScore is becoming both more complex and less directly useful. Five years ago, it was of little consequence if a panel  that focused on web behavior didn’t also track smartphone behavior for the same consumers, not to mention tablet activity. With the proliferation of multi-screen behavior, this is now an imperative, and panel-tracking technologies simply have not kept up with the pace of change.

So, where does that leave us? In the absence of some sort of fundamental change in how we capture consumer behavior, it means we stick with the basics:

• Really nail the basics – Clarity of objectives for each marketing activity with appropriate tools in place for capturing meaningful metrics that can be used to optimize within the narrow scope of each specific activity

• Big Data…with deliberate planning – Spending the effort to bring together your brightest strategic thinkers and analysts to discuss the opportunity and make sure you have a clear plan for the specific data sets you can bring together to deliver actionable information

The potential of Big Data is great, and it is changing the world, but marketers need to appropriately balance their focus on a future nirvana with a focus on what is actionable today.

It is a great time to be in Japan. Not just because it is the season for the unforgettably delicious bluefin tuna (hon-maguro) or because the country is bouncing back from the tsunami at an amazing pace only months after the disaster. It’s also because you get to witness the daily evolution of an already impressive phenomenon, the mobile lifestyle in Japan.

Japan has been long considered one of the most advanced markets in the world in terms of mobile usage, pioneering 3G and 4G networks and devices ahead of any other market besides Korea. NTT DoCoMo’s iMode service, launched in 2001, also paved the way for the always-on, high-value services that mobile operators worldwide have deployed over the past decade.

With a 95% + penetration rate and intense competition between NTT DoCoMo, KDDI AU, and Softbank Mobile, Japanese consumers benefit from consistent high bandwidth and rapid device innovation: the screen size of cell phones in Japan crossed the threshold of 3” mobile 5 years ago and the refresh cycle of new cell phone models is 6 months. Japan’s commuter lifestyle also lends itself to intensive usage, with many commuters spending up to 3 hours per day on trains. This leads to such uniquely Japanese creations like the “cell phone novel,” books written on a phone and published for fame and profit!

Mobile commerce in Japan has also led the way. In 2010, the mobile content market was about $8B USD and the market for transactions, physical goods and services reached $13B USD (compared with $6B USD of mobile commerce in US in 2011), according to the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. What these number figures depict is a highly connected lifestyle where average Tokyo consumers can use their cell phone to ride the subway, pay at convenience stores and vending machines, read news and magazines, watch TV, search for local stores, find more info from ads they see around them or simply shop and enjoy same-day delivery from many online sites and traditional retailers. Mobile search, mobile QR scanning, and other product and brand exploration tools have long been promoted in advertising across multiple channels, and in 2007 Japan’s D2 Communications, the world’s largest mobile marketing company, was the first to identify the “Couch Commerce” behavior (shopping via mobile while in the home and/or watching TV) that is now emerging in the US thanks to tablet and smartphone growth.

Japan did all this without what we would call “smartphones.” Until recently, Japanese cell phones did not feature iPhone-like touchscreens and consumers used the traditional dial pad keyboard to navigate, text, write novels, and shop! Now the iPhone and Android platforms are exploding in Japan and we can expect even faster growth in mobile commerce. It is indeed a great time to be in Japan. If you sit down with me at the Starbucks by the busiest intersection of the world in Shibuya, Tokyo, looking at the thousands of people walking by with their sleek phones, you’d be amazed by the possibilities for tomorrow’s mobile marketing.

TOUR DATE
Currently the one-week tour is scheduled between mid-April and mid-May of 2012

PARTICIPANTS
Up to 12 clients will be included in the trip. We are seeking VP and above wherever possible but are happy to accept Key Influencers.

AGENDA
Total time commitment will be one work week + one weekend travel day. We will likely depart on Sunday for a Monday afternoon arrival in Tokyo. (You lose a day going to Japan, gain a day coming back)

We will have 3 working days (Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday) with Friday free for either sightseeing, return to U.S., or visits to client subsidiaries in Japan.

Key Topic Areas include:
•    Japan Mobile Consumer Behaviors and Mobile Marketing Ecosystem
•    Emerging Technologies and Services (Network, Device, and Applications tied to Mobile Marketing and Commerce)
•    Case Studies and Best Practices for Retail, eTail, and CPG brands
•    Implications for Mobile Marketers in the U.S.

We will have a combination of lectures and site visits including one or more mobile operators, leading mobile marketing agencies, retailers, and technology startups.

COST

$10,000 per participant + travel expenses (estimated at $5k)

YOUR GUIDE

Stephen Burke, VP of the Mobile Practice for Resource Interactive, has lived and worked in Japan for more than 8 years (most recently from 2007-2009). He began his career with Sony Corporation in Tokyo and has subsequently launched 3 venture-backed U.S. startups into the Japanese mobile economy: PacketVideo, the pioneer in mobile video (acquired by NTT DoCoMo in 2009); SOMA Networks (4G network infrastructure provider); and Mobile Content Networks (a mobile search and advertising firm affiliated with OPT, Japan’s leading eMarketing firm).
For more info please contact: Stephen Burke: sburke@resource.com or Derrick Lin: dlin@resource.com.

Back to that siren song. Who wouldn’t want to give the consumer the power to act on her moment of inspiration—be it in an ad, on her Facebook page, via her mobile phone, in a YouTube video—and avoid the possibility that she might forget to act at a later date or change her mind and switch to a competitor? But the reality is that building more commerce touch points (or enabling commerce in existing channels) still costs money, and it’s hard to divert budget to unproven media when there’s little hard evidence that consumers will embrace new shopping behaviors… at least until recently.

In 2011, mobile finally made its mark. According to studies conducted by Coremetrics, the mobile channel’s contribution to retail sales rose from 3.4% to 6.5% between October 2010 and April 2011. For some retailers, mobile may still represent the “drop in the bucket” that online once did, but we know how that story played out (yep, those double-digit sales increase expectations). This trend is only just beginning. Our own proprietary research suggests that upwards of 30% of online consumers—across categories as disparate as consumer goods, electronics and apparel—believe they will make purchases via their mobile phone within the next year. Increasing smartphone adoption appears to be turning consumers not only into mobile shoppers but also into mobile purchasers—eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2012 there will be 72.8 million U.S. mobile users ages 14+ who will browse or research products via their phones, and 37.5 million of those will actually purchase via their phones (“U.S. Digital Media Usage: A Snapshot of 2012,” eMarketer, December 2011).

And it doesn’t stop there. That same research we conducted suggests that, while there is less awareness and thus a lower estimated adoption rate among consumers, across channels and touch points—Facebook / social media, YouTube / online video, display ads, blogs—consumers anticipate shopping across touch points within the next year (no pressure!). For instance, approximately 20 – 25% of online consumers indicated they could realistically see themselves purchasing via online video or Facebook, regardless of the category queried (consumer goods, electronics, apparel), and among early adopters, the response was even more positive, ranging from 35 – 50%.

So, what’s it going to be? You can wait for your competitors to be the first movers—to test and learn into the world of Everywhere Commerce—while you wait for the case studies to objectively quantify and predict future success (which by the way, leaves you vulnerable to sacrificing leadership at a time when market share is shifting), or you can develop a plan to at least start “dipping your toe into the waters” of what promises to be the next great selling revolution. The choice is yours.

When we think about social commerce, 2012 is a world of possibility. Consumers are adopting new devices, new communities, and now more than ever understand that they are in control. The world of what-I-want-when-I-want now includes where-I-want-and-with-my-“friends”, leading to a complex set of challenges for brands that seek to deliver and compete in this new paradigm.

Gartner Research recently predicted that 50 percent of all digital sales will flow through social and mobile platforms by 2015 and Booz Allen, focusing on the narrower field of strictly social commerce, forecasts 300 percent growth over that period, the end result being a $30 billion social commerce industry by 2015. While that’s all certainly possible, it is only those brands that best prepare themselves for the ever-evolving digital and social landscape that will benefit from that growth. Today that landscape is dominated by brands throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping that something will stick, either to unlock revenue potential or perhaps just trying to catch up with the competition.

Even within that uncertainty, clear guardrails rooted in a consumer-centric perspective are being established for social commerce executions. The marketplace is rewarding those initiatives that truly understand and leverage the social ecosystem. Loosely defined, these most compelling social commerce initiatives have been built upon social relevance, consumer value and a frictionless user experience.

This past holiday, Etsy unveiled gift service integrated with Facebook Connect, using the social interests and activities of friends and family members to deliver unique gift ideas, a frictionless consumer experience that requires three clicks and offers clear consumer value. These initiatives are successes within the current social ecosystem, but what is next? Best practices today are no guarantee to future applicability, especially within a social marketplace where the dominant player will turn only 8 years old next month.

Multi-device, connected user experiences—already the holy grail of digital initiatives—must evolve into seamless socially connected commerce experiences. The broader digital ecosystem—beyond social, beyond destination site, beyond mobile—will power these experiences, designed to provide consumers with the ability to activate (with a purchase, a recommendation, or a thumbs up) within the split second that inspiration occurs.

Shopping from everywhere becomes the norm: The number of companies who make it easy for customers to buy from nearly anywhere using any connected device, and the number of consumers who expect this option, will surge. This increased consumer appetite for anytime, anywhere shopping will necessitate that brands stop focusing on disparate channels and concentrate on seamless experience ecosystems.

The physical world gets digital overlays: Digital triggers, including Augmented Reality, Quick Response (QR) codes and Image Recognition (IR) will change how people engage with their surroundings. These real-world enhancements will enable a new level of information access that encourages heightened engagement, sampling and interaction.

Retailers will blur the lines between channels: The offline world will embrace digital ever more tightly, as brick-and-mortar stores offer the best of technology-based features. From scanning product tags and paying with smartphones to engaging with interactive signage and ‘trying on’ clothes with augmented reality, stores soon will offer an easily accessible layer of detailed product information.

How and what we spend evolves further: Digital wallets and virtual currency will change how consumers shop for products, buy and share services, watch what and how they spend and track account balances. What’s more, their smartphones will help usher in a new, faster way to complete in-store purchases.

Points and rewards follow customers everywhere: Mobile devices and context-relevant features will give companies a direct line to individual consumers no matter where they are. This ubiquitous connection will enable simplified loyalty programs with real-time tracking and updates based on social, location and gaming elements.

Data changes the way we live and work: The wells of data that companies have collected and consumers have shared will start being harvested regularly. Using the social graph and other data, companies will begin to deliver more relevant experiences that enable deeper connections, impactful messages and enhancements to how people interact with and manage the world around them.

Banner advertising makes a comeback: The ability to utilize data for highly targeted advertising and to gather better metrics will return imedia to a place of prominence. Brand messages will use consumers’ relationships, preferences, favorites and past behaviors to create relevance and enable greater insights when analyzing real-time reports.

These are just a few of the digital trends helping to shape our ever-changing, real-time digital landscape and helping to influence how companies connect with customers. In the weeks ahead, we will explore each in more depth and discuss how forward-thinking businesses can use them to their advantage.