What can you tell us about mCordis and your role there?
I am the co-founder of mCordis along with Michael Becker, based in San Francisco. The company is now 15-months-old and was created to fill the knowledge gap around mobile. We focus on two ways of doing this: through education; and neutral advisory services.
On the education side, we run both bespoke programmes and workshops, along with the first accredited qualification on mobile in the world, in partnership with the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. As advisers, we are hired by global brands to offer support on mobile strategy and proposition development.
What role do you feel mobile has in the future of advertising?
On the one hand, mobile will become an essential part of the marketing mix, working alongside other channels. On the other hand, mobile will become the most important of all channels, as we as consumers become more and more mobile ourselves.
This change will also be reflected in the larger changes to advertising. It’s becoming less about broadcast media to the masses and more about engagement and experience. The mobile channel and mobile devices offer brands the best opportunity to deliver a highly contextual, two-way, real-time engagement with target audiences, so mobile will improve current advertising and create new ways to engage.
What can companies do to take advantage of the rise in mobile?
Companies can use mobile for a more personal one-to-one experience. The critical thing is not simply to copy what they do elsewhere, but to understand what mobile brings that’s new and different. For us, contextual relevance is the unique selling point of mobile, which is the ability to deliver the right message to the right person and at the right time and place.
Only mobile can combine who, what, where and when together simultaneously. What marketers need to do is figure out how that ability could transform not just advertising but every stage off the path to purchase.
How will trends such as wearables and the internet of things affect how marketers view mobile?
Adding more connections will increase the potential to engage. It will also increase the data and insight available, and create new services. People often refer to the “quantified self” movement, where individuals track their own personal data. This could lead to the creation of “quantified” customers who are willing to share that data in return for some value exchange. Just consider car insurers lowering premiums for drivers who feed back data from their phones that proves they are safe drivers, or healthcare companies lowering costs to people who live a healthier lifestyle.
Is an over-reliance on data and analytics damaging creativity in marketing?
I actually believe that many brands have yet to understand how to use data to create meaningful insight or analytics to produce optimisation. The problem is not one of over-reliance but of ineffective use. Creativity is still an essential element of the success of any marketing campaign. All the data in the world won’t help you create the best copy or the most impactful audio-visual content.
At the end of the day, brands like telling stories, and audio-visual content does this best, so we will still need great creativity to succeed – the more noise there is, the harder it is for your message to be seen and heard. This content will need to be created with the mobile viewer in mind as we switch to accessing content on mobile devices.
What are the challenges ahead for mobile and public perception?
All of the answers I gave above rely heavily on the acquisition, management and use of data, so this presents two big challenges for marketers. First, they will need to learn new skills related to data science. Second, brands must face the issues around privacy.
Mobile is both the creator, and beneficiary of, data but it is also the most personal channel, which means brands must tread wearily when using this personal data. We believe that privacy is going to be one of the biggest issues of our age and can foresee two big changes ahead: first, the creation of personal data stores in which we keep, and potentially sell, our own data; and second, that privacy may become the new luxury. Brands will have to build permission into the heart of their marketing if they are to be able to engage with audiences who are increasingly aware and uncomfortable with their data being captured and used.
Paul Berney is co-founder of mCordis
To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership.
All Guardian Media Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Brought to you by” – find out more here.
