It’s a great time to be a marketer, especially if you’re a young and digitally-savvy GenYer like myself. Though advertisers and publishers are concerned about an increasingly fragmented audience and the “death” of traditional media, technology is putting tools in our hands that we’ve never had before, and allowing us to be creative in new ways.
The iPad is seen as a ray of hope by analysts and executives of the media business. Even though the gadget hasn’t been distributed to reviewers yet and we know little about its capabilities and limitations (much less how it will be received when it goes on sale in March), publishers have already been creating tablet editions of magazines and newspapers, with the hope of finally recovering the lost revenue of the last decade, when news has been given out for free on the net.
What does the iPad mean for marketers? I’ll focus on two issues: Mobile marketing and pricing.
Mobile Marketing
In past blogs, I’ve written about opportunities in mobile marketing and how mobile advertising, content and applications will become increasingly important as smartphone adoption increases. This will be even more important in developing countries, where mobile phone penetration is growing at much faster rates than PCs, especially among lower income and price sensitive groups.
Mobile marketing is not just about SMS and smartphone apps. WiFi connections in eReaders and tablets (even in mp3 players like iPod Touch or gaming devices) are changing the way we think of the P of Placement. Shopping is increasingly being done on the go, using the internet or even SMS and Bluetooth. For some companies, like magazine and book publishers, it’s changing the Ps of Product and Price too. The increasingly digitally savvy users are also requiring marketers to rethink positioning and segmentation. And this doesn’t just refer to the GenY smartphone addicts, but to all age groups, including seniors, who were found to be the group that shopped most online, according to a recent report.
Tablets like the iPad are considered especially promising, because they continue the trend towards convergence of devices. With the smartphone (and especially since the iPhone), the mobile industry has been on the edge of its seat, waiting for the mythical device that will bring it all together. But after seeing Job’s demonstration of the iPod, I feel like we’re farther from reaching that convergence. And that might actually be a good thing.
Smartphones are currently the most converged device. They can call, send sms, browse the net, use location-based services, play music, games, video… One of their selling points- their portability (small size)-, is also an obstacle for other uses like reading, watching videos on a bigger screen, typing long documents, etc. These are the strengths of a tablet like the iPad and eReaders. But the iPad is too large and heavy to carry around, not to mention the keyboard you’d have to carry with you. And you can’t really use it as a phone. It is also not as comfortable to read from as an eReader like the Kindle. eReaders, who were the stars of CES, use a special ink that make them easy to read, but is still only available in black and white, and don’t play videos. Alas… you get the idea.
Why do I think it’s a good thing? As a consumer, I do like to have to carry the least possible amount of gadgets (especially since smaller purses are coming back in style ;-) ). But there are some features that I’m just not willing to sacrifice to accept a single device. I love smartphones, and own a BlackBerry, but also love apps and have an iPod Touch, which is great with it’s built in WiFi and GPS. I’m not too excited about tablets yet, but I guess it’s too soon. For reading, I really really really want an eReader, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the price point of over $200 seems like to much for a black and white device that really only does one thing.
As a marketer, having a single platform would reduce development costs for apps, advertising and ecommerce, but the different capabilities of each device can be appealing and more suited for different products. The Absolut Drinkspiration app is a great way to engage consumers and take advantage of the GPS of the iPhone, when they are in a bar, showing it off to their friends, while racing apps like the one developed by Audi are more likely to become popular on the iPad. Browsing capabilities on all these devices also allow users to take advantage of links and find common content on websites and social media sites.
In my next post, I’ll look at the implication that the iPad has on one the trickiest P of internet and mobile marketing: Pricing.
I'll be posting iPad and mobile marketing-related news on Twitter @alicemchacon.
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