Mobile marketing is about content, not advertising

Brands looking to utilise mobile in their marketing and engagement mix must deliver content in a timely way that reflects the consumer’s interests and choices, rather than their own corporate objectives and needs.

That’s the view of Intel Asia-Pacific creative director, Jayant Murty, who was in Sydney in May for the Vivid Festival, which features Intel technology and spoke with CMO on mobile’s importance as a marketing channel.

Murty is the creative talent behind several high-profile campaigns including ‘Museum of Me’ Facebook visualisations, the ‘Ultrabook Temptations’ social experiments across Asia-Pacific and the ‘Intelligent Sounds’ Flume collaboration using tablet-powered instruments.

According to Murty, modern marketing strategy needs to flip from the traditional view of advertising products and services, to thinking about the consumer’s life and what matters to them most.

He also questioned the role of advertising in mobile channels, claiming that brands should be more focused on the combination of engagement and interaction with consumers via mobile devices. These are also more measurable, he claimed.

Thanks to smartphones and digital connectivity, consumers are well equipped with information and know more than they ever did before when they walk into the store, “muting the supremacy of the retailer, manufacturer and brand”, Murty said.

The other key to understanding mobile is that engagement is based on accessing information in very short spaces of time. “Data is then irrelevant after the decision is made, so interaction is all about being very timely,” he said.

“It’s about suspending the logic of the traditional narrative of telling my story. I need to be interested in a consumer’s life. That switch is critical for marketers independent of medium, but it is even more so in mobile as those moments of connection are so fleeting.”

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Murty identified several innovative ways mobile can be used by brands, one of which is making information expedient for the consumer and using mobile as “a partner in crime”.

“This could be by providing directions to my store, helping consumers find a parking spot easily when they get there, or options on clothes that match the blouse I’ve just bought. It’s about using the simple capabilities of mobile phones to provide better experiences,” he said.

“At the moment of truth, mobile comes in very handy to complete your brand story.”

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Intel is making significant investments into mobile but Murty said the decision to do so was driven by a strong social and personalisation strategy, rather than a blueprint purely for mobile.

“The big part of interaction for us with our fans and prospects comes from being an intensely social company,” he explained. “One way consumers interact with us socially is through their devices.

“We also think about mobile very carefully when it comes to targeting. For example, if I want to sell someone a phablet device, I might want to target consumers who are currently using a 4-inch phone to tell them there’s a much richer experience they can have on a larger screen.”

The third aspect of Intel’s mobile investment is about ways consumers can better interact with the brand, Murty said. “For example, if you walk into a store and see 40 computers there, how easy can we make it for you to work out the right computer for you?

“We are trying to find elegant ways to help people make choices.”

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