Source Digital Conference, New York: The topic for this talk was Extending Brands to Mobile. M&C Saatchi Performance attended as speakers, and discussed the trend for brands to embrace a mobile-first concept.
Starting from Q4 2012 and into 2013 a greater influx in traffic and revenue for brands are now coming from mobile devices. As a result brands are urgently trying to mobilize their user experiences, but many are simply using responsive design or just mobilizing their online site without understanding that their consumers value and behave on mobile very differently than desktop. There is a huge gap between consumer expectation on mobile and what brands deliver resulting in a ton of mobile profits left on the table.
For mobile marketing agencies there is a huge opportunity to capitalize on this shift towards mobile-first, but many have struggled to evolve their resources to really understand and apply a mobile-first solution for their clients. Mobile should not be planned in a vacuum as a separate channel. It’s not about the number of screens or devices that can be reached. Mobile is about the human behind these screens. Mobile is a behavior. The only common thread uniting this fragmented mobile ecosystem is that consumers are taking connected device with them on the go and increasingly using multiple devices depending on the situation. Mobile planning should stem from the communications planning process. Growth marketing agencies need to understand that consumers move fluidly across devices and platforms and must do the same with their client’s messaging. This is one reason why there is a growing need and importance for brands to have a separate mobile specialist agency that understands this paradigm shift in communication.
