Panel, Conference Presentation
Monetizing Mobile: Transforming Behavior into Bottom-Line Results
- Virtual reality is anticipated to become the next major operating system and transformative behavior following mobile, with applications expected to impact real estate, travel, education, and medical training, though skepticism remains regarding immersive use cases versus augmented reality.
- By the end of 2017, affordable full-screen glasses are predicted to enter the market, driven by industrial applications like hands-free factory work, while consumer VR is expected to focus on gaming and entertainment with improved form factors.
- Augmented reality is projected to see significant adoption in China and other regions for industrial robots, healthcare, and enterprise solutions to balance cost equations, potentially preceding consumer applications.
- Voice is identified as the primary application for AI with the first significant engagement, though voice assistants are not expected to replace smartphone usage in the near term.
- Mobile video is considered more transformative than mobile itself, currently resembling the nascent stage of 1955 television advertising where the medium is still being understood.
- Traditional companies facing single-digit or flat growth are planning to rewire and transform into mobile-first entities, while disruptors are entering the market at a rate of 1,000 apps daily on iOS and Android.
- Facebook aims to achieve top-of-mind status in one out of four or four out of five apps depending on the country, leveraging the fact that while consumers use an average of 27 apps monthly, 75% of their time is concentrated in just four.
- A major challenge in the next monetization platform is linking online and offline behaviors by combining context, GPS, and social behavior to track changes in purchase likelihood and actual store visits.
- Real estate transactions will continue to rely on a human element due to complexity, but mobile technology now enables real-time video walkthroughs and rental agreements within a 30-minute window, particularly in China.
- Dating applications are evolving into messaging-based platforms where monetization is derived from the ability to connect users at the same place and time, creating opportunities for ad exposure through connection data.
- In China, 70% of online users have Alipay accounts and e-commerce constitutes 15% of all commerce, compared to 7% in the U.S., driven by a preference for offline-to-online services due to traffic congestion.
- User-to-user monetization models in China allow performers to receive 50% of virtual currency payments directly from fans, bypassing traditional agencies, while the U.S. market is viewed as being constrained by the Google and Apple ecosystems acting as "tax collectors."
- Physical retail retains inherent advantages due to three-dimensional consumer relationships, and with 96% of grocery purchases still occurring in-store, the trend is not expected to vanish immediately despite accelerating delivery commerce.
- The usage behavior on mobile is characterized by serendipitous discovery rather than the search behavior dominant on desktop, necessitating different monetization strategies than those used for desktop.
- Traditional retailers face difficulties realizing context-related coupons due to silos between media and retail execution, though IPCon technology is being experimented with to test if precise geolocation drives traffic.
- CMOs are under increased scrutiny to drive all spend to absolute business results, leading to an obsession with measurement and a desire to bring Chinese collaboration models to the U.S. where innovation has been slower.
- A behavioral shift toward closer connections with businesses is emerging in Western cultures, evidenced by the doubling of messages between people and businesses on Facebook in the last six months.