Mobile: a year of change in 2014

Mobile really came of age in 2013. Although the consumer ‘got’ mobile many years ago, it seemed as if most brands finally understood the need to deliver mobile engagement across all channels. One example of the success of mobile came from eMarketer, who showed that mobile media was now 20% of spend, which was double that of 2012. The growth though, is a double-edged sword. Recent data from ComScore suggests that as there’s more mCommerce through the mobile web, it is at the expense of desktop usage. Will we just see the same marketing spend, but simply shifted to mobile channels?

So what’s in store for 2014?
One significant trend is the move by young people away from Facebook to Instagram and Snapchat. History tells us that older audiences will also follow. Brands might need to rethink their engagement strategy in messaging channels and mobile social media. To some extent, the best practice will stay the same – direct messaging still requires the same approach to opting in and privacy regardless of whether it’s SMS or an IP-based channel such as iMessage. But consider the user behaviours, perhaps marketing needs to become more disposable, more ephemeral to engage the Snapchat Generation.

The smartphone has also peaked as a device. Certainly smartphones will get faster, brighter (and bigger, if Samsung have their way), but the core functions will remain largely the same. What we will see in 2014, though is the growth of connected devices, such as smart watches, Nike Fuel and Google Glass. We’ll see many more of these next year. As a result, brands will be thinking up new ways to interact with these devices.

The DMA Mobile Council has now changed its name to the DMA Mobile and Connected Marketing Council to reflect this transition. Along with these new devices, there will be a whole host of permissions and privacy issues. Consumers will have more devices and be generating more (big) data than ever, but how will brands be able to leverage it? Will consumers just be overwhelmed by it all and start rejecting more and more brand marketing?

So, 2014 will be an exciting time for innovation and hopefully marketing innovation as well. However, once again, marketers will be chasing the constantly changing consumer channels. Some brands will undoubtedly get the engagement right, but in a rapidly changing landscape, there will be a lot of learning to do along the way.

By DMA guest blogger Mark Brill, CEO of Formation/txt4ever and DMA Mobile and Connected Marketing Council Chair

@brillthings