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Developing Mobile Marketing Solutions Is Good Business

Why We Do Mobile Design

Designing mobile marketing solutions for our clients is an integral part of our business plan. If you’re reading this blog, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. We are a mobile society and carry our mobile devices with us everywhere. If we leave the house without them, we turn back and get them — the thought of getting through a day without connectivity in the palm of our hands is untenable.

A billion people accessed the mobile Internet worldwide in 2009 and Gartner forecasts call for expect usage to double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web. Additionally, according to MarketingProfs’ mobile devices are the most personal method of reaching people and messages are more likely to be read on the small screen than they are on the big.

According to an Outsell study, consumers who have a smartphone spent an average of more than 25% of their waking hours interacting with their device. That same research shows that by 2014, more than half of web browsing will be done from mobile devices.

Despite this clear trend, 56% of marketers are currently doing no mobile or browser advertising. With devices such as the iPad, Android and iPhone becoming capturing increasingly more marketshare, marketers could be missing out on big rewards.

Mobile advertising is still in its early days but this space represents huge opportunities for marketers across B2B, B2C, E-commerce and non-profit organizations. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce and that that will be the preferential way of reaching consumers.
This is exactly why my company is designing for the mobile space. It’s not going away — and according to the stats above, helping clients develop mobile marketing solutions should be a growing business segment for T2+Back Alley Films.

Cannes Winners Signal Profound Change in Advertising

Vintage Cannes Poster - 1939

Design + Technology is the hot new “creative” as it relates to the ad industry. The big Cyber Grand Prix winners at Cannes are indicative of where advertising and the world of design are headed. There’s no argument that great design will always be great design and regarded as such. But, in today’s advertising world, where we are routinely charged with producing great design that drives results, the addition of technology into the mix is, in my opinion, the best recipe for success.

DDB Stockholm’s work for Volkswagen took home a win for its terrific Fun Theory campaign that took ordinary experiences, added technology and not only made the experiences fun, but changed behavior as a result.

Weiden & Kennedy’s Chalkbot campaign for Nike Livestrong was evidence that by integrating technology into an event, you can actually bring the public into the event and make them a part of the experience, almost seamlessly.

In both cases, technology was the hero, and the driving force behind the concept, but the beauty of both of these integrated experiences is that the technology was invisible. The winners at Cannes validate that this is where the world of advertising is moving. Design + Technology may seem like strange bedfellows at first – similar to the traditional agency creative process integrating with the digital creative process. Those agencies that mastered that were way ahead of those who kept them separate.

For us, it has been an adaptive process over the last couple of years. Our designers were at the top of the heap – so we had to learn how to embrace the collaborative effort between technologists and designers. There were fits and starts – but today, I can say without reservation that the line between our designers and our technology gurus has blurred into one big integrated space. And happily, it has changed the face of our business, as well as the kind of work we are able to do for our clients.

*The poster is the 1939 Cannes Film Festival vintage poster, which is from the year of the planned festival debut. The film festival was canceled that year, because of the start of World War II