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Mobile is integral to the consumers that marketers look to reach: Wharton prof


The ?Do Not Call It a Phone: Marketers? New Mobile Perspectives Beyond Advertising? panel included Tina Wung, global director of innovation at Anheuser-Busch InBev; Hardy Johnson, director of advanced advertising at Atlice USA/Cablevision; Mitchell Reichgut, CEO of Jun Group and Mr. Wind, Lauder professor of marketing at The Wharton School. Mr. Wind began the panel by delineating his ?Five Forces of Change,? comprised of: Science and Technology; a Refined Media Landscape; Skeptical and Empowered Consumers; Cultural, Social, and Geopolitical Environments; and New Business and Revenue Models.

?Increasingly, mobile is not just a device, it?s a part of us.? Mr. Wind said. ?How do we start dealing with mobile and thinking about mobile in light of the fact that it?s an integral part of the people we?re dealing with??

Academic marketing
In response to the winds of change, Mr. Wind advised marketers to challenge their mental models, through a combination of analytic brilliance, creative brilliance, design brilliance and operational brilliance. The process that the Wharton professor outlined to stay ahead of the cultural curve involved: aligning the objective of the brain to the consumer?s needs; crafting a compelling brand focus; all touch point orchestration and focusing on content and context.


In regards to the latter two requirements, Mr. Wind had a few helpful acronyms to abide by. 

To succeed in creating meaningful content, follow RAVES: make it Relevant and respectful, make sure it is Actionable, and ensure that it is Valuable, an Exceptional experience, and a Shareworthy story. 

In looking for the appropriate context, look to MADE: The context should be Multisensory; address a specific Audience; have an appropriate Delivery mechanism and be in an appropriate Environment.

Future of mobile
The panel was then encouraged to respond to audience-proposed topics in mobile marketing and technology that they felt was going to be highly relevant in the new year. An array of subjects were proposed, including cybersecurity, wearables, trust of marketing data and AI and robotics in the advertising industry.

Mr. Reichgut and Ms. Wung claimed that the advent of AI and machine learning in the advertising industry has already begun, affecting both marketing offerings and employees on the other side of the screen, much in the same way automation has affected manufacturing jobs.

?I would say machine learning and artificial intelligence has already dramatically affected the advertising industry, and I think it?s dramatically affecting the way advertising is conceived of and thought of,? Mr. Reichgut said.

?We are starting to test a variety of AI pilots,? said Ms. Wung. ?One example is that our websites are age restricted, and over the course of the years we?ve tested all kinds of configurations to address that. 

?But now, we?re actually testing voice, so people can just speak their birthday, and that information will be stored. And our hope is that that will decrease the bounce rates.?

The panelists were also asked about the state of the mobile and marketing industries and their predictions for the rest of the year. Mr. Hardy expressed optimism for adjustable advertising models for television?especially ubiquitous in the New York metro area?which necessitates firing specific commercials based on specific attributes to that home. The approach is clearly a traditional media analog to models that have been used in the digital space for years, said Mr. Hardy.


?I think that this year, the advertising community will realize the power that they have via these devices to reach real people in a meaningful, targeted way, across devices,? Mr. Reichgut said. ?Wearables and augmented reality, from our perspective?we?re waiting for scale. There?s just not nearly enough.

?Connected TV is just beginning to get there. Augmented reality is far away. Wearables?I don?t see it yet.?