How Not To Go About Executing Mobile Marketing On Campus

Sometimes it's easier to highlight of an example of how not to do something backed up with context and reasoning why. In this case, I'm talking about mobile marketing on college campuses. I can't think of a subject that's generating more buzz right now other than may be green marketing initiatives or branded Facebook apps. We've written extensively in our monthly Insights reports about the promise of mobile marketing and even have included several case studies of brands and companies that in our opinions have actually done a great job executing a program...and more importantly, why it was successful. That said, in catching up on my reading from yesterday, I saw a not-so-nice write up in the NY Times about a company called Mobile Discovery and a pilot program they're running on the campus of Case Western Reserve University (home to 34 of a our panelists, just checked). The piece starts out how we as a country are way behind the mobile power curve with consumers in Europe and Asia way ahead of us when it comes to making purchases via mobile and other activities that are still considered incredibly emerging here. Anyway, so the company, Mobile Discovery is conducting this test and working alongside the school's engineering department, whereby those students are helping to manage the program. Through the test program, students are able to download software to their mobile phone and using that software they are able to view a campus bus schedule, order a magazine, get news alerts from USA Today and even enter a sponsored sweepstakes. Ok, sounds relatively ok up to this point...right? Personally, I would have included a few more relevant apps besides a bus schedule, like what's on the menu at the dining halls, how about local campus news alerts and updates instead of just national updates, etc. Anyway, back to the crux of the story, here's where the ball got dropped, about 50 floors down, mind you. The first mistake was cost-related. Yo, if you're doing a test like this, and you're the lead service provider, you'd better have a deal in place with the carriers to either participate as a secondary partner and bypass data costs or step up to the plate and assume those costs, neither of which the company did. Lo and behold what happens, the kids get charged data fees every time they access one of these apps. How do you think the response rates have been so far? The article calls it tepid, which a nice word for shitty. Second, apparently the company's CEO needs a refresher course in morals and ethics. The article notes that the Mobile Discovery CEO gave a presentation to the one of the engineering classes and featured a slide of a topless woman who had a bar code on the rear of her jeans. As can be expected some students laughed it off while others were a bit dumbfounded. One of the students present at the time of presentation ended up writing up an editorial in the school's newspaper (which how I imagine the NY Times picked up on it) objecting to the company by saying they were "slapping bar codes on women as if they were six-packs of Budweiser from the local grocery store." Yikes. When it comes to mobile we've never said we had all of the answers, we like to believe that we can stimulate some thinking among our clients and readers and hopefully provide some insights as to best practices, but if you need a little (or a lot) of cold water splashed on your face for a quick reality check, this should be top of the list of things not to do.   

 

Comments

[streetstylz]

It should be noted that:

Scanbuy’s indirect resolution process, which they use for their proprietary EZcode, is infringing on NeoMedia Technologies’ core patents.

Scanbuy uses the indirect encoding method for their barcode resolution process.

Indirect encoding (patented by NeoMedia) is the process of linking the target information to an index (364528 for example) and putting that unique identifier into a 1D UPC/EAN or 2D barcode. The code reader on the mobile phone reads the barcode and sends the code data over the Internet to a central resolution server that will tell the mobile phone what action is associated with the index, i.e. access a URL, download media, initiate a phone call, ect.

NeoMedia Technologies has a suite of twelve issued patents covering the core concepts behind linking the physical world to the electronic world dating back to 1995.

http://neom.com/13.html

If Scanbuy's CEO Jonathan Bulkeley believes infringing on another companies patents is an ethical business practice, then by all means, infringe away.

However, I have a feeling that the US Judicial System will see Scanbuy’s unethical business practices differently.

[chris borish]

The New York Times did more than splash water on our face...it was a below the belt hit. The article is a biased, inaccurate portrayal of what is happening at Case Western. Our trial is far from failing.

I am one of the Master of Engineering and Management students at Case Western Reserve University who, along with 11 of my classmates, have been working diligently on managing the campus trial Mobile Discovery has been holding on campus throughout the entire 2007-2008 school year. I am outraged at the title of the article, which declares to all readers of the New York Times that this trial has been a failure. First of all, the trial has not even concluded, so calling it a failure is absolutely ludicrous. When the Kansas Jay Hawks were down 9 points with 2 minutes left in the NCAA Men’s National Championship game last night, Sports Illustrated did not begin printing advance issues with headlines declaring the Kansas team as losers. Why? Because the game was not over! In fact, they came back to win the game in a triumphant fashion and are now national champions. If a writer for that magazine would have printed such an article, with a premature headline, she would undoubtedly be relieved of her position because the headline would have clearly been misleading. This is precisely what the New York Times and bloggers have done.

Second of all, two of the NY Time's sources, who clearly have negatively biased opinions about the trial, have limited knowledge about the technology and campus acceptance in general. For some reason, however, their opinions seem to matter much more to your writer than the 12 students have put their blood, sweat, and tears into making this trial a success. In fact, if you ask our professors, and industry leaders, this trial is already a success. We have captured valuable customer feedback from surveys and feedback from multiple use cases, which Mobile Discovery will undoubtedly be able to use in developing and fine tuning their product in the future. Ms. Vermeersch, a writer for the school newspaper, clearly trying to make a name for herself by writing a controversial article about a school project, is merely one disgruntled student who completely misunderstood David Miller’s intention of using the example of a woman with a code on her denim jeans. He was not dehumanizing women…he was giving a real life example of an over seas use case for jeans. It seems that you are basing the “failure” of this trial on her negative comments. Ms. Dietz, who also works for the school newspaper commented that she could not name a student who was participating in the trial. Well, Ms. Dietz must not know too many students then, because just last week, L3, a campus eatery, was flooded with students interested in learning how to scan and create their own codes. It is interesting that your writer was unable to find anyone on campus to comment on that event.

Over the past 8 months, our team has been meeting with campus groups, creating use cases for codes, posting signs on a weekly basis, and working closely with the student body to see what they want out of this innovative product. In other words, we are capturing the voice of the customer in order to tailor this product and its applications to the needs and wants of its potential users. We meet on a daily basis with professors, campus leaders, student groups, and Mobile Discovery executives to make this trial a success and nothing was said about that. I am personally offended by this one-sided article. It gives a bad name to Mobile Discovery, Case Western Reserve University, The Institute of Management and Engineering, and myself.

Sincerely,

Chris Borish