Mobile Mandala

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Reason # 3    Always With Me, Wherever I Go

A few years ago, I had dinner with a somewhat overweight friend and the conversation reverted to the rather tired topic of dieting. “I’m done with dieting,” he declared with a wry smile, “I don’t want to lose my belly, it’s my best friend – it’s always with me, wherever I go.”  I quickly took my mobile phone out of my pocket, pointed to it, and laughed,” If that is the criteria for a best friend, this is your new best friend!”

“It’s always with me, wherever I go”

That statement really summarizes an important aspect of the magic and uniqueness of the mobile phone.  We’ve discussed in this blog how the first part of that statement, “always with me”, has contributed to the highly personal nature of this interactive communication ecosystem.

Now, what about the second part, “wherever I go”?

The concept of being able to identify where people and their phones are located at any given time has augmented a whole industry of location based services (LBS).  A significant share of the discussion regarding mobile in the industry centers on the tradeoff between the consumer advantages of allowing their location to be known, with the offsetting privacy concerns that result.

I remember earlier LBS models were about creating the “killer app” for LBS. People spoke wistfully about how a national coffee shop would be able to find out that you were walking or driving nearby and could send you a coupon on your mobile phone for a discount so you could impulsively stop in.  Of course, it would all be via opt-in.

Now, it seems like there is an LBS capable add-on being developed for almost every application from photo sharing sites to social networking sites to a myriad of iPhone apps.  Of course, these are all opt-in too.

But is opt-in enough for location awareness? Particularly when it comes to advertising, marketing and commercial uses?

Double opt-in provides an adequate level of privacy and permission necessary for consumers to receive ongoing mobile messaging via email, text or voice.  But adding location awareness to messaging ramps the opt-in into a whole new level of privacy intrusion as it now involves the additional elements of location and time.  While I may love receiving messages from my favorite retail store, I may not want to receive the message at the moment I am rushing to an appointment, simply because of my location at that particular moment.

Perhaps advertisers and marketers need to consider giving up even more control as it pertains to advertising and marketing via LBS mobile messaging.  In particular, rather than broadcasting messages to opted-in users who are in a specific location, I would suggest narrow-casting messages to opted-in users in a specific location who would need to opt-in again for each and every new LBS generated message.  In essence – consumer generated narrowcasting.

This isn’t a new concept.  In fact, after opening the Yelp application on an iPhone, the consumer is directed to select a particular type of service (restaurant, gas station, etc) they want to find that is near their location. 

Let’s review that process… Each and every time, the user needs to make a decision to open the Yelp application.  Each and every time, the user also needs to make a decision to find out about a particular retail establishment or service. Yelp even goes one additional step further in also specifically asking for a consumer’s permission to use their location the first few times they use the service.  That’s a lot of opt-ins for each individual use, and yet Yelp is still quite popular on mobile.

Advertisers can choose to advertise on these types of applications.  Starbucks and Papa Johns announced recently that they were advertising on GeoVector Corp.’s World Surfer application which enables consumers to point their phones in a particular direction to search for retail establishments and other locations.

What a frightening prospect for advertisers and marketers!  We are not accustomed to allowing consumers to have so much control!  It was bad enough when Mobile Mandala suggested we move from broadcasting to narrowcasting on mobile. Now, this blog is suggesting that we move from narrowcasting to user-generated narrowcasting as it pertains to LBS generated messages. Why?

The mobile phone is a very personal device, unlike a billboard, a television or a PC.  Consumers can choose to drive past a billboard or walk away from their TVs and our PCs.  But they don’t want to choose to walk away from their mobile phone.

That’s why their mobile phone is always with them, wherever they go. 

And while consumers feel it is OK to narrowcast messages to their phones after they opt-in initially, it is not OK to use that phone (and that past opt-in) to find out where they are for the purpose of narrowcasting messages to them.  That is just too invasive.

The hard truth is that most consumers just don’t want you to physically find them.  They would much rather find you.