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The five most interesting mobile loyalty apps

When a good idea comes along in retail and digital there are soon many, many start-ups getting in on the action.

Take loyalty apps for example. Loyalty is a big beast. Many types of company may consider it part of their remit, from digital payment solutions, to social-style check-ins, to group buying sites, or indeed a retailer’s own app.

I’ve previously looked at the state of apps in retail and found that using loyalty schemes is pretty much the major rationale for customers using a retail app.

Whether customers will settle on retailers’ own apps or on a generic loyalty scheme provider (perhaps lumped with payment) remains to be seen.

But of those tens of consolidated loyalty apps, which are the best? Here’s the list of five I think are most interesting. Whether mobile wallets such as PayPal and Google Wallet will buy them up remains to be seen but the space seems set to get richer before it gets poorer.

YouTube reveals sneak previews of the 2014 Super Bowl ads

Its pre-game teaser time, with the YouTube channel Ad Blitz currently showcasing excerpts from some of the major brands’ 2014 Super Bowl adverts.

The Super Bowl itself (number XLVII for anyone counting or able to understand Roman numerals) doesn’t happen till 2 February, but that hasn’t stopped the hype machine from kicking into gear.

Last week I revealed the top 20 Super Bowl ads of all time according to Unruly and discovered that 60% of the most shared ads of all time were launched before Super Bowl Sunday, thereby using word-of-mouth and early publicity to generate extra shares. In fact seven of the top 20 ads used teasers to build hype.

Marketers are clearly learning tactics from major film studios, where big event films can be teased a year or more before their release, even before a single piece of footage has been shot.

Alternative payments used for 43% of online transactions: report

Alternative payments only account for a small proportion of ecommerce transactions in the US and UK, however methods such as e-wallets, direct debits and cash on delivery continue to show strong growth in other regions.

Therefore it’s a feature that businesses can’t ignore, particularly at a time when many e-tailers are seeking to expand into international markets.

A new report from WorldPay highlights the way in which the use of alternative payments (AP) differs across global markets, with PayPal shown to be the most popular AP method globally, though Chinese companies Alipay and Tenpay are also popular and growing at a faster rate.

It’s estimated that alternative payments accounted for 43% of all online transactions in 2012, a figure that is predicted to rise to 59% by 2017 (though predictions should always be treated with some scepticism).

Do big retailers need to create social value to succeed?

The high street debate is one that attracts much comment on the Econsultancy blog.

Feelings run high when it comes to ensuring the survival of stores in our towns. The situation has yet to crystallise, though it’s clear there are business models that aren’t best suited to bricks and mortar any more. 

Alongside the trend towards experiential retail (shops doing more than simply selling stuff that consumers can buy cheaper online), a trend towards creating social value in the community may be emerging. 

High street vacancy rates are steady in the UK at 14% in 2013 and independent stores such as cafes are on the increase. Part of the reason for this is social and local. 

Most of us still value our retail centres as places to take a ‘humanity bath’, meeting people outside of the office, the church/mosque/synagogue and your neighbourhood. 

But what else can big retailers do to engender a closer community? Does every store have to get involved? What about digital technology, can it play a part at a community level?

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has released a report detailing the business case for socially aware retail. The report includes the results of six months of research with three ASDA stores. 

Whilst most of the findings are relevant mainly for larger focal points, chiefly supermarkets, here’s what I gleaned…

20 stunning examples of minimal mobile UI design

Some of the best web and mobile app designs have a very limited colour range. Two or three colours can be more than enough, and I find that a restrained approach to colour works especially well on de-cluttered interfaces. 

The use of colour in design is a bit like great music, where balance, contrast, restraint and dissonance all come into play. I picked out monochrome and hypercolour as two of my 18 web design trends for 2014, but perhaps trichromatic design is where it’s really at?  

Three reasons why digital marketers should revisit augmented reality in 2014

AR (augmented reality) gets a tough rap in digital marketing circles. To date, the technology is still most visible powering children’s games and providing 3D thrills that use your tablet or smartphone to layer digital information or graphics over real-world objects. 

With wearable tech exploding off the tradeshow floor at CES, and Google Glass finally infiltrating mainstream press, it’s time to take a serious look at augmented reality in modern marketing and the enterprise.

Here are three reasons why I’m betting on seeing more use of AR from savvy brands and agencies in the year(s) to come.

50+ fascinating stats about mobile commerce in the US

Mobile commerce is no longer the newcomer to the digital scene, but it is likely to remain one of the main challenges for businesses for the foreseeable future.

Ever-increasing levels of smartphone and tablet ownership in the US means that businesses have no choice but to adapt to accommodate the ensuing rise in mobile web traffic, however some sites (including our own) are still lagging behind.

So just to reiterate the importance of mobile commerce I’ve rounded up more than 50 of the best stats from surveys and reports that we’ve seen in the past 12 months.

And for more data on m-commerce download out Internet Statistics Compendium…

January: the ideal time for an AdWords spring clean

If you manage your own Google AdWords account but the very thought of logging in and performing tweaks sends shivers down your spine, I’ve put together a really simple five point checklist for you.

There’s no better time to spring clean your AdWords account than the dawn of a New Year – so what are you waiting for?

An AdWords campaign is never complete. The most successful campaigns are chopped and changed regularly in order to wring out every last cent of ROI.

PPC is becoming increasingly competitive – in order to run a successful campaign you must be committed. 

Top 20 Super Bowl ads of all time

In honour of Super Bowl XLVIII, the Wildcats at Unruly have shared with us their latest research on Super Bowl ads and have also revealed the top 20 Super Bowl ads of all time.

Last year’s collection of Super Bowl ads attracted twice as many shares as the previous year, in fact the number of video shares has grown 30x in the last three years. The trend is set to continue in 2014 with brand new ads from Budweiser, a British villains themed Jaguar ad and a Scarlett Johansson starring SodaStream set to be unveiled.

Here are some of the highlights from Unruly’s research, followed by the top 20 Super Bowl ads of all time.

Eight NFL teams getting creative with Twitter’s Vine

Since launching last year Vine has become a firm favourite at Econsultancy as it allows brands to create some really creative content.

However the app also presents a challenge for marketers, as it can be difficult to come up with entertaining and shareable ideas that fit perfectly into the six-second format.

Brands that base their marketing activities around live events obviously have a natural advantage in this respect as there’s always something to point a camera at to capture some behind-the-scenes footage.

I’ve previously highlighted several fashion brands that have begun to use Vine as part of their social marketing, but professional sports are another obvious example of an industry that should be experimenting with the six-second videos.

Four key takeouts from our Digital Transformation Roundtable in New York

20 senior execs from a wide range of industries as diverse as broadcast television, pharmaceutical, publishing and financial services gathered in New York last November as Econsultancy hosted another Digital Transformation roundtable.

Ever since IBM’s seminal 2011 study ‘From Stretched to Strengthened – Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officer Study’, CMOs have been reporting a concern that they are underprepared for digital – shorthand for changes in consumer behavior, an explosion in the volume of data, the proliferation of channels and device choices and the effects of social media. 

According to a recent Econsultancy study, only 23% of the Fortune 500 could consider themselves to be in any way whatsoever shielded from the effects of digital.

It was suggested that those who might fall into that category are generally companies that dig things out of the ground and process them, but perhaps even they will see soon their industry disrupted by digital technologies. 

Everyone who attended on the day agreed that true Digital Transformation is a heavy lift and there is often a greatly delayed gratification from the process.

Nearly all of the organizations represented at the roundtable had experienced significant disruption to their business models from digital.

The attendees told us afterwards that the most valuable part of the day was hearing from their peers in other businesses, learning what had worked for them, what hadn’t and how they had overcome the challenges they faced.

Four keys rose to the top of the discussion…

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