Captivating Connections.

the ultimate tool of 2009: mobile.

It's no shock that mobile devices are fast becoming the key tool for people around the world. This holiday season, though, online retailers are taking full advantage of its power...

"Online retailers are revamping the mobile versions of their sites so consumers can make purchases without tedious typing. And offline retailers, battling for every last dollar, are sending cellphone users electronic coupons to lure them away from competitors.

One in five shoppers said they intended to use their cellphones to shop this holiday season, according to an annual survey by Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm. Of those, 45 percent said they would use their phone to research prices, 32 percent said they would use it to find coupons or read reviews and 25 percent said they would make purchases from their phones.

'We are at the cusp of this technology really driving a lot of activity during the shopping season,' said Stacy Janiak, United States retail practice leader at Deloitte. 'It is both an opportunity and a challenge for a retailer, because you can have a consumer who can cross-shop your store with other bricks-and-mortar stores or online, all from the convenience of your aisle.'

continental goes mobile.

"Continental Airlines increased its ad awareness by 60% via a mobile campaign it ran this past summer, and is planning more mobile efforts as a result.

The Houston-based airline worked with Jumptap and Mediavest Worldwide to develop the campaign to promote its new reduced fares. The goal of the mobile campaign was to generate brand awareness and interest regarding the fare promotion and drive traffic to the Continental mobile site.

The campaign targeted a mobile Internet-savvy smartphone audience ages 25-54 with household income levels of $100,000 and higher. The target audience also had traveled for business within the last three months."

NIce job, guys!

the year's top searches.

"Megan Fox was a hot tamale in 2009, no matter how you look at it. The 'Transformers' starlet showed up on Yahoo's lists of top 10 U.S. searches on both mobile phones and on the desktop. Michael Jackson also made both lists -- coming in at No. 1 on PC-based searches -- but otherwise the top terms diverged.

The most popular searches on mobile included other celebrities like Lady Gaga and Rihanna, but also featured more basic or mobile-specific terms like mail, mobile games, ringtones and movies. And of course, the coveted iPhone.

The top PC searches reflected a broader cross-section of pop culture including Britney Spears, the NFL, 'Twilight,' American Idol and NASCAR. Yahoo said that this year, a quarter of U.S. cell subscribers -- or 77 million people -- used a mobile device to access the Web. And globally, there are four times as many mobile phones as PCs."

we've got cyber monday. when will be get texting tuesday?

"About 96.5 million Americans plan to shop online during this year's Cyber Monday -- up from 85 million in the prior year, according to Shop.org, the National Retail Federation's online division.

While some Cyber Monday shoppers say they will shop online from their office, the majority will shop from their living room or kitchen. The survey reveals that 91.5% of Cyber Monday shoppers -- or 88.2 million Americans -- will shop from home on Cyber Monday, while 13.5% -- or 13 million people -- will shop from work, but Shop.org made no mention whether the loss of jobs prompted that transition.

Mobile phones will also have an impact on retail sales this year. Cyber Monday shoppers are reaching for their mobile phones more frequently to make a purchase or research products. In fact, 3.8% will shop from a mobile device such as an iPhone or a BlackBerry, according to Shop.org. A small percentage of shoppers -- 1.5% -- say they will shop from another location such as a coffee shop or a friend's house. The survey, conducted Nov. 26 through 28, 2009 by BIGresearch, suggests that 41.5% of Cyber Monday shoppers plan to hit the Web early in the morning. About 38% expect to shop late morning, 32.9% will shop in the early evening, and 22.7% will shop in the late evening."

the ultimate iphone brand apps.

According to AdWeek, at least! As they explain:

"Like any new channel, efforts have been a hit-and-miss affair. The mantra, however, has remained the same: 'utility.' In the mobile space, brands, it's believed, must provide something of value. Lancome and its mobile shop, Publicis Groupe's Phonevalley, use the iPhone to help women in the aisle choose makeup. Last month, it rolled out an app that lets users mix and match makeup from its Aaron de Mey collection. Zippo scored one of the first iPhone hits with a dead simple application that offers utility through entertainment. The Virtual Lighter simply gave users a digital representation of a lighter, marking a new way to signal for an encore at concerts. The app is still one of the platform's most popular selections.

Brands face an uphill battle getting noticed in the iTunes App Store, which now boasts over 100,000 applications. It's similar to their challenge on Facebook, only worse because brands do not have a beachhead like they do with their Facebook pages. That's meant few non-digital brands have cracked the most popular apps (ranked by number of downloads). These include Target, Disney and Walmart, which rank in the top 50 free apps.

One mistake brands make is thinking they can, in essence, create their own media properties, said Eric Litman, CEO of Medialets, an iPhone analytics and mobile ad platform. It sees the average brand app get between one and 2.5 uses, with engagement times between 2.5 and 5 minutes. "There will be a group of apps that sit at the top, a fair number in the middle and most will be in the tail," said Litman. "It's hard to build a business in the media industry."

That's meant some brands have chosen to go to mobile app networks. MasterCard released a new app this month, but it's also running a miniature version of it as a banner ad on The New York Times' application. And REI partnered with mobile media company Zumobi to create the REI Snow and Ski Report. Unlike most brand apps, REI does not own the intellectual property for the app, which reports conditions on the slopes and now includes Tweets. Instead, it sponsors the application that Zumobi built. The payoff: Zumobi can promote it through its other popular apps for MSNBC and the Today show."

Check out their list of best, as well as missed opportunities, apps here.

'mobile marketing' gets redefined.

"The Mobile Marketing Association Tuesday released revisions to its definition of 'mobile marketing.' The new definition is: 'Mobile marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.'

'While that redefinition may not seem all that earth-shaking, the MMA said the significance of it 'likes in two parts of its taxonomy:'

1. The 'set of practices' includes 'activities, institutions, processes, industry players, standards, advertising and media, direct response, promotions, relationship management, CRM, customer services, loyalty, social marketing, and all the many faces and facets of marketing.'

And 2. To 'engage' means to 'start relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, (and) be present at time of consumers expressed need.' Furthermore, engagement can be initiated by the consumer ('Pull' in form of a click or response) or by the marketer ('Push')."

droids selling like, uh, droids.

"A quarter of a million Droid handsets were sold in the first week after the Motorola smartphone from Verizon Wireless was released Nov. 6, according to a new estimate by mobile app analytics firm Flurry.

That makes the much-hyped Droid easily the bestselling Android-based phone to date, far surpassing the opening week performance of the T-Mobile myTouch, which sold 60,000 units. In comparison to the latest iPhone model, however, the Droid's debut was not quite as impressive. The iPhone 3G S sold 1.6 million in its first week in June."

social media's impact on the holidays.

"A new study reports that 17% of adult shoppers say they will use social media in some aspect of their holiday shopping, and 19% will rely on their mobile phones.

The survey -- part of Deloitte's 24th Annual Holiday Survey, a poll of more than 10,000 adults in the U.S -- says that of the nearly one in five who plans to use social media sites, 60% say they will do so to find sales, discounts, and coupons; 53% intend to use sites like MySpace and Facebook to research gift ideas, and 52% say they will check the wish lists of friends and family.

While young people certainly have greater amounts of social-media savvy than more grizzled consumers (52% of those in the 18-29 group will use social media to shop), interest is relatively strong among other age groups. In the 30 to 44 age bracket, 33% will use social media as a shopping tool, and in the 45 to 60 age group, 10% plan to do so.

Of the shoppers who plan to use their smartphones, 55% say they rely on their devices to look up store locations, 45% to research lowest prices, 40% to find general product information, 32% to get coupons, and 31% to find reviews. This year, consumers are literally putting their money where their mouth is: A full 25% say they will also use their phone to make a digital purchase."

smartphones to be the majority by 2011.

According to new research by the Nielsen Company, "the majority of mobile phones by 2011 in the U.S. will be smartphones, with the devices used by half of cell phone subscribers, or 150 million people, by mid-2011.

'This shift could happen much faster with the right conditions such as continued competitive price points on devices, lower 'all you can eat' data packages and the increasing consumers who need to be connected anytime, anywhere,' according to a post Wednesday on the Nielsen blog by Jerry Rocha, senior director of the online division.

In just the third quarter of 2009, Nielsen estimates that smartphones accounted for 40% of new phones sold in the period, up from 25% in the prior quarter. And in the third quarter, for the first time, more people accessed the Internet from smartphones than regular phones. 'If this trend continues, we'll see more than 80% of the devices accessing the Internet being these advanced phones,' wrote Rocha.

Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

texting while driving to be (potentially) illegal?

I've seen some PSAs regarding texting and driving, but it looks like people are taking it to the next step: Bringing the law in...

"Nearly all Americans say sending a text message while driving should be illegal, and about half say texting while behind the wheel should be punished at least as harshly as drunken driving, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll.

'If you’re going to drive, drive; if you want to talk or text, pull over to the side of the road,' Constance Drake, 71, of Toms River, N.J., said in a follow-up interview.

Ninety-seven percent support the prohibition of texting while driving, an unusual level of agreement for any topic. Eighty percent also support a ban on talking on a hand-held cellphone while driving.

Fifty percent said the punishment for texting while driving should be just as severe as for drunken driving."