Instead of adapting traditional marketing to mobile devices, realize that new media requires a radical rethink.
We live in an age of 110-inch flat screen TVs, but the future of marketing may belong to your 5-inch phone screen. The continuing trend towards mobile platforms offers challenges for all brands, but can be particularly vexing for high-end home brands.
Image via Martin Schilder Groep on Flickr
After all, the home category has been driven by beautiful product imagery and compelling lifestyle images. Ever try to communicate the drama of a 1,500-square-foot custom kitchen or an eight-foot stone fireplace on a phone screen? That is why we need to think about small mobile screens in fundamentally new ways. Here are five good starting points for reinventing your mobile marketing strategy.
- The phone screen is just like a really small highway billboard. The typical highway billboard is 14-feet by 48-feet and a phone fits in your palm, but the principle for getting eyeballs is the same. Powerful words and startling graphics. In both cases, the viewer’s attention is all over the place and brands have precious microseconds to create a connection.
- Small screen videos can have serious impact. Soon, over half of all YouTube videos will be viewed on mobile devices. Don’t be afraid to turn mobile devices into video showrooms, or to tell stories, or even celebrate the brand’s lifestyle in imaginative ways.
- Get the full impact from the touch screen. Give viewers better ways to interact with their fingertips. They love to scroll, flip and flick to dig for options, details or to create side-by-side comparisons. They love to play games. And yes, on small screens they love to zoom. Mobile experiences that don’t take full advantage of the touch screen interface are missing a crucial component.
- Encourage the conversation to keep going. That first successful mobile interaction needs to be the beginning of an ongoing conversation. Don’t lose them after a 45-second engagement. Make sure there’s a compelling reason to come back soon, or to click for more information.
- Don’t make your website mobile-friendly by making it dull. In a sincere attempt to make their mobile website simple, some marketers throw out the style that makes their brands special. It’s a mistake to eliminate the eye candy that delights customers and defines your promise. Instead, inspire your mobile viewers and give them easy access to information by simplifying the navigation rather than the brand experience.
Like it or not, small screens are becoming the dominant way for people to interact with marketing. The good news: you don’t have to reinvent your brand, just the way you think about media.
