Halloween comes with an App

Getting customers through the doors around holidays gives retailers plenty of headache. Competition is ramping up visuals and discounting prices while consumers are ever more pickier with price tags and quality. On the other hand holidays present an opportunity to differentiate, to put your store up there in a brighter light (or dimmer, it depends); an inch better, faster, smarter than your neighbour and for this reason, securing place in the cloud sounds like a good strategy now more than ever.


Since Halloween is just around the corner, I was wondering how retailers are taking advantage of the festive atmosphere. Forget about economic hardships, this year 7 in 10 Americans for example plan to celebrate Halloween and spend on it slightly more too, the National Retail Federation(USA) and BIGresearch tell us. So let`s get down to the Halloween buzz hunting the web and ultimately to the most courageous players to engage all those innocent souls with the wicked mobile while capitalizing on virtual skeletons, pumpkins and cob webs :-E.

Target
Retail giant Target aims to boost sales through mobile display and audio ads in store or mobile commerce-enabled site. Ads appear on Pandora`s iPhone app. 

Photo courtesy www.mobilemarketer.com, read more  at http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/11311.html

Tesco

Not too far behind, across the pond, Tesco is using Facebook to tempt fans with a temporary, pop-up shop that offers discounts up to 20% for Halloween merchandise. What is there not to like? I was late in checking it out, but you can read more about it on Paul Marsden`s blog, where he goes deeper in the issue of Facebook`s power to convert fans into customers.

House of Horror 

My personal fav, the House of Horrors aggregates all the spookiness in one place and lets you watch it.The app gives you access to over 100 classic public domain horror films streamed on your device, featuring best silver screen horror actors, actresses and directors. 

The beverage industry 
Here is a little trick how to spicy up the drinks menu. Pictures speak for themselves, I guess one has to first have a plain one, before browsing what `s on offer:

The Fashion spot
Holiday costumes are n`t really representative for the clothing industry, but the idea is the same: ease up the buying experience and tempt the window and the screen shoppers by getting your last collection on an app. Follow the example of BuyCostumes.com and read more on Paul Demery`s post at internet retailer. 

Moboline says: You can check out a good selection of top 10 spooky Halloween apps on appolicious, as well as watch TheWiseMathew`s review of top 2011 Halloween apps.

Happy Halloween ;)

Re-considering Moboline's strategy

A couple of months down the line, since my first Moboline post went online, I felt the need for some re-organization and re-branding. I had to sit done and think to myself what do I wan to do with this blog so that, as the well known marketing definition goes, I create value for my readers as well as get value in return.

Therefore important decisions had to be made. First, I was thinking niche blogging because 1. everybody with blogging experience says so and 2. it helps you become 'an' or 'the' expert in the field.
Then, as I was researching more about mobile, trends have shown that the retail sector (department stores, shopping malls,etc.) seems to warm up to the idea of using mobile in their marketing communications mix, something they should have been done loooooooong time ago, and as a shopper myself , I realized  why not blog about this.

So, I give you, Moboline, the place where you can find out how the retail sector is using mobile to attract and retain customers, what gaps have not yet been covered and what does the future hold on the shopping experience.

Little weight, higher bills.

Check out the new tech contingent in the battle for your share of...knees: Acer, Lenovo and Apple`s ultra books  reviewed in the FT:

Machines with more of less - FT.com:

laptopspec.net

Mobile’s role in the digital music age, Latest Videos | Mobile World Live

First Flexible Smartphone aimed to roll in 2012

 It is said that a good product sells itself. Building and holding to this momentum when your product flies off the shelves is any businessman`s dream. Common sense makes it evident that it is much more difficult to keep the momentum going than to create it. Having said this, I could not help thinking about the mobile and handset companies that lost or are losing at this moment the race to the likes of Apple and Google. The iphone raised the bar so high that nobody could jump it, let alone come close to it, for a good while.  Android`s meteoric rise surprised everyone, including itself. Their competitors are scratching heads trying to come up with something that will keep them running… at least. Those that are close to the top contenders understand very well that unless they set the next challenge, the game will soon be over. 

Samsung, presently considered Nr.2 in the smartphone race, hopes to  break through at the corner and force the others in the shades, and it looks like it has the right product cooking in the oven for this: a super futuristic prototype device set to come out in 2012. After seeing the iphone back in 2007, I confess, I thought none of the subsequent copies, no matter how well executed and masterfully sold, can beat it, convinced that at least in the short run, nothing as extraordinary could come up on the markets... up until this year, June 2011 to be precise. This past summer Samsung unveiled a prototype device likely to become the first Flexible (mass produced?) smartphone. It makes you wonder what`s next: the first liquid phone? Irony aside, judge for yourself:

You can read more at: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214260/20110915/samsung-galaxy-skin-future-smartphone-rumors-flexible-features-reasons-specs-specifications-apple-ip.htm

The second trick that Samsung wants to break through with involves the ecosystem front, following the formula: super cool device+ever expanding ecosystem of developers, apps and users=success. Just recently Samsung announced the Tizen project as its open source, standards-based software platform, destined for “multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more.” Thus, it is quite clear that Tizen will be here to intimidate and threaten the Android`s meteoric rise and dominance. Meego is gone, Symbian succumbed, Windows Mobile is far, far behind before any Nokia brand can save it, RIM is losing pace, it looks like Tizen could, given some time and developer effort, gobble up share from the rest to get itself very close to the top. We`ll see.

Samsung is trying to build a momentum, especially that in the back, the Galaxy S II phone sells relatively well.  Trying to catch up on all fronts such as premium handset to threaten Apple and  friendly/open OS to build community, looks like  too much, too late, but again, only a few years ago, who thought Apple would become the Nr. 2 company in the world(by market value)?