The annual holiday shopping hysteria is upon us, and this year's Thanksgiving madness promises to be more mobile than ever. In fact, a new survey indicates 28 percent of adult consumers who own smartphones or tablets will use them to shop on Thanksgiving day. That's nearly double last year's percentage.

As 20 percent of shoppers definitely plan to shop on Black Friday, they'll be enabled by QR codes (although almost 60 percent of shoppers don't know how to use them) as well as apps from websites and retailers catering to shoppers with smartphones and tablets. And beyond Black Friday throughout the holiday season, more so than ever this year.

"Apps will play a particularly strong role for driving commerce this holiday season," reports Mobile Commerce Daily. Nearly a third of smartphone owners will download a shopping app to use for holiday shopping, according to a Pricegrabber study and of those, over 80 percent will use their smartphones this holiday season in an effort to save money on purchases. eMarketer puts that figure at about 53%.

This year, retailers have resigned themselves to the fact that "showrooming" (checking out merchandise at stores and purchasing online) is the new competitive environment. "Consumers have been empowered by shopping apps," said Alexander Muse, founder of the Future Of Retail Alliance. "They've been armed with more product knowledge than clerks in most retail stores have. Retailers used to be threatened by this; now, they are finding ways to capitalize on it — such as through aggressive price-matching, as well as ship-to-store and other omnichannel strategies. That's the big difference between Black Friday 2011 and Black Friday 2012."Continue reading...

Who needs in-flight entertainment when passengers can entertain each other? American Airlines' iPad app has been upgraded to add "Know It All," a free trivia game that pits fliers on Wi Fi-equipped flights against each other, in addition to passengers on other flights and players on the ground. The app is also updated for iPhone and iPod touch.

According to AA's press release, "From Nov. 19 to Dec. 31, 2012, fans who have "liked" American's Facebook page can register for a chance to win a weekly drawing for 100,000 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles. In addition, registrants who have downloaded the iPad app and played Know It All will be featured on a Facebook leaderboard. Each week, the Know It All player with the top score will receive an extra entry for the 100,000 bonus miles."

Download the app here.

Prada has launched its first mobile app, an extension of a visual partnership with fashion illustrator Richard Haines — a major digital move for the Italian fashion label, one that it describes as the culmination of "a multi-platform project combining hand-made artistry and cutting-edge technology."Continue reading...

One Direction stormed the Today Show this morning, with a concert in NBC's New York digs in Rockefeller Square and news of a 3D concert film slated for next year (directed by product placement foe-turned-champion Morgan Spurlock). Hot on the Heelys of its Pepsi "Live for Now" US TV campaign with NFL star Drew Brees, the band is extending its brand to Colgate-Palmolive toothpaste: 1D Colgate Max Fresh. The collection of three oral care products, available in the U.S. only, is designed "to add some fun to teens' and tweens' brushing regimens," said Philip Durocher, VP and GM of U.S. Oral Care for Colgate-Palmolive. Hopefully fans will be inspired to brush their teeth in one direction (roll that brush, kids!) too.

While Taylor Swift is slightly older, at the ripe old age of 22, she's also quick to embrace novel ways to promote her albums, including partnering with Keds and Papa John's for her latest release, Red. Next up: her mobile app (available in iTunes and Google Play) is incorporating augmented reality so fans can access exclusive content related to Red. By opening the app's AR feature and pointing the device's viewfinder at a still image on the "Red" album cover (and on in-store displays at select Walmart stores), fans will see the images come to life. The app also works on the Taylor Swift Wonderstruck fragrance packaging from Elizabeth Arden.Continue reading...

The New York Times' Stuart Elliott broke the story this morning about Coca-Cola relaunching its corporate website. Armed with that revamped website, Coca-Cola now wants to break more of its own stories.

While maintaining the same website address for the Coca-Cola Company, the content is now arranged and commissioned to resemble a slick magazine or digital media brand's website, with the emphasis on storytelling from around the world. The inspiration came from the top, as Elliott recounts, when chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent charged his marketing and communications executives to refresh the company's old employee magazine, Journey, which ran from 1987 to 1997, for the digital age.

Having spent 2011 celebrating Coca-Cola's 125th anniversary, they were inspired to tell the forward-looking journey of the Coca-Cola company's multitude of brands in a more engaging, digital fashion — taking a page from Journey to reimagine the company's online and digital presence in a fresh, more engaging way that incorporates social media and blogging from around the world. The relaunched website (its first relaunch since 2005, after being launched in 1995) is described by NYT's Elliott as "the company's most ambitious digital project to date" for good reason.

Ashley Brown, director of digital communications and social media for the company, walked Elliott through what's new on the more editorially-focused website, which creates, aggregates and curates content while maintaining the core functions of a corporate website (careers, investor relations, press releases, executive bios). It's not just content marketing, either, with a focus on original content that's not just self-promotional.

Brown says the goal is to spark a debate, and host differing points of view, while showing the totality of Coca-Cola in a way that surprises and establishes a lively brand voice, one that Brown says had to be created "from scratch" with this launch. So how would he sum up that voice, as expressed through the new digital home of the Coca-Cola brand? "Smart, fun and fearless" — not exactly words you'd associate with the world's biggest brand. And that's the whole point.Continue reading...

Facebook is encouraging its U.S. users to share that they've voted for an interactive map, while Twitter has set up its election page to track the #Election2012 winds of change. But it's Facebook's more visual sub-brand, theonce niche mobile photo-sharing app Instagram, that's the darling of the digital world for the 2012 U.S. presidential election cycle.

Since being snapped up by Facebook for $1 billion in April, and following its launch of an Android version of its app, the brand has grown its user base from 15 million to 80 million since January 1st, with an astonishing 4 billion photos posted this year to date. Further proof, if any is needed, that photo-sharing is hot: Coca-Cola is getting in on the game with its Happy Places app, while Twitter and Facebook are racing to improve their photo filters.

The 2012 U.S. presidential election day represents Instagram’s coming out party. Its usual feed today is replaced by a stream of voter’s ballots and related political imagery, which could exceed half a million uploads by election day's end. While encouraging its users to share their election day photos with the tag #ivoted, they are being reminded to not snap a pic of their election ballot, which could render it void in certain states. In another first, the New York Times is also featuring voters' Instagram photos on their homepage election coverage.Continue reading...

Coca-Cola has long made happiness part of its brand DNA. Now extending that joy into social, the iconic brand's Happy Places photo app and social network is encouraging people to share their happy moments with a new photo-sharing social network, Happy Places, and a free mobile app to enable it. The launch comes as Twitter is rumored to be ready to launch a photo filter, a move that Instagram's CEO says doesn't scare him.

While the website's domain name was registered in June it's not yet activated, although its free iOS app was released November 1st, described as: “that place where you can upload photos of your happy moments, share them, and remember them any time you want. Take a picture or pick one from your albums, add it to your profile, and share that moment of happiness with your followers in Happy Places, or your friends in Facebook or Twitter.”Continue reading...

As if Hurricane Superstorm Sandy preparations weren't enough to keep it busy, Google is all over the news this week:

• A new AMBER alerts project in partnership with The National Center For Missing And Exploited Children in the U.S. followed the launch of a crisis page and public alerts system for those affected by the wrath of Sandy. When using Google Search or Maps, you’ll see if an AMBER Alert is in effect in your area.
• A revamped iOS search app with Siri-like voice-recognition represents its "most advanced voice search" to date, greeting users with a "Try our new voice search" message above a microphone icon on the main page ready for tapping. "If it’s short and quick, like the status and departure time of your flight—Google tells you the answer aloud." 
• Google Earth 7 is now available with 3D Imagery on the desktop (can be disabled if you choose), and newest sites include Avignon, France; Austin, Texas; Munich, Germany; Phoenix, Arizona; and Mannheim, Germany. A tour guide flies over landmarks and offers stats and info from Wikipedia.
• Google Chromebook rocks with Slayer for Halloween.
• Google's still-in-beta universal analytics for websites lets marketers better measure impact of digital campaigns.Continue reading...