As part of Google's GoMo "Go Mobile" initiative, on November 15 and 16, Google kicked-off the effort to make Mobile, Alabama, a fully mobilized city. As part of Mobile's mobile makeover, Google upgraded Lulu's, a local hotspot (and we don't mean in the wireless sense); Foosackly's, a local chicken joint; and Red Square Agency — watch their makeovers below.Continue reading...

The use of mobile apps has grown significantly in the last year as a new study shows that more than 90% of the world’s biggest brands are using them as marketing tools, according to Warc.com. 

Research group Distimo looked into whether the top 100 members of Interbrand’s 2011 Best Global Brands list are selling apps in such app stores as those run by Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, Warc reports. (For those of you keeping score at home, brandchannel is owned by Interbrand.)

"Global brands have realized over the past 18 months that app stores offer a viable channel to promote their brand, reach consumers, and for a subset of brands, sell content," the study said.Continue reading...

Google's "digital evangelist" and web analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik yesterday gave a webinar to discuss how mobile marketing "can create truly delightful brand accretive marketing and digital existences" — or "reinvent the way that consumers interact with brands," as Mobile Marketer's recap puts it. 

His “Mobile Advertising: Right Person, Right Time, Right Message - Finally!” presentation above shares insights and best practices (examples include mobile campaigns by Target and Skullcandy) to make the most of mobile marketing with apps, a mobile-optimized website, QR codes and mobile search.

How much is that doggy bed in the window? Shopkick knows.

The mobile application, which melds in-store and mobile retail, rewards consumers for just walking in, with further deals for scanning partner brand products at more than 250,000 stores across the U.S. 

Launching a year ago this month (it officially turns one on August 17th), its users have surpassed 6.5 million product scans as 12 new major brand partners sign on: CoverGirl, Disney, General Mills, Levi’s, Libman, Mead Johnson, Meguiar’s, Mr. Clean, Olay, Revlon, Tilex and Trident.Continue reading...

In yet another sign that Japanese auto brands aren’t just sitting on their hoods waiting for vehicle supplies to return to normal, Nissan has pioneered the use of Quick Response (QR) codes among auto retailers in the U.S. market.

The codes perform functions for Nissan, its dealers and products similar to the information and communication assistance they lend shoppers at the supermarkets, department-store chains  and other brands that quickly have flocked to using QR. Recently, Toyota disclosed its own innovative mobile-information apps using SpyderLynk's SnapTags.

Launched in June with the 2012 Nissan Altima and Sentra models, Nissan’s QR codes are found on individual window stickers of the vehicles along with standard equipment, options, mileage, price and other information that is there by law. Smartphone users can snap a photo of the code and access specific vehicle information such as key features, available accessories, incentive offers and even dealer inventories.

The program “puts important decision-making information at shoppers’ fingertips while on dealership lots, helping sales personnel make a more effective presentation, as well as providing customers with a ‘silent salesperson’ if they are shopping the lot after hours,” stated Jon Brancheau, vice president of marketing for Nissan North America. “It’s a true mass-market effort across all products and all Nissan dealerships nationwide.”Continue reading...

Toyota is often the follower that finally gets it right in its industry, so it’s interesting to see the Japanese auto brand staking out a pioneering position in a digital marketing method that is new to automakers.

With its new ToyoTag, a logo inside a ring powered by SpyderLynk's SnapTag technology, Toyota says that consumers can snap the image with their mobile phones (whether or not they’re smart phones) and access a whole array of brand and vehicle communications, from product brochures to safety tips.

Toyota joins a handful of other trailblazing brands in these SnapTag applications, including Coors Light, Coke, Bud Light and the Marines.Continue reading...

Taco Bell is extending its marketing partnership with MTV with a co-branded campaign to promote the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) to Taco Bell fans with a sweet deal: a Big Box Remixed special featuring four classic Taco Bell menu items with a side order of exclusive music content. 

The co-branding partnership is also something of a special deal for the leading Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain, as it marks Taco Bell's foray into the social media space of QR code packaging via a free mobile app.Continue reading...

When you are driving by your local strip mall and a coupon for a store suddenly pops up on your smartphone, congratulations! You’re now part of an industry that has grown (and will continue to grow) exponentially in recent years.

Only three years ago, location-based advertising “was worth just $86 million,” Pyramid Research reports, according to Business Day Online. That was about 10% of the overall mobile advertising market, the site notes. Last year, the numbers had grown to 18.5% and $588 million.

Additionally, the industry is expected to rake in $6.2 billion by 2015. “The research says the figure is equivalent to almost 35 percent of total mobile advertising revenue, and more than 60 percent of total location-based services revenue,” notes Business Day.

“The different components of mobile advertising (including search, display and messaging) are all growing,” Pyramid Research analyst Jan ten Setoff commented.

“However, local search will be the most important driver of location-based advertising revenues. Not only are navigation applications moving to a search-funded model, but there are also a wide range of other companies looking to capitalize on the growth of local search, including start-ups.”