HomePlus subway virtual store gets "real" (from click and mortar to billboard and click)

Following the success of its QR code-based advertising campaign in Seoul subway with Cheil Worldwide (see "HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions"), Korean retailer HomePlus, a Tesco-Samsung JV, launches its first permanent virtual store in Seollung station, Gangnam area.

Since you liked it (over 10,000 views), I'll play it again, Sam :


This time, 2D shelves will stretch deeper into the station : with screen doors and pilars simulating popular sections and products of the hypermarket chain, all commuters have to do is to direct their smartphones to the items they please. HomePlus also decided to beef up backhaul, multiplying the time slots available for home deliveries.

Major hypermarkets being already open 24/7, now there's no way consumers can escape from contextual shopping traps.

mot-bile 2011

HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions

Cheil Worldwide won the Media Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival of Creativity for its amazing HomePlus campaign in Seoul subway, three years after claiming a bronze award for an outdoor advertising campaign "Plus to your life - HomePlus" with the same customer (Samsung Tesco).

Pushing to new levels the now decade-old barcode mobile advertising concept, "Homeplus Subway Virtual Store" transforms a subway station into a replica of supermarket where commuters can register and order online with their smartphone. This is not only spectacular and smart, but efficient : the number of subscribers and the turnover skyrocketed, helping the retailer overtake Emart as the national leader in online sales* :



Of course, you don't want to miss your subway and you won't fill your virtual cart through this sometimes tedious process, but you can just load the first items and quietly finish shopping on the way home.

Expect more of these. I already can see Amazon setting up his own virtual libraries near rival brick and mortar shops...

mot-bile 2011

* a key channel in Korea, see "Online sales become the first distribution channel in Korea - or is door-to-door back ?"

Did you slap your PaperPhone on ? Snaplet

Foldable screens and e-ink technologies have fueled our imaginations for years (remember the downloadable newspaper ?), and teams of North American researchers* added the logical next next step, with a PaperPhone prototype to be on display next Tuesday at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver. They went one notch further with the Snaplet, a wristband which becomes "a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave"**.

The Snaplet is a really interesting concept because it adds a human touch and provides a wearable solution for the rollscreen (call it a tablet or a phone depending on the circumstances). Of course, it won't be that simple (consider sweat, thefts, or shocks, for instance), but that's a nice upgrade for the snappable watch, and a perfect support for promotional gifts : I don't see people paying fortunes for a rugged version, but couple this with the disposable phone...

mot-bile 2011

* from Human Media Lab, Queen's University / Motivational Environments Research, Arizona State University
** both unveiled by the Beeb, see BBC's "Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut"

As Daum goes (a bit) mAd, SK Telecom jumps to L Commerce and Mobile Virtual Banking Operator

I've been expecting a lot from Korea's leading portals Naver and Daum*, but so far, they've not exactly revolutionized mobile internet. For instance, they've only recently set a timid foot into mobile advertising**.

To their credit, it's hard to get a slice of the wireless pie consistent with their impressive web portal market share, even after the implementation of USIM cards, which undermined Korean MNO's lock on handsets, and even after the rise of smartphone apps, which also weakened their positions on the value chain.

According to KoreanClick, #1 NHN / Naver controls 63% of the portal market (31 M Unique Visitors for Naver.com in April 2010) and #2 Daum 21% (28.9 M UV), but #3 Nate (10% MS, 24.7 M UV) can leverage on key enablers provided by owner SK Telecom : the leading cellco, already a quadplay giant, has always put a lot of importance on Location Based Services and financial enablers.

That focus has become even more evident with the creation of the Hana Bank - SKT JV (see "SK Telecom's Wild Hana Card"), confirmed by the first services earlier this year***. The recently rebranded Hana SK Card targets 400 to 500,000 cardholders by EOY 2010.

SKT has also been redefining the "mobile wallet" concept over the past few weeks : leveraging on Visa PayWave radio frequency technology, the "T Smart Pay" (always that "T" umbrella brand of SKT's) concept allows the consumer to monitor up to 8 credit cards, 30 mileage / point cards, and 50 coupons with the same '13.56MHz RF SIM' card (always that "technerdy" trend of SKT's), to the risk of storing all your most critical information on one single device. Each time you present it for a contactless payment, you're proposed the choice between all registered cards.

Of course, Hana SK Card holders can also enjoy a simplified UI :



Here, SKT almost acts like a Mobile Virtual Banking Operator roaming on tens of rival networks and helping the consumer make the most of each buck, picking the best provider depending on the store, account status, promotion... Needless to say that this entry point will be massively exploited for contextual offers : ever since NATE Coupons, SK Telecom has been a major innovator in couponing and in July, SKT will launch 'L-commerce', a new set of Location Based Services bound to confirm the return of its mojo.

About ten years ago, I was impressed by how deep this player ventured into new trades like media or banking. Since then, SK Telecom didn't fully succeed overseas as a classic mobile operator, and at one moment lost some appeal as the marketing king at home, but lately, it seems to be experiencing a revival. Even telematics are back in fashion (SKT MIV / Mobile in Vehicle).

Note that on the more traditional battlefield, SK confirmed 8 more Android handsets by EOY (see "SK Telecom pushes Android"), and KT remains the most likely guess for the iPad exclusivity : Apple's latest gizmo is being approved for import, and TriGem, Samsung, and LG will suffer from a minimized delay before their own tablets****.

mot-bile 2010


* see "KT claims 500,000 iPhones"
** "Daum rolls out mobile advertising network" (JoongAng Daily 20100511)
*** see "Wal-Mart's Vudu Trance - home entertainment and apps"
**** see "Samsung S Pad in a Flash"

Lagardere Active meets YouTube

An interesting partnership was announced at the 2010 MIPTV between Lagardere and YouTube for the international distribution of online videos, ranging from short programs to fictions and documentaries.

Turning the group's traditional media brands (ie Elle) into truly multimedia cash machines... this 3-year agreement is vintage Didier Quillot, who already boosted digital revenues to 7.5% of Lagardere's total turnover.

YouTube / Google promotes its own key features : advertising and DRM, with the IDfication of each content and the total control of diffusion for each region. Of course, this is pure streaming and no download is allowed.

Both partners will share advertising revenues, and the enduser will access new contents for free :
. short in-house programs (caranddriver.com, elle.fr, europe.fr...) : 7,000 by summer 2010, 15,000 by EOY. Distribution : 45% for the French market
. long programs (Lagardere Entertainment) : 315 hours by summer 2010, 600 by EOY. Distribution : 80% France 20% International
. TV programs and cartoons from Lagardere channels, including TV archives. Distribution : 100% for a French audience.

mot-bile 2010

iAdMobsters and multitaskers

Apple will take a 40% for all ads on its new advertising platform : iAd.

Google will gobble AdMob (whose moto happens to be "Enriching Mobile") with the benediction of regulators on the grounds that Quattro Wireless* + iAd = Google left some room to whatever's left of competitors.

iAd focuses on in-App advertising across iPhone, iPad*, and iWhatevercomesnext. Steve Jobs estimates the potential at 1 billion ad impressions per day on existing Apple devices.

Google focuses on everywhere, including iPad, iPhone, and iPutaspellonyou. It's been a long time since Big G ditched that billboard advertising "over 1 billion burgers served".

But iPhone OS 4 also offers improvements in multitasking, a word Cupertino definitely seems to be getting a grasp on.

mot-bile 2010

* snatched by Apple last January (see "SK Telecom pushes Android"). Google's purchase of AdMob last September has not been okayed yet.
** which eventually sold 450,000 units in 5 days instead of the 700,000 on day one earlier outoftheballparked by a fan (see "iFad's deliberate marketing blur") - anyway a good score. More significant : 600,000 ebooks and 3.5 M apps downloaded (iPad apps store claims 3,500 applications).

Video In Print : an example in video

French advertizers' Bible Strategies published* this interesting video of a video : inserted in Enjeux-Les Echos (business news magazine), all commercials for Citroen DS3 car are played on small LCD screen with a rudimentary mike :



Beyond the mag (10,000 copies), the campaign run by agence H (Groupe Havas) also includes billboards featuring video and interactivity with cellphones.

For this model, the carmaker and its agency have been targeting urban hypists with an "anti-retro" claim, where Marilyn Monroe or John Lennon deliver dopey versions of "think different, think Pepsi".

The screen and holes in the cardboard for the mike do look retro compared to say the seamless and flexible epaper on that Minority Report subway, but that's enough for the buzz.

mot-bile 2010

"Le magazine Enjeux-Les Echos diffuse une vidéo dans ses pages" (Strategies 20100330)

Wal-Mart's Vudu Trance - home entertainment and apps

mot-bile 2010 - What is exactly "home entertainment" according to Wal-Mart ? Everyday low prices for home movies or everyday more promotions for everything else on your TV screen ?

The Bentonville, AR giant acquired VUDU, Inc, an online video service embedded in broadband-ready TVs and Blu-ray players, and "combining VUDU's unique digital technology and service with Walmart's retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment".*

But Wal-Mart also mentions VUDU Apps, a very crucial entry point in households for all sorts of services, including Twitter or Facebook, the kind of "web family names" we mentioned earlier as the hottest TV stars of the year (see "Skype on your TV : home improvement ?" - 20100106).

Wal-Mart was not the only bidder for this entry point : it won over direct rivals (Amazon & co), victims of Vudu curses (Blockbuster & co) media manufacturers turner entertainers (Sony & co), or the usual Redmond suspects (Micro and Soft).

Now back to the smaller screen, but still in the retailing arena : SK Telecom and Hana Bank eventually released their joint services** in Korea. Push and pull location-based marketing make sure you have always an incentive even if you came out without your paper coupons.

Note that in their latest TV ads, SKT are marketing Android a very cute way with a green robot dancing on "That's the way (uh uh uh uh) I like it", and that's likely to boost the brand's fun factor. The Android brand, I mean : the character bumps into SKT's dull "T" logo and roars at it... There was probably a smarter way of celebrating this encounter of the third kind.

* "Walmart Announces Acquisition of Digital Entertainment Provider, VUDU" (20100222)
** on this killer alliance, see "SK Telecom's Wild Hana Card" (20090612)

Google Avatar

"Parisian Love", Google's Superbowl ad. Rom@nce, cliches and snapshots... as artificial and predictable as Avatar, only cheaper. And just like Avatar, you keep watching :

Google from Buzzing to Twitting - Keep It Smart and Simple

Everybody twits these days (except yours truly*). No wonder Big G tries to put a tag on the phenomenon. A me-too product wouldn't make sense but at last, Google can try to add sense to Twitter.

"ads by Google", that's already 13 characters. And the announcer hasn't started talking yet.

Twitter's success lies in shortness and simplicity, symbolized by a Haiku format. Google's success lies in simplicity, symbolized by a no-frills homepage. This partnership cannot succeed unless AdSense comes up with something really simple and smart.


* I got twitted by Barack, Gordon & co after the G20, though.

Credo, loyalty and royalty

I bumped into Joe Lieberman this morning:

For those who can't read the banner, there's a big "switching is easy" next to Joe's face, and below an invitation to join CREDO mobile : "more people are changing to CREDO mobile for reliable services and reliable values (NB : the "and" is not only bold - I mean the typo - but also underlined). We've been a loyal supporter of progressive causes since 1985".

Unfortunately, I didn't keep the M-VNO's campaign promising handcuffs for Karl Rove (see "CREDO mobile vs Karl Rove"), but I'm joining this comparative ad featuring W. as AT&T (it splashed over my computer screen a couple of days before one of the most glorious days in American history) :


Apparently, the Lieberm'ad has been running for a while, and was part of a scheme to strip America's most famous political weather vane of his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship*.

Everybody knows Joe The Switcher eventually kept his chair. This campaign is now focusing more than ever on promoting one cause : the CREDO brand.

Anyway, either by trickling down on its own, or because Working Assets have this thing for spreading it around, part of this wealth will end up benefiting other causes**.


* "Jaws (not calls) drop as Credo Mobile uses Lieberman’s mug in ad" (Chris Steller - Minnesota Independent - 20081124)

** I still don't know how many subscribers CREDO mobile have, but The Courage Campaign claims that they gathered over a week "200,000 signatures on a pledge to repeal" the Proposition 8 ("Join the Impact: California’s Prop 8 Discrimination Becomes a National Issue" - Rick Jacobs - The Courage Campaign / California Progress Report 20081116).

Google found its voice

You can install voice and video chat to Gmail right here and now.

Nothing disruptive in this software, but that's an interesting tool for the Google platform (BtoB, CtoC, BtoC, BtoBtoC, AtoZ...).

And heck, that's not so phony telephony and videophony.

Beyond the software, Big G is providing a big push for hardware equipment : until Nov. 30, 2008, there will be special discounts at Buy.com for Logitech webcams.

The idea is to build a strong user base from day one, and to instantly catch a significant share just like they did with Chrome (see "Google Chrome : more open source, less open space ?").

Mind if this announcer chimes in during your free mobile videochat ?

Rock n' Knols

At Google's, a knol is a piece of knowledge wrapped up in one webpage. Adsense and all Google Labs toys welcome. Everybody's invited, and one can easily imagine something like "tell us what you know about ABC" popping up each time you type "ABC" in Big G's search box.

At Google's, knowledge doesn't have to be checked. This ain't no wiki stuff : you can claim the Earth is flat and was invented 6,000 years ago, you can say Obama had an affair with Oprah and Osama, you can praise your sect and hire a new PR manager devoted to knols, no one will challenge it.

At Google's, volumes speak. Nevermind quality. Actually, with AdSense and Knols, Big G is bound to replace Wal-Mart as the biggest private employer.

Let's make it straight : Google Knols is the anti-encyclopedia, the mother of all hoaxes, an insult to the knowledge society. "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing." For business, you bet.

The aim is not to compete with Wikipedia but to prevent Wikipedia from appearing all the time at the top of Google's search results. Instead of wasting the best advertising space, Big G will demultiply it and the beauty of it is everybody will do it for free.

Google is definitely not "[putting its] reputation on the line" : Google just doesn't care about its reputation.

Money can buy many things (including spectrum), but the era of a beloved Google seems over.

VizaOzavi and other bull's eyes

What's in a name ? With zaOza*, Vivendi decided to drop 2 "vi"s at the edge of Vizzavi, and to add a bull's eye in the middle. Like : this time, I don't want to mess around but to go for the real thing ?... Maybe they purchased Activision to enhance their eyesight and optimize their chances to hit the said bull's eye.

Vodafone and Telefonica are into better targeting too : the Anglo-saxon leader and the Latino leader took a stake in Amobee Media Systems, a mobile advertising joint.

The Shoogle application must target Parkinson disease victims, blurring the frontier between handsets and handshakes. Next time you go to the pub, don't forget to fill her up with scotch.

SMobile Systems targets the soft spot of mobile linux : the first Android app is as sexy and useful as Norton. SecurityShield is the name, paving the way for developpers the game.

Elsewhere :

- NFC takes the tube - the London Underground before a greater coming out ?
- Outdoors, the OFCOM allows UK Broadband switch from TD-CDMA to WiMAX. If they can make it, that is. WiMAX seems to be losing ground in the US, where Verizon picks LTE.
- Korea keeps migrating at high speed : HSDPA claims 3.2 M subs end of Q3 2007 (2.02 for KTF). Users are discovering the beauty of (U)SIM cards and the easyness to drop a handset or an operator for another.
- Turned down by Sprint-Nextel (while KTF and DoCoMo snatched each 17% of U Mobile in Malaysia), SK Telecom takes 38.89% of Hanaro Telecom (including a 25% market share in fixed broadband). SKT discovers true convergence even later than Vodafone - and postpones a much needed boost in internationalization.


* the commercial name of "Vivendi Mobile Entertainment : Vizzavi's Second Life ? " (20070526)

Payez mobile, at last

If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere. It's up to you, France, France...

Europeans were getting jalous of their Asian counterparts : while NTT DoCoMo, KTF or SK Telecom could do whatever they wanted in the finance area, European operators were caught in a stalemate with powerful financial institutions.

And nowhere was the issue more sensible than in France, home to the GIE Carte Bleue, the powerful lobby that brought you Moreno's smartcard but delayed the emergence of contactless and mobile payments for more years than needed.

So make no mistake : the "Payez mobile" trial is a turning point likely to set the pace for the continent and well beyond.

It just started (1,000 testers and 200 merchants expected overall in the cities of Strasbourg and Caen) with an aggressive TTM for full launch (2008). It will make more headlines during the Cartes & IDentification 2007 exhibition between the 13rd and the 15th of November in Villepinte.

The casting couldn't be much better :
- all 3 MNOs (Orange*, SFR, Bouygues Telecom), the most bank-compatible M-VNO (NRJ Mobile, a JV involving CIC bank, which already tried the concept earlier),
- the elite of French banks (BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole including LCL, Credit Mutuel-CIC Group, Caisse d'Epargne, La Banque Postale and Societe Generale), and
- the World's dominant credit cards (Visa, Europay / Mastercard), both sponsor members of the NFC Forum

Not to mention the French Government : this trial is under the umbrella of the regional TES cluster (Secure Electronic Transactions), which will certainly help this initiative play a key role in standardization at the European level (cf SEPA - The Single Euro Payments Area project).

On the technical side, another eminent member of the NFC Forum, Gemalto-Oberthur, provided the SIM cards and software.

Because this is SIM-based NFC. At a secured crossroads where both banks and operators put a lock on their valuable consumers.

This is about micropayments and the substitution of cash and the unsuccessful Moneo smartcard by the most personal and popular device, but who cares about handset manufacturers for such a trial ? No need to put those guys in a loop banks and operators took so long to weave.

Secured crossroads, double locks and narrow loops... the tie is tightly knotted around the customer's neck, but also between partners bound to cohabit on a tiny chip. Let's do business over the counter first - over the network is another story.

Let us not forget about that other success story of mobile payment, much less violent and involving Vodafone and Safaricom in Africa : M-PESA, a smart and simple but literally peer to peer system perfectly adapted to places where no banker ever set a foot (don't expect to communicate with one in your nearest field, nor even dozens of miles away), and where the very concept of metropolitan area network doesn't make much sense.

* France Telecom intends to keep the edge in certain strategical fields : they led the first trials in Rennes back in 2005 and are just starting another one in the same city for 2 months with 35 users. Main application : public transportations (bus and subway operated by the SNCF and Keolis). Bonus : a Tag 2D application (NFC chip on SNCF posters for passengers or ad viewers to download informations).

M6 Mobile and Orange celebrate

2 years after launch and one year ahead of schedule, M6 Mobile by Orange hits the 1M mark (767,000 subs EOY 2006) and claims a new target of 1.5M EOY 2008. France's most succesful MVNO is not a MVNO but a JV wrapped around a licensing agreement targeting the younger generation (15-25).

France Telecom's Lombard and M6's Tavernost confess today to Le Figaro they have other plans in mind, but not in the soccer rights field. Yet. More good news for Canal+, under pressure by France's Pro League : the LFP wants to maintain its contract at a high price in spite of the recent merger of TPS with Canal Sat, but was recently deterred (by a court ruling) from switching from a 3 to a 5 year contract in order to attract more bidders. M6 recently snatched rights for not so minor events, including part of FIFA World Cup.

M6 just developped new threads to an already impressive web (M6 Web manages over 50 sites including M6.fr, the country's second audiovisual website in audience after TF1), both in the small ads field :

• atonservice.fr : students jobs focused on services to individuals, likely to feed M6 Mobile's core target, already under the spell of the M6 Group for music.
• a 34% participation in PagesJaunes Petites Annonces (a PagesJaunes Group subsidiary), bound to boost another of their major verticals : cars and motors.

The fun doesn't come from Orangeworld but from a partner more fit for the job and that's OK for FT : keeping youngsters is a tough job and the Orange brand is there, ready to help them switch to more serious applications when the time comes.

Saint Hubert Mobile, pray for customer hunters

1.18% of the market, that was Frederic Nihous's score at the French presidential elections last April. Predecessor Jean de Saint Josse got 4.23% back in 2002. How much will Sebastien Harle d’Ophove get ?

The founder of Saint Hubert Mobile, the first MVNO by hunters for hunters, must be roaming the corridors of CPNT (Chasse Peche Nature et Tradition), the French pro-hunting pro-rural party / lobby who pushed Saint Josse and Nihous, not to mention 245 candidates for the recent legislative election. "SHO", who used to work for Belgian MNO Base, needs to build another base from scratch. And the first logical step is to try and scare up a few preys among the 420,645 people who casted a ballot for Nihous 2 months ago.

Oh my deer... niche marketing if I ever saw one !

Saint Hubert, patron of hunters, is hosted by MVNE Coriolis... not much of a guarantee either. These days, fellow French and European MVNOs are hunting investors more eagerly than they are hunting customers. Bad vibes for Ten Mobile, debitel, TDC... not to mention Amp'd in the US (under cash perfusion from Verizon Wireless).

easymobile tries to survive by changing business models in a Blyk. I come for free, advertising can finance everything, I'll grow the helluva big customer base and be the king of the hill.

How many "free" ISPs survived ? At least those could bloom in a dial-up, non-broadband era...

Actual hunters won't waste time nor bullets for such poor game.

aQuantive, the ad fad and the virtual estate bubble

DoubleClick @ Google = $3.1 Bn. RightMedia @ Yahoo! = $680 M. Real Media @ WPP = $649 M. aQuantive @ Microsoft = $6 Bn...
The Virtual Estate bubble keeps inflating. Six billion bucks, that's a lot of dough, even for Microsoft who never signed such a big check (except to its owners, that is). Besides, this QuadrupleClick extravaganza is equivalent to a 85% premium vs AQTN's Tuesday's closing price...
Is Redmond that desperate not to miss the next train and this discreet commuter living around the same station (aQ are based in Seattle, WA) ? At this price, they could even go for the real thing, a real adco.
Somehow, MSN's mother company was supposed to have at least some notions of advertising. Ditto Yahoo! & Co. One can wonder whether this really will add sense to Google, today's king of online advertising.
Well. For one thing, it was a matter of taking a fifth P, lifting a powerful leg to mark one's territory. And Razorfish (one of the franchises owned by aQuantive holdings) is not the smallest one in this pond. Actually, there was a competition raging for this prize.
Yet fundamentally, there is the necessity to distinguish the media from the advertising platform. In real life, Viacom enjoys strong positions both as a media and as an adco... but not on the very same turf either. That can be OK when you are a huge conglomerate with the ability to build Chinese Walls. But it can't work when you are used to grow following the microsoftian model.

Virgin SugarMama and the mother of all mergers

After Fujistu and BenQ, Nokia inherits part of the Siemens DNA... Will a fourth wedding mean the funerals of Siemens ?
To tell you the truth, no one cares : Siemens has never been the sexiest of all brands, nor mobile networks the most glamorous part of the business. The only question could be "WHEN will Ericsson tie the knot with another Asian partner ?"

Meanwhile, Virgin Mobile USA brings the old airtime-vs-ad concept to another level : teens are lured by a generous Sugar Mama (sugar daddies being not that PC) who offers airtime to those who give her some attention. It's an opt-in thing where innovation lies in the multimedia flavor of the candies :

• "ADTIME: Watch short online video spots and give your feedback.
• TEXTIME: Answer questions via text message.
• QTIME: Fill out brief surveys about brands, products, and services."

Besides and unlike session-by-session formulas where people have to undergo ads right before calling, Sugar Mama smarly leverages on its customer's "spare time".

The day is full of time outs when watching ads can be something else than a chore. That should be stimulating for admen as well.

Unlike at the network level, you may not have to tie tighter knots to lock your customers and partners.

Helio live at last

That's it. The party is on at Hollywood - Santa Monica where SKT - Earthlink launched Helio, their much awaited* M-VNO. Celebs, hot air and an empty blog mark the first day of operation.


I'm not exactly in a mood for West Coast hype. So if you don't mind I'll leave it up to you guys (another thing I don't quite like from that area : being youguyzed). Good luck and let's just see how you perform.


* For over one year - see previous posts on Helio (last one : "Another good fairy over Helio's cradle" - 20060414)
** Heliomag : http://www.heliomag.com.