Two Cents

The Apple iPhone has without a doubt ushered in a new era of touch screen technology. For a long time touch screens were a novelty, an expensive interface which may not have always been the best solution. But now consumers are coming to expect them as standard – on mobile phones, gaming consoles (like the Nintendo DS), and personal computers (like the increasingly popular Tablet PC).

Now, you can even find touch screens on musical instruments:

And on vending machines:

So, where next for touch screens? And what will advanced touch screen technology mean to the world of advertising.

I was going to suggest touch screens in taxis and shopfronts, but after doing a bit of Googling, it seems some clever companies are already on the case.

I was recently on a train in Spain which had screens – a touch screen might have helped consumers obtain more information about the current advertisement.

Or perhaps touch screen outdoor advertising could be the way of the future.

Any ideas where you might find touch screens in the near future?

The possibilities are many, and the opportunity great. Advertising on mobile phones, while currently nothing to get excited about at all, has the potential to be hugely successful because of one thing – your location. Your network provider has a pretty good idea of where you are at any one time, even if your phone doesn’t have GPS inbuilt. This (technically) means you can be served with an ad from a shop nearby, or even sent a special offer just for being in the area.

Privacy advocates in the States are none too happy about this, though – even though Google is only just starting to get this kind of technology off the ground. The Center for Digital Democracy is about to file a complaint that “alleges deceptive practices throughout the nascent mobile advertising industry and asks the commission to launch an investigation into the privacy implications of marketing practices targeted at cellphone users“.

Now, I’m all for privacy, but back up a minute – firstly, Google hasn’t done anything wrong (yet), and secondly… who doesn’t want more relevant, timely and informative advertising? Keep in mind that this kind of service would always be OPT IN! Nobody likes getting spammed, especially on their phone – but personally, I wouldn’t mind location-based advertising becoming commonplace.

What do you think – will location-based advertising be a complete breach of privacy, or a boon to consumers?

Yes, I know I named 2009 the year of social media, but there’s another space we can expect to see some great innovations this year – the world of branded mobile applications.

In 2008, the iPhone opened up a whole new world of ways that brands engage consumers on their mobile in fun, functional and informative ways – in many cases, by utilising the converged capabilities of the phone, including the camera and GPS. Many of them even used the iPhone’s inbuilt accelerometer (the thingy that knows which way the iPhone is pointing) – two great examples from 2008 are the iPint and the Audi A4 Challenge.

In 2009, Kraft have now proven that even FMCG brands can develop engaging branded applications, with their new iFood Assistant.

The iFood Assistant contains over 7,000 Kraft-tested recipes, shopping lists and store recommendations, video demonstrations for on-the-go chefs, and daily updated content such as Dinner Tonight and Recipe of the Day.

Brands and their agencies are really hitting their stride now in thinking of ways they can make consumer’s lives easier by developing useful applications they can stamp as their own.

So, what branded mobile application is your brand going to build this year?

One of my favourite trends of the last couple of years has been product ‘life stories’. This is where brands give you full detail of a product’s provenance, whether it be on-pack, or online (via entering a barcode) or many other means.

Springwise first reported on this trend last year, but there’s still plenty of great examples popping up. I found this one on PFSK – a clothing label called MADE BY from the Netherlands:

MADE-BY has partnered with several Netherlands-based fashion brands to insert an added tag to their products that comes with a code which ‘unlocks’ the history of the item. Shoppers enter the code on the MADE-BY site and are given a glimpse of the product’s long journey to the shop window – where the garment was manufactured and by whom, who spun the yarn, who grew the cotton. Each step in the process includes a picture of the worker(s) and a brief interview about that stage of production and the labor that went into it.

That is so cool! It’s little wonder consumers would have an interest in this, what with news stories of contaminated toys from China hitting the headlines, and an increased focus on local produce.

The thing is, I’m yet to see any brands doing something similar in Australia. Anyone care to correct me?