Like many you’ll probably be enthusiastically working out how your business can benefit from this new-found ability to nuzzle up close to your customers, and like many you’ll probably also be picking your way through the pitfalls and confusion which ensues.

The recent episode of UK TV show The Apprentice in which the teams had to create a mobile app, is a great illustration of some of the challenges to be faced.  Lara O’Reilly summarises these challenges nicely in her article “Brands Should be Fired up by Apprentice App Task” in Marketing Week . Her summation ultimately says that knowing your audience, understanding their needs and then describing your product concisely will be key factors in creating sticky content. But the challenges don’t stop there.

In order to really crack this nut, businesses also need to:

• be clear how an app will help achieve goals and objectives
• take an active role relating to decisions such as the platforms, operating systems or source code
• be confident their agencies truly understand technical and legal implications
• develop the mobile app as a part of an integrated communications strategy
• understand the true costs of development and ongoing management and maintenance
• put in place a framework for tracking and assessing success

Even without considering all the above points in more detail the legal complexities of app development alone and the ever changing world of policy make this a potential minefield for developers and brands. With security and privacy currently high on the agenda, knowing what constitutes personal data for example is crucial. A European paper is expected shortly which will change the status of geo-locational information from general to personal data; as a result all such information will then be subjected to stricter regulations. And development aside, should you wish to sell advertising within your app once it’s up and running, understanding your liability as a publisher and not falling foul of the recently updated ASA regulations is crucial.

The great news though is that there are people out there who can help guide businesses through this complex development process and lead them into the kind of world where they can seamlessly engage with customers on their own terms and where individuals themselves could even earn money on referrals simply by carrying a phone in their pocket.

If you’re keen to get a comprehensive overview on the mobile market place drop us an email at info@ubaglu.com – our experience is grounded in delivering integrated strategies, and not only that we’ve worked with leading App developer Nation1 to produce a free 50-page paper bursting with facts, figures and examples from the market place.  It should give you the background information to help you get started and ultimately avoid the app-trap.

Sir Paul Nurse – President of the Royal Society “Science under Attack” 2010 BBC Documentary

Ok so perhaps we shouldn’t take the first part of this statement too literally, collaboration after all is an essential part of marketing development today but when it comes to consumer insight however, parallels can certainly be drawn from the sentiment of the latter half of Sir Paul’s statement.

This BBC documentary was about why public trust in key scientific theories has been eroded, but as Sir Paul Nurse discussed the issue, my mind detached itself from the messages on the cathode ray, and onto one simple and firm held thought – make sure you have full access, availability and understanding of all the facts.

I mean, in simple terms, why not, the data is yours, why shouldn’t you?

All too often we see businesses contracting out their insights ability – to a certain extent this is fine, you need people digging around the data on your behalf, but this digital world we now inhabit has thrown up a multitude of ways to identify your consumers’ interests, it’s not simple anymore. If we’re not careful we’ll drown in data and it’s all too easy to follow what looks like an important thread and head off down the wrong path. Ultimately only you will know what’s relevant to drive your business forward. As the brand owner, you are THE best placed person to direct and interpret all of these learnings into real insights about your brand. Only you know exactly what you should be looking for and what you need to achieve.

The challenge is that as the brand owner, if you have not fully defined the information you need to understand upfront; have not fully embraced the analytics and monitoring tools available – working with them only at arms length – the likelihood is that you will miss the real and relevant nuggets of insight that could firmly plant you on the path to setting your brand apart from the rest.

In our previous blog “Getting Valuable insight from data” we talked about how digital data is crucial to business insights, and that companies should establish regular and easily accessible systems; being in control of those tools, understanding the raw data and being clear how it impacts on your clearly defined objectives is equally important.

So work with others to find and interpret information, absolutely, but make sure that you and your business first and foremost are clear about the metrics you need in place and that you have internal capability and direct access to the raw data. This is the best truth out there – only you will understand exactly what that means for your business and brand.

I’m having one of those freaky weeks when everything I read, listen to or stumble across is talking about the same thing – the importance of the emotional versus the rational part of the brain.

My series of coincidences began when I started reading a fascinating book by Jonah Lehrer – How We Decide. In the book he eloquently explains what influences our decisions and, amongst many other things, why sometimes we’re inexplicably struck to act on something we just can’t quite put our finger on… And it got me to thinking about how technology might have impacted on our ability to make decisions.  The chapter that made a big impact on me was about how we’re basically hard-wired to be humane – purely because of our ability to sympathise with others. But what gets to us, isn’t just the thought that someone might be sad, upset or angry – we also rely on visual cues – facial distortions or other visible signs of distress to keep our actions in check.

So what happens when social interaction takes place without the visual stimuli?  I guess anyone who’s ever been dumped by their so-called loved one via text message can provide the answer to that question. And if we can so easily dis-engage from people we did (or thought we did) once care about – what does that mean for brands, businesses  or services that fall from favour?

The need to be human and to demonstrate human characteristics has never been more important.  Brands and services need to be seen to be run and delivered by living, breathing individuals.

And authenticity is crucial – it’s easy nowadays to join the dots and see through flimsy promises – the challenge for businesses as they grow is to ensure a strategy is in place that enables their entire workforce to act in a consistent yet natural manner. Educating staff, structuring appropriately and enabling human interaction means tackling a great many challenges internally, but ultimately it’s about creating a culture within your business  that treats people fairly and delivers on its promises no matter who or what is involved. For an incredible case study on culture look no further than Zappos:  a shoe retailer that expects every single employee to make one improvement, no matter how small, to the business each and every day. A shoe retailer that states service is its end product not shoes, to the extent that it positively encourages its service team to point people towards competitors if the product desired is not available (and if the story’s to be believed, you could even ring and ask them where your nearest pizza delivery place is).

Still not sure how much culture and human empathy has to do with growing your business?  Well read this book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, consider the fact that Zappos grew from being worth nothing to being sold to Amazon for almost $1bn in the space of 10 years; and then decide.

A simple principle for using this data should be to make decisions based on what it shows. This is most straightforward in the implementational digital channels where the people looking at the data know what it represents and understand the detail within it. Where this becomes problematic is at a board and senior level where all too often the data is too detailed or not clearly presented and understood in terms of direction or message.

The result we find in too many cases is that the value placed on digital data is not as great as more traditional metrics such as brand tracking studies and panel data. Given that we are talking about actual data being generated by people, not proxy figures, this seems strange.

Part of our role at UbaGLU is raising understanding of the place of digital information and creating a strategy around what to collect in order to construct a picture of your brand. This is a live and developing view across many inputs, resulting in (and not constrained to) a mixture of the outputs.

• Awareness
• Engagement both on and off your estate
• Conversation levels and brand association
• Response to digital material
• Sales

Data needs collecting at a detailed level, but should be summarised in a way which can be easily understood, this gives you a live picture of the health of your brand within the space that increasingly people respond and engage with you. Digital data can become a live research group made up from that group of most important people, everyone. This is progressively more robust, but importantly, quicker and more agile than traditional measurement techniques. It can allow you to make faster decisions on how your brand is performing both at a campaign and overall level. An interesting view into this connection companies are trying to make with data is EConsultancy’s report (measurement, analytics and optimisation market overview – April ‘10), which shows the extent to which companies are in-sourcing measurement expertise to take advantage of the opportunity. The watch out here is to ensure that you are mining data in a consume-able and effective format for your business to make decisions, not creating another problem.

Insight has always been the competitive advantage and you will continue to use all the tools you have traditionally relied upon, but you also need to understand what digital data is telling you. Once you have the people or partners and strategy in place to mine and understand that data, you can begin to engage all levels of the organisation with that information, and you will really begin to maximise the opportunity it brings.

During this time it’s been our privilege to work across a range of industry categories with clients who have varying needs and levels of digital knowledge.

And in spite of this varying knowledge, each client has had one thing in common at the outset – the conviction that digital understanding and integration is essential in order to drive their business forward and build long lasting consumer relationships.

Without this conviction and appreciation of the need to embrace the unknown, it will be hard for businesses to last the journey and adopt the wholesale changes required in today’s consumer controlled world.

As we work with each client to identify and advise on the actions required to improve the current level of digital maturity and marketing approach, we are finding that common but varied themes are emerging. These themes range from how to manage relationships or to identify organisational structure through to technical and infrastructure questions, and the inevitable digital strategy or ROI challenges.

Clearly every situation is unique, however the purpose of this blog is to raise the issues which concern our clients, connect with others who might be experiencing the same challenges and bring new ideas, tools or research that we stumble across to the attention of those that are interested. We’d also be very happy for you to make comments or add links that you feel would add value.

From Twitter’s 10 most powerful tweets of 2010 to the top 10 predictions for 2011, it has indeed been that time of year when the web is awash with articles which reflect and opine about where we’ve been and where we’re heading. It is no co-incidence therefore that our first blog post on our shiny new site takes a moment to reflect on the challenges that brands have been facing, and to look ahead to outline the areas they are going to need to consider over the coming months.

The general consensus for the year ahead is that social media will continue to grow in importance, fuelled by mobile access and continued acceptance across all generations. Sure there are a million and one other things going on out there right now and this is hardly anything new, but whether it’s the death of websites, or the emergence of new operating systems you can bet that somewhere along the line one of the drivers for change is related to social or mobile.

I only have to look around me in the real world to appreciate its influence: Friends and family that have been adamant that it was not for them have finally succumbed and set up social networking profiles; at a restaurant last month I watched as a couple at a table next to me spent most of their time messaging their absent friends; and on a bus recently I could see that people around me were chatting to others on Facebook.

To illustrate:

• Twitter has claimed that 40% of all tweets are now made via mobile
• Facebook claims that one third of its 500mn members access the site via mobile
• Ofcom states that Facebook usage is driving almost half of all time spent online via mobiles in the UK

It is clear that as individuals we have a powerful urge to share and shout about what we’re doing, wherever we are – and finally the technology and hardware is here and at the right price to enable us to do this. Twitter says that its 40% claim is directly attributable to apps designed to work across all major devices – and whether you’re using a mobile device to connect with others via social networks currently or not, the chances are that you will soon because your choice of device is about to get even bigger. Fueled by the iPad, global tablet sales are estimated to grow from 15.3mn units to 43.6mn in 2011, and whilst Apple may not be able to hold back the slew of competitors appearing on the scene either in the phone or tablet stakes it was certainly one of the Top 10 Obsessions of 2010 for the average person searching the web last year.

From a brand perspective this opens up a vast array of opportunities to influence consumers to talk about them at any time and in any place. But the challenge for brands to produce effective, integrated and multi-touch point plans has also just become even more pronounced, especially in the current tough economic climate.

Our advice for 2011 is to ensure you’re clear on your objectives and that you give yourself enough time to plan: all too often this is the area that suffers. With technological and consumer usage growing in range and complexity things which are currently interesting to test will become business critical over the coming months: 2011 is not a year for falling behind.