Mobile Devices For Kids On the Go

All posts tagged ‘trends’

by MBJune 23, 2009

Mobile Devices For Kids On the Go

For many young people, the mobile phone is a status symbol and an extension of identity. For aspirational young kids and tweens, this is no different. For them, getting a phone is a rite of passage, and the age at which this happens is getting younger and younger. According to Nielsen Mobile, the average age a kid starts using a borrowed cell phone is 8.6, and they typically get their own at 10.1.

However, most handset manufacturers don't cater this this market -- only recently shifting their adult-centric view. Parents may also be relutant to pass back their new iPhone (though we're seeing this as well). This has opened up a market for special mobile devices just for kids. Here are some of the players:

Fisher-Price offers the Pixter, a PDA-style portable activity center for kids. It has a color touchscreen and stylus with which children can draw, color and play with, not entirely unlike Adobe Illustrator. Separate software adds more features like math lessons, and an extra snap-on digital camera makes the "phone" just like Mom and Dad’s. While the Pixter is a fun tool, it still seems more like other handheld gaming devices for children than an actual mobile.

If realism is what you're going for, Bandai has you covered there with the "Mobile Communicator Smart Berry" for kids. This Japanese “toy” lets users actually email, text and play online games with each other as long as they’re within 10 meters of one another. It works on a wireless network and comes with a keyboard and an LCD touchscreen. Following this TotBerry trend, LeapFrog recently introduced the Text & Learn, affectionately known as the ‘baby BlackBerry.’ It even looks like a giant, colorful version of the real thing. Made for kids ages three and up, the Text & Learn features a full QWERY keyboard and pretend browser, and encourages little users to “text” with the virtual guide Scout.

For slightly older children with a desire for phone-like capabilities, there's Firefly Mobile, "the mobile phone for mobile kids." It has actual voice services and a pay-as-you-go-plan. However, it’s made for smaller hands and instead of a regular dial pad, there are just five keys. Parents use a PIN to program up to 22 outgoing numbers into the phone, putting adults in charge of just who their kids are talking to. The Firefly has struggled to find a market though. Tweens, who now increasingly own real phones, find it too babyish, while younger kids have less of a need since they are almost always with adults. Still, the Firefly can be seen as the training bra of a mobile lifestyle.

Aware of tweens' fashion sensibility and love of "real" phones, another contender for the tween market, Kajeet, offers LG, Samsung, and Sanyo phones that parents (with their kids) can customize. The Maryland-based company offers shared payment plans (the kids can pay the texts, the parents can pay the calls), limits for call or text usage, blockable contacts, and GPS for the restless children. On the other hand, Kajeet does not offer any kind of data service, a crucial feature for generation Y.

So what does this mobile mania for pre-teens mean? Some are concerned. In France, there are even new laws in the works that crack down on children’s use of mobile phones. Advertising these devices to children under 12 will be prohibited under the legislation and steps will be taken to ban the sale of any phone designed to be used by kids under six years old.

However, if the trend we're seing in youth adoption continues, pacifiers will soon come with keypads. If nothing else, we’re breeding a tech savvy generation who will be the next wave in mobile innovators.

by MBJune 11, 2009

Week Links: Palm Pre "Sells Out", Music Matters, ScanBuy's Twitter Code & More

Palm Only Sold 35,000-60,000 Pres Over Launch Weekend, Fraction of iPhone [Business Insider]
Thanks to supply constraints, the Palm Pre did in fact “sell out,” but its numbers are nothing compared to the 1 million iPhone 3Gs that Apple shipped and sold in its first weekend last summer.

“Music Matters” To Asian Youth; Digital Trends Highlighted During Conference [Digital East Asia]
Music is a major part of youth’s cultural identity in Asia, which has major implications for mobile when you consider that more than half of young mobile phone owners in the region use their handsets to listen to music.

Content Creation On Mobiles in Japan [mocoNews]
The Japanese aren't just consuming content on their cellphones, they're creating it using new services for mashing-up videos, social drawing and on-the-go blogging.

When Did You Buy Your Last App? Survey Says It was Over the Weekend [ReadWriteWeb]
Consumers are over 30 percent more likely to download an app over the weekend than during the week, and they’re more likely to pay for the apps then too.

Valentine’s Day was busiest texting day of Q1: VeriSign [Mobile Marketer]
All those I <3 U texts amounted to more than 1 billion SMS and MMS messages last Valentine’s Day.

Apple looks towards digital media sharing during iPhone calls [Apple Insider]
Technology could be coming that will allow iPhone users to attach and transmit media items like music files, video, images, voicemails and podcasts with the person they are currently talking to on the phone.

ScanLife offers 2D bar codes for Twitter, instant-win campaigns [MobileMarketer]
ScanBuy has added two bar code actions: Twitter Code, which automatically posts a custom Tweet to a user’s Twitter account, and Lotto Code, which lets marketers implement instant-win campaigns through cellphones.

Lady Gaga Now Has a TapTap Face [Idolator]
Following the success of Nine Inch Nail's version of Tap Tap Revenge, the makers of the game (Tapulous) struck a deal with Universal Music Group to build new music games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Lady GaGa’s getting her own version of Tap Tap (the most popular game in the App store) first.

LG: U.S. teens and tweens use more than 2,000 unknown words in their text messages [IntoMobile]
According to LG, teens and tweens are sending more than 1.2 million texts every minute, much of it in txtspk. The study also found that teens ranks their SMS higher in terms of privacy concerns than diaries or emails.

Adidas “Show Your Resolution!” Project [CScout]
Tying in the 2010 World Cup, Adidas is launching a campaign called “Show Your Resolution!” that lets soccer fans send comments or “resolutions” to players. If fans download a free wallpaper from the Adidas branded mobile site, they can actually go to a store and see their resolutions appear and animate on a digital signage display.

Tired of long lines at Disney? Now, there’s an app for that [The Orlando Sentinel]
An Orlando resident developed the “Wait Times” iPhone app to tell you how long the lines are at Magic Kingdom based on user-supplied information.

by MBJune 10, 2009

Dr. Eric: The Role of Mobile in Youth Cognitive Development

Kids confront new sets of cognitive challenges as they grow. We know, for example, that young children think and reason differently than older ones, who think and reason differently from teens, and so on… It follows that a young person’s age and stage of development dictates how he or she uses a mobile phone—something every youth marketer needs to consider.

Take tweens, for example. At this stage of concrete thinking and limited reasoning skills, kids solve problems logically and use mental representations of the world. While the primary motivation for using mobile for most of us is communicating and enhancing relationships, it can also be a force in helping tweens solve problems. For example, texting mom or dad can help them feel better if they miss their parent or playing mobile games will help develop problem-solving skills.

Relative to these tween years, adolescence is a time of even greater cognitive maturation. Teens begin to think in more abstract terms, reason accordingly, and develop the ability to think about thinking. While this stage certainly has its challenges, mobile can act as a bridge to help adolescents foster these cognitive changes. Through the phone, a young person can get immediate access to people and information that reflects their interests in learning about themselves and the world. Essentially, a mobile device is a young teen’s version of a driver’s license.

Toward the end of the teen years and into the early twenties, the final piece of the brain puzzle, the prefrontal cortex, becomes fully developed. This area is responsible for the executive functions including judgment, planning, monitoring and moderating behavior, and is related to personality. As older teens and young adults become increasingly busy and responsible, they rely more and more on mobile to keep track of their academic, work and social lives. Their mobile device becomes an extension of their prefrontal cortex, keeping track of things and allowing them to free up cognitive space and energy.

As mobile becomes more and more a part of our lives beginning at earlier ages, people will rely on this “external prefrontal cortex” more and more, just as we have come to rely on mobile phones for keeping and remembering our phone numbers. But while this occurs, kids will still have to navigate developmental cognitive stages. While some things might change, one thing we know is you can’t rush development if someone’s not ready. Providing real-time access to content and experiences relative to cognitive stages means offering youth what they want in a way they understand it and, in doing so, building brand loyalty.

- Dr. Eric Weinstein is a Practicing Clinical Psychologist specializing in youth and a consultant with MobileBehavior

by MBJune 4, 2009

Week Links: Obama SMSes Speech Globally, MTV's Alexa Chung, Wireless Cars, Palm Pre Mania & More

State Department to Text Obama Speech [NY Times]
Once again showing off the Obama administration’s tech savvy, highlights from the President’s speech in Cairo today will be texted in 13 languages to more than 200 countries. The texting program also allows people to respond via text, with their comments appearing online here.

Unilever to Trial Mobile Coupons [mocoNews]
With Unilever’s new four-week trial program at a New Jersey ShopRite, it’s clear mobile coupons are going mainstream. Marc Shaw, Unilever’s director of integrated marketing, acknowledges that mobile coupons were “a Holy Grail thing that people have been trying to figure out,” but he also says they're “on target for where consumers’ heads are at right now.”

Donors send 18 mln euro for Italy quake victims via SMS [textually]
Around 18 million euros have been collected through an SMS campaign to help victims of a deadly earthquake in Italy.

MTV’s ‘Alexa Chung’ tunes into Facebook, Twitter [CNET]
Replacing the outdated TRL, MTV’s “It’s On with Alexa Chung” will feature on-screen tweets, content sourced from Facebook, audience contribution from polls to remixed YouTube videos and updates from Chung’s own Twitter account.

Nokia Branding N97 as a Mobile Computer, Not a Phone [mediabistro]
The press release for Nokia’s new N97 device promises a 3.5” touch display, QWERTY keyboard and customizable home screen. What it doesn’t mention is voice services or any reference to the word “phone.”

ABI Research: Mobile consumers ready to support green initiatives [IntoMobile]
A new study found that nearly half of mobile users in the U.S. are “somewhat likely or very likely to be influenced by suppliers’ green credentials when purchasing services or devices.”

Africa’s upwardly mobile money [Reuters]
M-PESA has filled a void in Africa where only 1 in 5 people have bank accounts but at least 270 million have mobile phones. The network, owned by Kenya’s biggest mobile phone firm and partnered with Kenya Commercial Bank, lets phone users who do not have bank accounts send each other money. And this is just the beginning: A recent Garner report states that the global market for mobile money is growing at 70 percent a year and will be mainstream by 2012.

Palm Pre Mania Begins With Six More Days To Go [mocoNews]
This Saturday, Sprint will introduce the new Palm Pre. Tech reviews have touted its great user interface and design, but will it be the next “iPhone killer” its makers are hoping for?

Gartner Says Wireless Connectivity to be Main Focus for Vehicle Manufacturers by 2012 [FierceWireless]
Gartner has found that by 2012 the majority of vehicle manufacturers will focus on developing products that enable wireless data connectivity in more than half of their next-generation cars.

Networking Sites Extend Reach [WSJ]
Handset makers and wireless carriers are working on developing mid-range mobile phones tailored to social networking. While these features are popular on high-end smartphones, they’ve typically been clunky at best on regular cellphones.

MediaPost Publications AdMob To Launch New iPhone Ad Units [MediaPost]
With the new iPhone will come new ad formats from AdMob. The new units were based on requests from advertisers and will cover social networking, search and rich media displaying advertising on iPhone apps and the mobile Web.

Retailers Explore Links to Social-Networking Sites [WSJ]
The advice of friends is a powerful influence and more and more retailers are hoping to harness that by connecting their sites to social networks like Facebook and the Facebook Connect platform, MySpace and Twitter.

by MBJune 1, 2009

How To Market In Asia

We just recently concluded a very enjoyable speaking engagement at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival in Hong Kong and met with some of the brightest and creative minds in the industry. There was an amazing opportunity for MobileBehavior to interact and drill deeper into the minds of leading marketers in Asia. From brand managers to CEOs, our 1:1 conversations confirmed what we were evangelizing, that marketers now understand the importance of mobile. The question, however, has become "How?"

This is a powerful question that shows us two major insights. Firstly, we are no longer stuck in the "Why?" Having to convince a marketer about the relevance of mobile marketing seems to be a thing of the past. Almost every attendee we spoke to had a smartphone in hand, checking emails, opening attachments, surfing WAP links and accessing news. This made them a part of their own mobile marketing audience even if they hadn't realized it yet! For some time, there was a disconnect between the mobile marketer and the audience as the marketer never considered himself/herself part of that mix. Now, we have come to an age where we get it because we live it.

The next important insight from the question of "How?" brought home some major reality checks. Marketers in Asia recognize the possibilities based on mobile penetration rates, excellent carrier infrastructure and user behavior. In Asia, we have a mobile-only audience in certain countries such as Philippines and Indonesia. China and India represent two markets with unparalleled potential based on existing mobile services such as mobile social networking sites and direct carrier services. However, the peculiarities and nuances of each market has bred a lot of confusion on exactly how mobile marketing works in these parts of the world. It is clear that there is no one mobile strategy that can fit into Indonesia and be duplicated in India. The question therefore isn't just how to market mobile, but how to market mobile here?

What resonated well with our peers lay in the area of activation. The mobile phone has an opportunity to breathe life into any campaign from an engagement vantage point. Using SMS and IVR channels to lead consumers from a passive to active role makes a lot of sense for any marketer in any market. Similarly, there are many other channels where the mobile phone is able to act as an enabler for marketers to interact, track and measure on their offline media. This is an important part of our approach in providing as many answers as we can to our clients and partners. From identifying common marketing tools (think SMS, IVR) to taking advantage of local networks (e.g. island-wide Wi-Fi, 3.5G networks) to considerations like dominant mobile handset brand data, we have discovered most marketers don't know where to start and how to get mobile campaigns off the ground.

We were pleased to know, though, that Asia as a mobile market isn't being debated. The questions of how to get involved in these fertile areas are excellent from a progress point of view. We often hear marketers talk about paradigm shifts in thinking. Today we are seeing a whole new movement of behavior in the realm of mobile. Innovation and technology continue to converge providing us awesome mobile services and products. We think mobile marketing is now the next great thing in Asia.

Next week we take a look at Singapore and some recent surges in mobile activity across the island.

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

by MBMay 27, 2009

Why Nokia's Branded Handsets Flew in Brazil (and May Flop in the States)

Nokia recently announced their latest marketing strategy to boost US sales: Branded Handsets. According to AdAge, the cell phone maker is partnering with brands to skin their devices with logos and preload them with themed content in order to build loyalty, boost brand awareness or create buzz around a product. Nokia has launched co-branded handsets before, and in fact did so with great success in Brazil in late 2007. Unilever's Seda Shampoo sold 200,000 branded Nokia 5200s in 9 months. The limited edition handset, equipped with mobile themes, advertisements, games and mp3 tracks, came in teenybopper pink, retailed for $100 and included sample packets of a new shampoo. Now, does this sound like something a U.S. teen would buy?

My Cell, Myself

To answer this question, we need to look at how people in each culture use and relate to their mobile phones. Everyone who’s ever owned a mobile phone will say that they can’t live without one, so what makes Brazil different? How they view their phones, for one. Utility and connectivity, the main reasons we here in the US have a mobile phone in the first place, fade into the background in Brazil because mobile call charges are prohibitively expensive for many of the country’s 120 million pay-as-you-go users. Payphones are in fact preferred for voice calls, and it’s still pretty common to see payphone users, receiver in hand, looking up a contact’s telephone number on their mobile.

For Brazil’s mobile subscribers, their cell phone reflects their identity and is, at some level, a measure of who they are. Sandra Rubia, a PhD student in Brazil, writes about how Brazilians feel a ‘shared identity’ with their phones:

“Those who do own a mobile phone are ‘modern, part of their times, are in the world’ and those who do not, or possess an older model… are often looked down at, or subject to questions such as ‘Aren’t you ashamed of having such a phone?’"

She goes on to talk about Gabriela, a 24-year old fashion designer who leaves her battered, older-model phone ringing in her bag because she’s too ashamed of what other people would say about it were she to bring it out in public.

The link between Brazilian identity and the mobile handset is further expressed through the personalization of phones. Business is good for phone accessory dealers and customization kiosks that spruce up handsets and help make them stand out in a crowd. Handsets with stickers, custom covers or even adorned with Swarovsky crystals is a frequent sight in Sao Paulo.

Yet perhaps the biggest – and most profitable – expression of one’s identity through the mobile phone in Brazil is music. Brazil, the birthplace of samba and bossa nova, places a premium on local music, and record labels have taken measures to digitize their content to take advantage of the demand. According to IFPI, the global association of the recording industry, the Brazilian digital music market is the largest in Latin America, having doubled in size from 2007 to 2008, and accounts for 10% of all music sales in the country. 80% of these digital sales are through mobile – an astounding feat for a country that only launched 3G services last year.

Aside from downloading full tracks or ringtones, Brazilian subscribers also have the option of purchasing handsets that come preloaded with music. This is why a branded Nokia-Unilever phone worked so well: It tapped into an existing market. In late 2007, Sony Ericsson, seeking to replicate Nokia’s success, partnered with a popular local act called Jota Quest to launch the Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. Preloaded with the band’s latest album and other band content, the handset sold an amazing 800,000 units within the first few months. Most recently, Coke Zero worked with Nokia to launch a version of the Nokia 5310 music phone embedded with Coke Zero-themed songs by two local artists. The special edition phone screamed Coke Zero – on the box, its sleeve, headsets and phone jewelry - and even came with four different types of Coke Zero themes. It sold 30,000 units, helping to solidify Coke’s music credentials in the Brazilian market.

Lost in Translation?

Now, compare that to the U.S. market. Blinging out phones hasn't really caught on here--no charms, no rhinestones. Most people listen to music on their iPod or MP3 player. And why get pre-loaded music when you can download new songs and games every week from iTunes, app stores and torrents?

Also consider the differences in the local mobile industry. As AdAge notes that, in Brazil, handsets are sold independently of the carriers. This allowed Nokia to sell their (unlocked) Seda Teens handset to everyone regardless of their service. In the US, Nokia and its brand partners will have to go through the carriers, who typically have a lot of user interface requirements for new handset introductions. This may make launching a co-branded handset cumbersome and costly.

Apple and Sony have used co-branding strategies in the past, with somewhat mixed results. We doubt that Nokia will fare much better. The cost to launch a handset loaded with enough content to satisfy a very sophisticated US consumer and to ensure widespread distribution across the major US carriers might just make it too expensive to work. However, it’s certainly a winner of a concept in Brazil, and Nokia would probably have the most success in other BRIC markets.

- David Zarraga

by SamanthaApril 14, 2009

Teens Want Free News That's Compiled For Them

When it comes to news, teenagers want it free and they want it aggregated. These new, yet unsurprising, findings spell trouble for the already hurting newspaper industry, which is currently looking to charge for content and eliminate the aggregators.

The bad news comes from a new study for the Newspaper Association of America by Northwestern University’s Media Management Center. It found that teens, who were raised on free internet content, can’t imagine a situation in which they’d have to pay for their news.

Even loyalty to a brand won’t sway this generation. Today’s teens value a news site’s usability and depth of content more than the brand name associated with it. What they want is convenience and compactness, thus the allure of aggregators.

How then can online news organizations appeal to teens? Wired breaks down the study’s suggestions:

• Don't overload them.

• Create home pages that satisfy.

• Include visuals with anything that matters.

• Convey what's important with a clear, visual hierarchy.

• Avoid pages that require too much scrolling or clicking.

• Break up information into management chunks.

In essence, for the teen audience, make it quick, make it short and make it easy to get to. Thinking in these terms, mobile is a well-suited medium to deliver news to teens (this is where they get news and gossip from their friends already). Publications should see it as a key way to disseminate short-form information (via WAP site, mobile app or SMS). In terms of charging, well, news organizations may even be able to get away with it. As we wrote about last week, young people are more willing to accept micropayments on the phone than on the internet, simply because they are more used to it. With newspapers continuing to struggle, they should look to mobile for new opportunities.

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All posts tagged ‘trends’