Tocquigny

It’s hard to admit this, especially when you work at a digital agency, surrounded by all things cutting edge and the earliest of early-adopters, but I have never really gotten into the whole location-based app phenom before this year’s SXSWi.

I thought: “Why should people care that I am at this Starbucks at 8am? Aren’t 4 million other people? Isn’t this a little self-celebrity of me?” It didn’t seem worth the effort. Not even when they introduced rewards to entice me to check-in to get a dollar off my coffee.

However, after hearing Gowalla’s CEO, Josh Williams, speak about where location-based apps are going, moving away from local deals and towards global experiences, I have finally realized the value this trend can bring to the table beyond stalking friends, the social status of being “mayor,” and the minimal discounts at my favorite lunch spot.

Williams spoke of what locations can really mean to us on a story-telling level. How places can have historical and emotional significance in our lives. Where we got engaged, took our college European trip, caught an epic game with our father — these places mean something to us. The places we’ve been and the experiences we’ve had there become a part of who we are. It’s the stories we tell in the context of the places we’ve been that are ultimately worth remembering and sharing. 

This is the future for Gowalla. They want to change the way we think about “check-ins.” Instead think of it as a stamp in your digital passport. In the past, we bought t-shirts, purchased magnets and collected shot glasses to remember the meaningful places we traveled and the good times we had there. Now we can forego the clutter.

Imagine taking a trip and at the end of it you have a digital collection of all the places you went, all the pictures you took, and all the comments made. A travel scrapbook on your mobile phone to help you remember and share with friends. Even better, down the road your network can reference it to help enrich their travel plans based on what you enjoyed. Williams calls it a “socially curated Lonely Planet.”

He wants to create a tool to inspire people to go out and explore the world. Eventually, check-ins for check-in sake in your everyday places will wear out. For the mainstream, for example, people like me, it never took hold in the first place. Perhaps adding the value of being a global travel reference and storytelling platform will be the ticket to future success.

The streets of Austin, Texas are crowded with Chuck Taylors and big ideas, as SXSWi is in full swing. If 2010 was the year for mobile, 2011 is the year for ROI. Then, it’s quite appropriate that some of my initial takeaways are related to the marriage of both: Mobile and ROI.

Just like 2010 won’t mark the only year for mobile, really: When has ROI not been important? True, the industry has always focused on delivering returns on marketing initiatives, but the expanse of the supremely-measurable digital space has prompted a new era of marketing accountability.

So, what’s being said about how to calculate mobile ROI?

Media-Centric KPI’s for Brand Awareness

In the “Behind the Curtain: Secrets of Mobile Application Wizardry” session on Saturday with Razorfish’s Paul Gelb, the audience heard about the making of some of the finest branded mobile apps launched recently: SitOrSquat by Charmin, the Audi A4 Racing Challenge, and the Victoria’s Secret iPad app amongst others. Aside from the Victoria’s Secret app, which incuded a Red Laser bard code scanner, the apps featured were mostly engagement-focused as opposed to sales-based. When I asked about tracking sales-based ROI with non-sales-based apps, Gelb conceded that sales was usually not the objective in those projects. Media-centric key performance indicators, like content created or shared, impressions on that content, etc, are some potential metrics to track when a mobile app project is focused on creating brand awareness.

Sales Can Be Sexy Too

“Augmented Reality for Marketers” certainly acknowledged the gimmicky side of A/R, but a featured Converse app where you can place a virtual shoe on your actual foot (then buy directly) showed that engagement can lead to sales.

The Holy Grail is continuing to extend this engagement-to-sales value chain. With the bevy of user data being collected on the back-end of these apps, connecting with sales data from the customer relationship management (CRM) database could open the floodgates of knowledge. Imagine the insights you could garner: App user propensity to buy, customer propensity to engage, and so much more.

Final Thought

From brand awareness-building media-centric KPI’s to direct engagement-to-sales value chains, measuring mobile to calculate ROI is something all brands can - and should - be doing. Determine the objective of your mobile initiative, connect your goal with the appropriate metric, then compare performance across media.

What mobile ROI lessons have you learned from SXSWi - or anywhere else? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The automotive industry has SEMA, consumer electronics has CES, and film and arts has Cannes. A short category-specific festival where industry giants converge to celebrate the past and share ideas about the future. For interactive, that festival is SXSW. It’s become a prophesier of what’s next for all things interactive. Twitter, now a mainstay for communicating with consumers in the digital space, got its big break here in 2007. The geolocation war between Foursquare and Gowalla was fought in 2010.

Located just 3 blocks from the convention center, Tocquigny has benefited immensely from the first hand glimpse into the future of digital communication. But in 2011 we took a proactive approach. Instead of waiting for the buzz to produce winners and losers, we tracked trends in real time with a purpose-built web application called Buzzbrawl. And we were tickled to discover CNN caught the Buzz about our buzz-tracking tool.

The news giant stopped by our View 512 party on Friday to demo the site and interview Craig Saper - Buzzbrawl’s brainchild. Below are excerpts from the article, which can be seen in its entirety on CNN.

“…The site provides a real-time look at the conversation happening in the media and on social media networks…

“…Saper wanted to move away from subjective trends list put out every year and find a quantifiable way to discover the top trends of SXSW…”

“…At any given time the site shows what’s trending based on conversations people are having on Twitter and mentions in the media. The site also shows where the majority of the conversation is coming from…” 

“…The screenshot … shows PC mentions were more positive than Mac mentions at 11 a.m. Saturday. All Things Digital, Mashable and TechCrunch were the top sources of the conversation. For PCs, the top sources were All Things Digital, The New York Times and TechCrunch. Overall, PCs were beating out Macs…”

“…’We’re really happy about…providing…a free tool to make sense of data and analytics,’ Saper said…”

Check out Buzzbrawl to see what’s trending in interactive right now. 

Just in time for the SXSW Interactive Conference, our fearless leader Yvonne Tocquigny just led a session on how to develop a marketing plan for start-ups.

Check out the video now.

The session was a part of the Relationship & Information Series for Entrepreneurs (RISE) Week 2011, where entrepreneurs receive a combination of interactive learning sessions, inspiring keynotes, unique competitions, funding opportunities, and celebratory networking events.

Go start-ups! Keep on keeping on! 

Arts and crafts hour at Tocquigny.