The Friday Five — Mobile Payments Edition
Welcome to The Friday Five, curated reads about marketing, advertising and digital media from the team at @MediaWhizLLC.
How a Brick-Shaped Heineken Bottle Almost Changed the World 50 Years Ago | Adweek
Fifty years ago Heineken went beyond the standard focus-group testing and developed what may be the coolest packaging for a product ever known: a brick-shaped beer bottle. Why is that so cool? As David Kiefaber of Adfreak explains, the bottle wasn’t meant to just be used to consume beer. No, it had a much higher purpose in life: it doubled as a “giant interlocking Lego brick, and was made for building eco-homes back in the early 1960s.”
Mobile Wallet Is Expanding, But Hype Doesn’t Match Reality | MediaPost
MediaWhiz’s Daryl Colwell writes in MediaPost that the mobile wallet appears to finally be growing up. But there are concerns that the hype surrounding it doesn’t match consumer value. “With two key factors — ease-of-use and rate of adoption — moving in the right direction, mobile payments may finally reach their lofty potential. But there is still a long way toward mainstream adoption,” says Colwell.
Facebook Bumps Up Its Ad Targeting, Too – Using Your Phone Number and Email Address | AllThingsD
Both Facebook and Twitter made some significant (and welcomed, in our opinion) announcements this week about new ad targeting options. The social networks, which are often criticized by marketers for not offering them enough data and ad targeting options, appear to be finally listening to brands’ concerns about the value of their ad spend. AllThingsD‘s Peter Kafka reports on Facebook’s plan to allow brands to target consumers with ads based on their phone numbers and email addresses.
MMA: Mobile Should Be 7% Of Ad Mix | MediaPost
People spend about 10% of their time with a mobile device but the medium commands only 1% of advertisers’ spend. The Mobile Marketing Association is out to change that, stating this week that brands should be spending up to 7% of their annual advertising budget on mobile marketing campaigns. 1% to 7% … quite a large jump, no?
Google Plus Goes to the Office | The New York Times
Google’s never-ending march toward domination continued this week as it announced the integration of its Google+ social network with its business-oriented Google Apps suite. But do people in an office really want to have a Google+ Hangout with 10 of their coworkers?
Want to suggest links for next week’s issue? Tweet @MediaWhizLLC with the hashtag #FridayFive, or email ktrivitt@mediawhiz.com.
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