Since few shoppers can wait for Amazon to ship their gallon of milk, smartphone usage in grocery stores is an entirely different beast than in big-box and electronic retailers, where the "scan and scram" phenomenon of price comparing runs rampant.

Consumers aren't price checking against the Piggly Wiggly down the street the way they compare the values at Target vs. Best Buy, so mobile apps are popping up as tools for shoppers to find manufacturer deals and make lists as they trawl the supermarket aisles.

Consumers are using mobile more in grocery.

--> Food and medicine are the categories that see the least smartphone usage for research and shopping, according to an online survey from Omnicom Media Group and Microsoft. Phones are used more for shopping for entertainment products, restaurants and consumer electronics.

"You see more scan-and-scram when you're buying a TV than when you're trying to save a $1 on Kleenex," said Daniel Blackburn, VP-mobile for interactive agency Rosetta's Level Studios.

Sixty-five percent of the 3,500 shoppers in five global markets wanted their cellphones to find in-store promotions, according to Omnicom's survey. Making shopping lists and finding items in stores are also top mobile priorities.

In recognition of this, last month, Catalina, the company that powers loyalty programs for 30,000 stores nationwide (including those back-of-receipt coupons), acquired mobile commerce company Modiv Mobile.

Modiv, now Catalina Mobile, is behind mobile apps in 110 of Ahold USA's Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Here's how it works: A shopper walks into the store, opens the store-branded app and receives offers based on their shopping history. To skip the line at checkout, shoppers can scan barcodes of items they put into the cart to buy the haul right on the phone. Catalina says the app will be available in 200 more Stop & Shops this summer.

The Ahold partnership predated Modiv's acquisition by Catalina, which operates in more than 85 U.S. chains, including Target, Kroger and Safeway, and distributes coupons for major packaged-goods brands. Catalina reaches 75% of U.S. households across 30,000 stores, said Todd Morris, the company's exec VP-brand development and marketing innovation.

Its focus remains on using mobile to change purchase behavior in stores, rather than warding off online grocers such as Fresh Direct. "Sure, I'll use Red Laser to compare prices on electronics, but no one's going to do that with a box of cereal," said Mr. Morris of the price-comparison app eBay acquired in 2010.

"The whole use case of scanning dozens of boxes of Cheerios to see which is cheaper is a little silly," said Dhana Pawar, director-mobile product management at Coupons.com, which updated its Grocery iQ mobile app this month.

Coupons.com, a behemoth in digital coupons that's raised $285 million in funding over the past several years, focuses on bringing packaged-goods brands into the list-making process with an app called Grocery iQ. In the first quarter, 71% of shoppers made their lists at home, according to the SymphonyIRI MarketPulse survey.

Shoppers create lists in the app by scanning barcodes or typing in entries, then the app organizes those items by aisle. The most recent update ports coupons into the search tool so that, say, a shopper may add one brand of yogurt to the list over another because Coupons.com offers 50¢ off. Coupons.com reports that Grocery iQ has "millions" of downloads and active users use it three to four times a week. It's also added brand advertising: Hormel has sponsored the meat and seafood tab in the app.

To redeem coupons from the app, users can email coupons to print at home or sync the app with their loyalty cards at participating stores, including Safeway, so savings are automatically deducted at checkout.

Via HighTable.com.

Like infographics? So do we.

You want to start a business. So you need a plan, right? No. Not really.

As part of the research for a book I'm co-authoring — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, due out in August from HBR Press — my colleagues and I interviewed and surveyed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs around the globe to better understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a really great business. One of our most striking findings was that of the entrepreneurs we surveyed who had a successful exit (that is, an IPO or sale to another firm), about 70% did NOT start with a business plan.

Instead, their business journeys originated in a different place, a place we call the Heart. They were conceived not with a document but with a feeling and doing for an authentic vision. Clarity of purpose and passion ruled the day with less time spent writing about an idea and more time spent just doing it.

It's not that all planning is bad. It's that efforts to write the "perfect" business plan usually lead to being precisely incorrect rather than approximately correct. One problem is that the content that most people focus on in business plans has little to do with the reality that will actually emerge. Many start-up plans emphasize some gigantic potential market and how getting just the smallest sliver of it will make them and investors rich. A colleague of mine offers the hypothetical example of selling a bar of soap for a dollar every month to just 0.5% percent of the people in China. It's nearly a $100M business! Good luck making it happen, though.

At a business's inception, resources are limited, and the best content for a business plan is real-world data based on testing aspects of the concept. These experiments need not be complex. You want simple, iterative tests that are easily measurable and let you know whether you are winning or not.

It's not just start-ups. The strategic architecture of any business should incorporate facts from real world testing to allow one to adjust course as necessary. This is what Henry Mintzberg, a seminal figure in competitive strategy theory, once described as "emergent" or "evolutionary" strategy. My business partner Mats Lederhausen (formerly global head of strategy for McDonald's as well as former Executive Chairman of Chipotle) has his own saying for it: think big, start small, then scale or fail fast.

So don't worry too much about a business plan. But to guide your thinking, improve a pitch to prospective investors, or better align your teams, consider these design points:

1. Identify and clearly articulate your Heart and purpose. Whether you want to call it vision, Heart, purpose or calling, be very clear on the why of a business — the bigger goal at hand.

2. The team is more important than any idea or plan. The top three priorities should be people, followed by people, and then people.

3. Think big, start small, then scale or fail fast. Per Lederhausen's advice, set the right first "start small" milestone; it will usually involve seeing people's willingness to buy or at least try your product.

4. Focus on a well-defined market sub-segment or niche. At least to start, think of where you can potentially be the best. This strategy is almost always more successful than being just another player in a massive market.

5. Understand your business model. How you will make money is more important than pages of Excel showing financials that are simply too hard to predict at this early stage anyway. Understand instead the basic way you will make money - is it through transactions, advertising, subscriptions, etc?

There appears to be a perennial market for how-to classes, books, and templates that promise almost "color by number" instructions for populating business plans. While aspects of those tools are helpful for a structured approach, they are more likely to mislead because of their emphasis on completing the plan of a business before uncovering its soul and demonstrating whether others connect with it. People feel a sense of accomplishment upon completing their plan, but what does that plan really get them? Filling worksheets can never replace zeroing in on the passion and purpose of your business. That Heart has to be there day one. The most researched business plan holds little value without a genuine Heart behind the idea and the Guts to just get it going.

“Content is king” has been a long-lived mantra of media. And in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was true.

But over the last several years, the Internet has upheaved the aphorism.

It used to be that media was linear. And in that world, content and distribution were married. The HBO channel had HBO content. A New York Times subscription bought you New York Times content. And Vogue and Cosmopolitan each month delivered exclusive and proprietary content from … Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

Until the Internet came along. In every single one of the varied businesses the Internet has touched — from commerce to media to communications to payments — there has been one common impact: disaggregation.

Content and distribution have parted

In the case of the hundreds-of-years-old media business, the Internet has fundamentally separated content from distribution.

Today I can watch hundreds of South Park and Jon Stewart clips, all without a cable box — on my Apple TV, my Android phone, or YouTube on my desktop.

But wait, South Park and Jon Stewart? Content is king, you say. It’s now even more free to reign, unfettered by distribution channels!

No; because content is no longer enough. Content has always been a means to an end. And the end has always been audience.

Content isn’t the goal. Audience is.

When it comes to the business of media, there’s no question: advertisers don’t pay to reach content. They pay to reach an audience.

What’s the first item in every brief from every advertiser? It’s not Target Content, it’s Target Audience.

Media has been slow to adjust to this new dynamic. Companies have sunk billions into content management systems — using CMS as the cornerstone of their modernization — under the impression that they traffic in content.

But they don’t. They traffic in audience. And how much have they spent on audience development systems? Not much, if any at all.

Now that distribution of content to audience is no longer linear, distribution decisions are suddenly more complicated. And, at the same time, they are immensely more important — and more dynamic — to create the impact media companies are looking for: drawing an audience! Social distribution can outperform search, if you use it wisely. Day-parting your postings can boost post performance by 100 percent or more. Packaging can triple the effectiveness of content in reaching an audience.

And yet, few in media have even begun to optimize these decisions.

Who’s your Chief Audience Officer?

Distribution decisions are just as important as content decisions in building and serving an audience, and yet they are being largely ignored. Everyone has an Editor-In-Chief or a Chief Creative Officer. But how many have a Distributor-In-Chief? Or a Chief Audience Officer? A Head of Digital Programming?

The myopic focus on content over distribution is widespread, and it’s a bad business decision. It ignores a critical access of leverage, and one of competitive advantage.

The smartest media companies will do three things to take control of their digital opportunity:

• Put someone in charge of audience development.
  Give them latitude to think about the interplay between distribution and content, so that they can marry the two. Like a head of programming for a cable network, they should be tasked to realize the full potential of your digital channels. They should support the delivery of your content, and they should also provide back pressure to your content creators. Don’t merge it into your editorial jobs — that’s too precarious. Make it its own discipline.
• Adopt an audience development strategy.
  There are three basic components you have to master: insights (know your audience segments, and what each one will like); channel selection (identify the highest value distribution outlets for your brand, whether it’s search, social, YouTube, Hulu, or your own channels); and optimization (use data to create a feedback loop and tune your content, packaging, and timing to what works for your audience).
• Systematize it.
  You have sunk millions into content management systems. But how much have you spent on your most monetizable asset, your audience? You should be as systematic in audience development as you are in content creation, if not more so. Whether it’s with established processes or dedicated algorithms, make audience development a competitive advantage. Get so good at it that you truly know how to maximize every piece of content you create — and multiply your ROI. Use technology for what it does best: Systematize your advantages over your competitors.

With the rise of new distribution platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Hulu, there’s no question that the next generation of digital media is as much about distribution as it is about content. Media companies that orient their organizations to prize audience development above all (with distribution as a key component) will catch the upside of these tectonic shifts. And they will be the ones that survive and thrive in the digital age. After all, audience is the ruler of media companies’ fortunes.

This article by Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is an exclusive selection from his Media Success newsletter for digital media leaders. Elowitz is the co-founder and CEO of next-generation media company Wetpaint and the author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

Rand McNally maps out mobile strategy with QR codes

By Chantal Tode

April 25, 2012

Road atlas is mobilized via QR codes and an app

Rand McNally is recruiting mobile to enhance the functionality and drive engagement for its latest road atlas via QR codes and a new mobile application.

To meet the needs of the increasingly connected car traveler, the new edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas includes QR codes on several pages, enabling readers to access additional content such as suggested road trips. There is also a new smartphone app called Best of the Road that enables readers to share reviews on specific destinations by linking to the online Best of the Road community.

“Mobile allows the Atlas to be better used as a trip-planning device, allowing for up to the minute information to be communicated,” said Jennifer Cavallo, product manager for the Road Atlas line at Rand McNally, Skokie, IL.

“While on the road, mobile content can be helpful for discovering close-by and unique stops, emergency services, and other information on the road ahead,” she said. “We also plan to use QR codes on our state maps, beginning this summer.”

An evolving strategy
The new app enables users to participate in Rand McNally’s Best of the Road program, which is taking place this summer, by sharing destination reviews and place nominations for the best small town. It is currently available for the iPhone and will soon also be available for Android smartphones.

Users of the app can read reviews of the best small towns and view photos, blogs and bios from bestoftheroad.com. They can also find nearby points of interest, watch videos from the 2011 Best of the Road Rally and browse over 250 road trips.

Best of the Road is a community of road travelers reviewing the best stops on America’s roads, nominating the best small towns and discussing points of interest along the way.

The QR codes provide instant access to travel videos and state-by-state overviews with suggested road trips. Users can also scan a QR in the road atlas to access the Best of the Road user review app.

Rand McNally has been using QR codes in its road atlas for several years and continues to evolve the strategy.

“The QR codes allow us to easily direct the user to rich content such as videos, specific editorial, and up-to-the minute destination information,” Ms. Cavallo said.

Essential planning tool
According to the publisher, the QR codes on the front cover of the atlas receive the most scans. QR codes can also be found on the coupons page, the U.S. overview map and all state map pages.

Having QR codes enables the publisher to update offers on the coupon pages and tailor information to a specific place.

Travel-related brands such as Rand McNally are increasingly embracing mobile because of the convenience it offers busy travelers who are looking for a restaurant, hotel or other destination when they are on they are traveling.

“We continue to evolve the integration of the atlas to other media in order to increase the relevance to the end user, and make the Atlas an even more essential planning tool,” Ms. Cavallo said.

Bing Kimpo

Digital Signage World Asia 2012 seems much smaller now than its last staging almost 2 years ago.

Exhibition-wise at least it seems that the global heavy-hitters have shied away, leaving their integrators to press the flesh – HP, Microsoft were there by proxy and it looked like only Intel was inside – literally.

@mysignbox are on booth 4010

Still, there were some reasons to smile. Korea’s D4 showed off its transparent screen, which works to virtually contextualize tangible objects on display behind it – a couple of people have already emailed us to say this is the likely star of the exhibit space, Ed

Malaysia’s MySignBox boldly announced a bid to break into the US market with its Microsoft Cloud-based ‘DIY’ system that regionally taps the Asian entrepreneurial bent by offering a player for ‘emerging’ retailers and their chains.

Co-founder Tumin Chook (shown to the right here with his device) thinks the DIY market in the US is ripe for his solution.

Day 1 of the exhibition was understandably heavily retail-flavored, considering that the event was co-located with retail, cards and payments events. A good sign perhaps that applications in Asia’s Digital Signage space, seem at pace with its technologies.

The conference proper starts tomorrow.

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