mis wed 0830 grant whitmore
TRANSCRIPT
Mobile Insider Summit
Grant Whitmore, Hearst Digital Media
August 22, 2012
Mobile Right Now
2
Mobile devices give us the amazing ability to be a part
of consumers’ lives unlike any prior communication
medium.
Because they are always on and always nearby, they
are becoming our default entertainment and
information devices and they are increasingly
indispensible companions in all of our daily activities,
whether work or play.
Apparently This Mobile Thing is Big
3
An estimated 44% of the US internet population
between the ages of 8-64 use smartphones*
3G penetration for cell users in the US is now at
64%, growing at a 31% rate YOY.**
93% of smartphone users access content and
information regularly on their device*
17% of adult US cell phone owners now use their
phones as their primary means of accessing the
internet***
In June of 2012, more than 45% of smartphone
users used shopping applications to shop for goods
Sources: * Online Publishers Association: A Portrait of Today’s Smartphone User, August 2012; **KPCB: Internet Trends 2012; ***Pew Internet and the American Life Project: Cell Phone Internet Access, June 2012
Still Being Used to Keep in Touch
4
More than 55% of Facebook’s monthly active users access Facebook on a mobile device*
More than 60% of Twitter’s monthly active users access Twitter on a mobile device*
While doing this, 58% of US users read posts from companies or brands, and about 32% are said to be likely to click on ads while social networking*
Sources: *Mashable: February, 2012 Comscore Mobile Study
As Ms. Meeker Tells Us…
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…We Have a Mixed Bag of Opportunity
While 10% of US internet traffic is occurring on mobile devices
And 8% of ecommerce activity is now being driven by mobile devices
Mobile ad revenue is commanding only about 20% of the eCPM of desktop display
So that is somewhat scary for those of us running our businesses on an ad-based revenue model who are watching our most rapid audience growth occurring within this newest channel.
Source: KPCB: Internet Trends 2012
A Mixed Bag is Better Than No Bag
6
The Scarier Thing Would Be To Not Have a Rapidly
Growing Mobile Audience!
The Hearst Case (One Year Ago Today)
7
Q3 2011
Hearst Magazines had just acquired Hachette-
Filipacchi globally and had to chew and swallow a
$900mm acquisition, requiring worldwide integration
Paid apps in the form of e-editions were occupying
the bulk of our team’s mobile mindshare of the digital
and executive teams
The Hearst mobile web initiative was fragmented
between multiple outsource vendors providing highly
disparate experiences
A Source of Panic and a Spark of Inspiration
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Source of Panic
98mm US users on
smartphones by Q4, 2011*
33.7mm US tablet users by end
of 2011**
We lacked direct control of our
mobile destiny due to the
fragmented development effort
We were delivering a sub-
optimal experience for our
users and advertisers
Spark of Inspiration
We believed that we could do
this better ourselves
We understood the promise of
HTML5 and the immediate
opportunity for adaptive design
We also felt money starting to
shift there, as we were
beginning to feel pressure from
advertisers who expected us to
offer ad packages in these new
formats
Sources: *NielsenWire, January 2012; **eMarketer, 2011
Aggressively Pragmatic
9
Rapidly applied a “responsive-ish” design methodology
Leveraged our common CMS and HTML5 to deliver against
rapidly-deployed mobile templates (roughly two dozen).
Focused on usability and speed of delivery
Launched 20 mobile-optimized sites in less than six months that
demonstrate important characteristics of responsive design,
without having to wait for the rebuild of underlying architecture
The Good News…It Worked
10
Mobile pageviews grew by more than 280% on a YOY basis
Mobile visitors went from being something we didn’t even track to 27% of audience in the same timeframe
Brands with an exceptional social following enjoyed a multiplier effect on content consumption, helping us validate our assumption that Mobile + Social was they key
Source: Internal Omniture Reporting, Hearst Digital Media, June 2012
Mobile Traffic as a % of Pageviews
June 2011-June 2012
A Little Went a Long Way
11
Rapid Growth Within the Device Category
+
Minor Attention to Mobile Design and UX
+
A Complimentary Social Effort
___________________________________
Most Impressive Audience Growth of the Year
What’s Next at Hearst?
12
Deployment of true responsive design to accommodate
for ongoing proliferation of device sizes
Continue to more deeply intertwine our social and mobile
offerings
Dynamic content display to take advantage of the
personalization and localization features inherent to the
mobile platform
Deeper integration of ecommerce relationships into our
mobile experience
Support to bring advertising partners along to deliver the
most compelling experiences that these devices can offer
Thoughts Beyond 2013
13
L2 issued its report card recently for digital media companies
The weighting on mobile + social aspects of the overall IQ = 50% of the total score
When we think about the opportunity to grow the most dynamic parts of our business, how does it stack against our allocation of resources and investment?
The Potential Trap
14
Failure to adapt
Aggressive pivot in content and customer acquisition
strategy required
Delaying investment
By waiting to see if there is money to be made,
companies will miss the opportunity to help determine the
market
Protecting the diminishing asset and failing to value
the new engagement correctly
Bonusing unproductive mobile impressions, rather than
seeking the most creative implementations
The Required Collaboration Between Marketers
and Publishers
15
More conversations like the ones being had this
week to address the requirements for different
creative execution on mobile
Increased efforts to deliver ad standards within the
responsive design framework
Understanding that the success metrics are going to
be very different for mobile campaigns and
establishing a new set of KPIs to jointly understand
how we are collectively doing to influence these
highly attentive consumers
