How iPhone 6 Marketing Will Change your Brand?

The day of reckoning is upon us, the long awaited iPhone 6, iOS 8 and the iWatchwere announced today. Let’s cover the basics of what was announced, and how it could potentially fit into your marketing mix for Q4 2014 and heading into 2015.

For starters – the iPhone 6 comes in a 4.7 inch screen and a 5.5 inch screen, clearly larger than the current 4 inch version. The new wave of ‘phablets’ continue to bring quality experiences to consumers who not only love bringing their mobile devices on-the-go, but also want to use it at home for more long usage.

iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iWatch:

The new devices allow for a more connected ecosystem of devices that you will see continue to expand over the next decade. For now – at the very least, you will see larger screens drive more time spent on mobile phones, stronger engagement, richer mobile ads and a rise in video consumption. It’s something that’s been noticeable with the Galaxy S5 vs. other android devices, and you can imagine given the affluent demographic that Apple reaches, those numbers will be even stronger on the new iPhones. The iWatch becomes an interesting piece to future marketing tactics as it will be an extension to your products.

App Extensions:

Perhaps the biggest announcement in iOS 8, app extensions will allow for customization and open the iOS ecosystem to 3 parties. This includes custom interaction in the notification center, sharing extensions for other apps to share content and others including 3 party keyboards, etc... What does this mean? Imagine being able to tap into instagram’s filters while in the pinterest app or sharing content from Safrai to your Facebook app without actually opening the app. Or even imagine being able to buy something on the whim from a push notification without actually entering the app itself. These are some simple cases, but you can imagine the seamless experience apps will be able to offer now and the user experience people will get to enjoy.

Apple Pay:

ApplePay is Apple’s new payment system that will allow users to seamlessly charge payments with their current credit cards via NFC and Touch ID scanning. Apple Pay also gives the opportunity for developers to allow one-touch payment processing at checkout and using your TouchID. Apple says more than 200,000 merchants will support the platform. This feature significantly reduces the barrier to logging in, making a purchase or any other behavior that requires people to input a large amount of information. Now the same information (e.g., credit card) can be stored and authorized using a person’s fingerprint — leaving significantly less friction and less opportunity for abandonment. The key thing to note here is Apple will not share any personal information (address, credit card info, etc…) with the merchant.

So what does this all mean for marketers? It continues to be a huge push into the era of big data, harnessed by the power of an integrated ecosystem and connected devices. To understand this new age of technology and how it affects marketing, it’s important to look at a few key factors:

1) There’s a tipping point of consumer usage with the majority of time spent now on phones, phablets and tablets

2) Privacy is always Apple’s top priority, but you imagine marketers will find loopholes to get more information on how consumers are using devices for both online purchases and now in the physical world

3) These devices are becoming the most trusted piece of a person’s life – now most notably as apple tries to replace credit cards and wallets

4) App usage continues to grow as do connected devices (cars, watches, wearables, etc..) – app extensions will seemingly make things smoother, and tracking media dollars now becomes more difficult than the standard world of cookies allowed. New IDs (Fingerprinting, Device IDs, etc..) should be a key to your cross-device marketing. And ensuring your app is seamlessly integrated to the new iOS 8 will separate winners from losers in 2015.

Given these 4 important factors, why would mobile NOT be an important piece of your marketing mix? Consumers are always ahead of the curve, but the wealth of data can help discover HUGE learnings for your brand. After all, the majority of purchases are still made in physical stores, with much of that initial research and product learning being done in the digital world. Mobile data is the key to bridging all the gaps in your marketing funnel.

Products like Venmo, Uber and Seamless have already proven the intuitive nature of power buyers, but now Apple is allowing a much larger adoption. What do wesee here at Pivmo possible in 2015? We see opportunities for higher impact on bigger screens, real-time messaging to drive impulse purchases - based on triggers such as location, context, social chatter, buying habits and relevancy. We see the opportunity for mobile being the most influential data source to understanding how consumers interact with all channels. We see video consumption on the rise, ultimately powering brand dollars. And finally, we see brands continue to explode through the power of mobile innovation and marketing winning over the new wave of consumers.

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Apple’s Announcements Are a Huge Deal for Marketers

Another Apple launch event, another batch of surprises that aren’t that surprising. There’s been buzz about Apple launching a watch, mobile payments, and a larger iPhone for months. Now, the rumours have all turned out to be true! We hope you paid attention, because Apple just flipped the script for marketers everywhere (again). Here are the big changes that are already impacting your business:

Mobile Payments Are Becoming a Thing

Yes, the Apple Watch is really cool, and you can get one made out of solid gold or 
whatever. But the biggest announcement Apple made was one that most consumers probably glided right over. Apple Pay represents a huge leap forward for mobile payments and digital wallets.

Mobile payment isn’t new. It’s been a feature of Android phones since 2011. But Apple might finally make them mainstream.

Widespread mobile payment could be a massive development for marketers. If you are able to connect customers’ phones to their transactions, then you can connect their behavior online to their behavior in-store. This is the Holy Grail. Brands will be able to provide a truly seamless customer experience. You could walk into a store, be greeted by name, get more information from a human being on the same products you were looking at online, then purchase it with a wave of your phone. However, this won’t happen right away.

To ensure that people aren’t put-off by Apple Pay, the tech giant has stressed its security. Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, announced that Apple would not collect any purchase history or information through its system. Everything is encrypted, which should make using Apple Pay even safer than using a debit card.

This cuts both ways for marketers. On one hand, the heightened security and ease of Apple Pay will definitely encourage wider adoption. However, it also won’t provide all the purchase data they want and need. I think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff, at least for now. Once mobile payment reaches saturation, that’s when marketers really need to sync up their experiences. Regardless, if consumers become more comfortable paying with their phones, brands need to provide them with every opportunity to do so.

A Wearable Future

Again, we’ve had FitBit and Jawbone for a while, but the Apple Watch represents a mainstream acceptance of the wearable movement.

Like Apple Pay, information from HealthKit won’t get shared with marketers willy-nilly. But if consumers decide to share it, it would be revolutionary for the fitness, sportswear, and healthcare fields. Your personal trainer could provide feedback on your routine, and you’d never need to go to the gym. A sales associate could recommend shoes based on how often and how hard you run. Your doctor could even get a full readout of your heart rate.

Unlike the two examples I mentioned above, the Watch is not a fitness-centric device. Yet, it has all the same capabilities. It’s a fashion accessory that just happens to let you measure huge amounts of biometric data, if that’s what you’re into. Instead of going out and buying something specifically to tell them how many steps they walked and hours they slept, Apple Watch owners will have that info right on their wrists. This means the challenge now is for companies to come up with apps that leverage this data in useful, interesting ways, rather than convincing consumers to start measuring in the first place.

iBeacons Will Make Location-Based Marketing a Reality

I want to stress: this is hearsay. However, I’ve heard two rumors already. Right now, Apple are upgrading the iBeacons in their stores to provide more accurate location-based offers to customers. The rumor is that they’re going to be providing more accurate, in-house designed iBeacon sensors to retailers. This will help authenticate Apple Pay, but also provides unprecedented information on iPhone owners’ exact location within a store.

That could mean that, if you linger by a new bag in Macy’s, your Apple Watch might tap you and present an offer to take 20% off. Then you just need to walk up to the register, hold out your wrist, and waltz on out with your sweet new purchase. However, the Minority Report world of constant, personalized in-store offers might soon be upon us. What it looks like, and whether consumers will embrace it, are two huge questions we’ll have answers to soon.

Bigger Phones, Fewer Desktops

Mobile internet usage is rapidly tipping towards becoming the norm, rather than the exception. More and more-comfortable mobile experiences are what’s going to diminish customers’ time on desktop. As Ad Age reports, “Bigger phones are increasingly popular, particularly in Asia, where consumers often have one internet-connected device.” Every company is going to need to deliver a richer, more responsive mobile experience. It’s clear: customers aren’t rushing back to their desktops anytime soon.

With this event, Apple have cemented themselves as tech trend decision-makers. They weren’t the first to come up with wearables or mobile payments, but they may have perfected them. Like smartphones, once Apple runs with a product, marketers (and everyone else) have to try to keep up.

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