2020 Mobile Blog

Hello!
Prompted by this:

Queen Elizabeth II - Not just inspiring portraits....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wzRH3hMKDU&feature=player_embedded

I have to ask – planned your Jubilee party yet? Got a rainmate so you can channel Liz walking through Balmoral in the drizzle? Taken a random fancy to miniature cakes at approximately 3pm each day? Drinking more gin?

Well you should be doing all these things and more (I am – especially the cakes and gin) because 2012 is all about being BRITISH and in these strange, uncertain times that equals the Royal Family, the Union Jack, high cholesterol and merriment (read – acceptable daytime drinking, not limited to sunny days, sporting events or baptisms).

If you hate the Royal Family – what’s wrong with you? They help us to circumvent a mind-bogglingly complex problem – what does it mean to be British in 2012? Even Republicans love Liz, Phil, Kate, William and Harry right now because as we are reminded constantly 2012 is the year of being BRITISH and you’d better be prepared to join in the celebrations or risk being banished north of the border and made to hang out with the Scottish National Party, and no one wants that.

In the spirit of Glorious Royal Britannia, lots of accessory suppliers are paying homage to the Union Jack – which is your favourite?

It’s February and already there is a contender for my favourite technology story of 2012 http://2d-code.co.uk/real-qr-code-cows. One French farmer, hopefully whilst wearing a beret, has painted QR codes onto the cows in his fields, thereby circumventing the troublesome French law about advertising in rural spots.

I love this story. Whilst everyone is stressing over whether there is enough consumer awareness about QR codes and what it is that they do, a French farmer is merrily spray painting his cows and sticking it to the Man. C’est manifique.

If I ruled the world, I would implement this tactic immediately on the High Street. You could QR-code shop walls (or in my imaginary world, the foreheads of store staff) and find out all sorts of useful stuff without having to engage with a poorly trained member of staff.  You could see a pop up menu of what’s in stock, whereabouts in the store it’s located, closing times and price comparisons, anything that doesn’t require human intelligence.  

In retail, QR codes go hand in hand with augmented reality. Both technologies, whilst practically old hat in the tech industry are still not high on most consumers’ agenda. Tesco have implemented augmented reality in some of their stores already http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8895923/Tesco-trials-augmented-reality.html and where the biggest retailer leads, others will surely follow. But there’s still more to do before consumers are using new technologies to enhance their shopping experiences.

Rather gratifyingly, one French farmer has shown that you don’t necessarily need a lot of moolah (sorry) to do it.

I’ve taken up Bikram yoga and there’s one big problem – the sessions are conducted silently which means a strict no-phones policy. It’s the lack of phone which is the biggest challenge for me, rather than the 40 degree heat and the sight of a sweaty seventy-year old doing the downward dog. So as they didn’t announce an invisibility cloak at CES 2012 I’m going to have to work really hard on detaching myself from what feels like my third arm.

Taking inspiration from my New Year’s resolution here is my run down of top accessories which can accompany your well-intentioned January work-out plan:

• Otterbox Defender case – One for extreme sports fans – useful for protecting your phone when rock climbing / canoeing, etc

• Jabra Extreme II Bluetooth headset – if you can afford a fancy gym membership these days then you’re obviously important and need to be contactable by your office at all times, as well as look the part. This is the headset for you.

• House of Marley Exodus Harvest Headphones – these look great and deliver an amazing sound but your ears get hot when exercising in can headphones so they are strictly for posing hipsters only.

• Philips ear-buds – these have a great sound quality, they look good, I can co-ordinate them with my gym wear and therefore I’ll be using them whilst walking along, listening to a Harry Potter ebook on the treadmill this January.

• Cygnett Ripple case – you need one of these to avoid finding out you’ve picked up the wrong iPhone from the communal safe once you’re half-way home.

• Orbyx Union Jack slip case – position your iPad in front of you whilst you’re on the cross-trainer and watch repeats on 4od, this is my kind of gym workout. The Union Jack design also feels right for 2012 – Britishness abounds, but that’s a whole other blog post!

Kelly Rowland at UUnique London launch

Last week X-Factor judge, Grammy award winner and Beyonce’s BFF, Kelly Rowland took a minute out from working on her AMAZING figure to host a party for the launch of the new UUnique London range of cases. The great and the good of mobile were at the exclusive One for One club Park Lane, making the most of the bespoke cocktails, the dancing girls and celebs.

The night out was a follow-up event to ‘UUnique takes over London’ (more info below) and was hosted with enough razzmatazz and champagne to announce that the accessories brand is coming out all (fashionable) guns blazing with their quality cases for iPhone aficionados everywhere.

As I’ve said before, Aegis is onto a winner with UUnique London in terms of design, look and feel and importantly price – the competition simply isn’t there yet. Events like this are helping to shape the brand as a serious fashion contender. In Harvey Nichols at the weekend I was unable to avoid obsessively looking at the smartphone cases offered by the high-enddesigner brands, (my friends think I am now the epitome of the term ‘sad loser’) and unless you want to spend fifty of your hard-earned pounds on your favourite designer brand, UUnique London are your best option for high-fashion, quality designs. This is great news for Aegis and for the accessories sector overall, we need brands that are willing to push and diversify if they’re going to stay at the top of their game.

Kelly took away a UUnique London Brown Jaguar Safari case for iPhone 4S. But the memory that will live on long in the minds of those who attended is the sight of 20:20 Mobile’s Head of Accessories tearing up the dancefloor to some RnB club classics. Thank you Aegis.

At the weekend I met a guy in a band and he didn’t own a phone because “the constant contact with everyone messes with my creativity, man” (he actually said ‘man’; I tried and failed not to laugh).

Just on my BlackBerry smartphone I can receive phonecalls, texts, emails, BBMs, Whatsapp, facebook and twitter – that’s a minimum of seven different ways to get in touch. Phonecalls and texts are the most regularly used functions on a handset* but the following situation happens to me at least once a week:  

Missed call, followed by a text ‘pick uuuuuup your phone!’, then a facebook message to try and publically shame me into ringing back ‘I thought we we’re friends, why are you ignoringggg me?!? xxx’ followed swiftly by a bbm ‘just covering all the bases, where are you, are you ok?’ Another missed phonecall, before finally emailing me ‘Have you lost your phone?’

Maybe my friends are co-dependent, but I blame technology for making us so needy. Smartphones, with their multiple methods of connectivity, demand an instant response.

When someone texts me, I don’t usually respond straight away, slower still for a fb message, slightly better for a BBM and almost non-existent for a Whatsapp. Consequently we’re stuck in a big crazy vortex of feeling left-out because we have enough ways to communicate but no one’s responding to your texts because actually, they’re too busy updating facebook. Or doing some work.  

The explosion of apps designed tap into this communication-evolution has exacerbated and then cemented the issue; and with the recent re-launch of the Siri app as the main talking point around the iPhone 4S we now have a highly-publicised communication app designed to help us manage our communications. My brain is beginning to hurt. Which is why it’s fortunate the technology is starting to catch up and ‘think’ for us. Android software will now group multiple types of communications together for each of the contacts in your phone. Windows OS also does this, so too Apple. This makes it easier and quicker to stay up-to-date with everyone and track your social life.

Personally, I’m championing the return of letter-writing and some kind of government initiative whereby everyone ranks their 3 preferred methods of communication and anything else is superfluous and you are not expected to respond within a fortnight. Like a technology-inspired Alternative-Vote system.

The guy in the band, in case you were wondering, we swapped email addresses, so I guess that would have to be one of my top-three communication methods…

*According to TGI data July 2011

During a mad dash from Croydon to Hackney, via Oxford street (well it was payday) last weekend I saw the UUnique London bus smack bang in the centre of the excited shoppers pushing their way down the street. In the world of techy Bluetooth headsets and functional chargers, this fashion-led case range from manufacturer Aegis really stands out for me, and their latest brand awareness campaign is no different.

As you can see from the pictures, UUnique London took over a London bus on Saturday 29th October and travelled around the capital handing out free gifts and invitations to exclusive parties, both of which were extremely well received by shoppers visiting the bus.

In a massively competitive market, the UUnique London brand stands out for their fashion-focused approach, so a high-five to them for continuing this theme with a consumer marketing campaign which managed to create excitement and desirability amongst their target demographic.

Once I arrived in Hackney, a straw poll of my friends told me that, if they had a case they either wanted minimal distraction from the phone (hello iPhone fanatics) or they wanted something which was fashionable, and reflected the quality of the handset they were using – which fits the UUnqiue London brief. So Aegis are definitely on to something with their latest brand awareness scheme and, with their hotly-anticipated follow-up parties in November, this brand could be in a lot of stockings come Christmas….

20:20 Mobile Senior marketing exec, Sandi Mander, has a blast with the AppBlaster!

Apptoyz, a UK company, is launching a range of toys designed to work with iPhone and iPod Touch. The toys, including blaster, helicopter, buggy and driving wheel, are set to be popular this Christmas and into 2012. There is a range of free and paid for apps available to download from the App Store including Alien Attack, a great shoot ‘em up game that features aliens within an augmented reality setting.

I took an appBlaster for a quick demo and I have to say that it’s great fun; twirling around in the office chair recreating scenes from the movie Aliens.

The iPhone or iPod slots into the gun and then rubber triggers control the action on screen. The AR element saw my colleagues in visible range and in grave danger of being blasted (some came under fire more than others!)   This amazingly fun toy also fits the NEW iPhone 4s… certainly an early contender for Christmas stocking filler.

20:20 Mobile marketing exec, Emily Jones, muses on all things festive and what this year’s seasonal cheer will bring to the mobile accessories sector.

This morning a collegue dropped the C-bomb in the middle of the office, ‘Something horrific has happened, I heard a Christmas song for the first time this year. In SEPTEMBER.’ I lacked any sympathy for him, as planning for the festive season was first mentioned back in March and now October is here and I am immersed in a festive-themed campaign and have ‘Frosty the Snowman’ on loop in my head.

The data for Christmas trends for 2011 is reassuringly unsurprising. Smart-devices will be the norm, with Apple (surely the iPhone 5 will be looming large by then?) , HTC, Blackberry and Samsung driving the biggest demand from consumers, who will themselves be better informed, more techno-friendly and more prepared than ever to hunt out the best deal or gift.

A less obvious trend to emerge in time for the Christmas market is ‘App-cessories’ ; mobile app gifting, books, music, games and visuals, which will increasingly be making inroads into consumers’ consciousness.

The Accessories sector will see sales uplift and further segmentation. Low average-spend products will make up the ‘mainstream’ market, with high–spend ‘specialist’ products and ‘designer’ at the top end. The growth in the ‘fits for’ category will help sales of Samsung and Blackberry accessories, especially the pricier stuff, but overall, spend on lower-end accessories across all manufacturers looks set to increase this festive season.

Generally, I don’t start gearing up to celebrate the birth of baby-Jesus until after my birthday (it’s at the end of October – you can send presents to the office) but for something as major and important for our customers as the Christmas season it is with good tidings to all men and women that we busily prepare ourselves for snow-season even when it’s a baking 27 degrees in a freakishly sunny September.

In contrast to the gloomy retail figures which were released last week http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14928454 - new research seen by 20:20 Mobile shows that mobile phone accessory sales are surging year-on-year. The accessories market in the UK is now valued at over £143 million and it is a remarkable success story  in a retail enviroment where consumer confidence is at an all time low.

This success is driven by the launch of big-money smartphones such as the Blackberry 9900 and white version of the iPhone 4, so in the third quarter we saw an uplift in accessories designed specifically for certain handsets. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S II has shifted over 5 million handsets and counting and it follows that there has been a postive upswing in ‘fits for’ Samsung accessories.

Cases are the biggest category in terms of volume and value in the accessories market. When consumers are willing to pay upwards of £400 for a handset it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see the logic in paying for something which will protect it from spills in the pub or the grime at the bottom of your handbag. As the recycling market also continues to grow, keeping your handset as pristine as possible is getting more important. In addition, ‘recession-proof’ teens are a big chunk of this market.

Whilst smartphones continue to be launched to great fanfare, the accessories market will continue to see growth. We must now wait and watch for the new iPhone launches and be ready to pounce…

A new study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the number of people connecting to the Internet using a mobile phone has nearly doubled in the past two years. There were 17.6 million mobile phone Internet users in 2011, representing 45% of Internet users, compared to 8.5 million users (23% of all users) in 2009.

According to the data, the rate of growth was fastest among those aged 16 to 24, with Internet use on a mobile phone increasing from 44% to 71% over the previous 12 months and the number of women using mobile phones to access the Internet has more than doubled, from 18% of Internet users in 2009 to 39% in 2011.

Other findings included 57% per cent of adult online users using social network sites this year, a growth of 43%, with 91% of 16-24 year olds using social network sites.

Surprisingly, this year, 21% of Internet users made telephone or video calls online, and 32 million people (66% of all adults) purchased goods or services over the Internet, an increase from 62% in 2010, found the survey.