The NYT Erroneously Concludes iPhone Users Don't Do Work

The New York Times is claiming today that iPhone owners do not use their devices for work:

A new report from Compete surveying the behavior of 600 smartphone users found that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, like entertainment. By comparison, 59 percent of owners with other types of smartphones — from manufacturers like HTC, Research in Motion and Nokia — primarily used their devices for business and work-related needs.

Step back a moment:

1. iPhone users obviously consume more content than non-iPhone users because no other mainstream device allows users to do so... or has the available library of content: 35,000 applications and high-speed internet browsing.

2. In contrast, Blackberry users likely use their devices for what they do best: email. You could argue, that outside of limited web-browsing, email and calendaring (or if they want to define that as "work") is all the Blackberry does.

3. iPhone users might use their phones for activities beyond just email and calendaring - but that is because they are able to. That doesn't mean that the iPhone is incapable of "work"; rather, it means that the iPhone is capable of much more than work utilities. Likewise, it doesn't mean that iPhone users do not use their device for work - it means that those utilities are one available usage.

Apple's Full Page New York Times Ad: All About the Apps

Flipping through the New York Times today, I noticed this full page ad for Apple's iPhone which notably doesn't even mention the iPhone itself. The ad is entirely about the App Store and the breadth of games, tools and applications available on the phone. It is not the first time that Apple has promoted apps in their marketing campaigns (storefronts and TV spots are a couple examples) - but it is notable at a time when Blackberry and others are announcing their versions of the app store. It is a world where distribution attracts developers and developers equal inventory:

Tomorrow Marks Rocky Mountain News' Final Day

After months of speculation.And during a week where Hearst made similar waves with the San Francisco Chronicle. And just a few weeks from its 150th anniversary...

Scripps has announced that tomorrow will be the final printing of the The Rocky Mountain News:

The unfortunate question is who will be next? The local news here is that it may will be the San Francisco Chronicle. To put their troubles in perspective - they supposedly lost over $50m last in 2008 (the Rocky Mountain News lost $16m).

Of note, the big "Permanent Clearance" ads on the homepage and throughout the site (for Dillards) are unfortunately ironic and a further sign of the times.

Read more on RockyMountainNews.com. Gakwer also puts this in perspective alongside the New York Times and Tribune Co woes.

Three Reasons Facebook Doesn't Work for Brands

If I was unsurprised that P&G was struggling to advertise on Facebook, 247WallStreet was convinced. Their reaction to the New York Times piece illustrating the struggles of Facebook-based brand campaigns was... And?! And they provide three completely logical explanations as to why Facebook campaigns aren't working:

1. Intent. 'The Google advertising model works because the user is "in on it".'

2. Socializing isn't bred for advertising. "The dirty little secret is that social networks are the playgrounds of people who do not want to be disturbed as they wander a self-centered universe."

3. Relevance. The Facebook ad system is neither relevant nor meaningful:

Anyone coming to Facebook and putting Obama's name in gets a list of sites, with his campaign's being at the top of the list. Off to the right is a text ad which is supposed to be appropriately placed to get maximum exposure. It reads "Barack Obama's IQ = 136, Can you Beat his Score? Take our 2 minute IQ test." In other words, there is nothing appropriate or relevant about the ad. It is a come on to sell a $9.99 subscription to a service called ":Amazing Facts", which sends information to the customer's cell phone.

Any real national advertiser would look at the way the Obama search data is being used and take the Facebook ad salesman's phone number off of his speed dial. Procter & Gamble (PG) has been testing Facebook to see if it is a good medium for brand advertising. No one ever talks about results. The typical Facebook member either can't afford an expensive P&G Gillette razor or finds the ad so annoying that he will shoplift one the next time he is out to get back at P&G for disturbing his tranquility the last time he went online to visit one of his pathetic Facebook "friends."

Looking at Facebook through its dark side shows how inappropriate the site is for any real advertising. Search for the homepage of former genocidal dictator Idi Amin Dadi and the adjacent ads include one of a Gifts.com holiday gift card. It can be used at Gap (GPS), Barnes & Noble (BKS), or H&M. That certainly burnishes the gifts.com image.

Is It Surprising that P&G, Tide Struggle with Facebook Advertising?

In today's New York Times, Randall Stross dissects the world of brand advertising within social networks. Stross' article, Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites, delves into whether or not brands can scalably succeed on social networks (namely Facebook):

Brand advertisers on Facebook can try one of two new approaches. They can be more intrusive, but the outcome will not be positive. Or they can create genuinely entertaining commercials, but spend ungodly sums to do so.

When Facebook convinces advertisers to stage Super Bowl-sized entertainment every day, its future will be assured.

These are important questions, but they aren't necessarily the right ones. Rather, I'd ask:

- For what brands and verticals *does* advertising within social networks work? For instance, we know it works within music.

- At what cost does the advertising come? Is it measurable?

- What tactics are successful advertisers using? Are there 'black hat' behaviors and, if so, does that prevent certain brands / verticals from succeeding?

These questions are important because, despite Stross' well-written and researched article... it really shouldn't come as a surprise that P&G's Tide campaign doesn't work on Facebook. Do social networkers really want socialize around detergent? Even if they do - is that valuable for P&G?

Tide's failure on Facebook seems obvious. But I do not believe it suggests that brands cannot succeed on Facebook.... it may well be however that only brands within certain verticals can succeed until one of two things happen:

1. Facebook becomes more aggressive on the ad front (and it will) 2. The Tides of the world mask their ads behind more creative, sneaky efforts

The “America’s Favorite Stains” campaign, offered on Facebook by Procter & Gamble, asks for members’ ideas. It recently displayed 18 submissions.

AdMob Nails Universal Mobile Advertising via the iPhone

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how AdMob, Google and Developers seem best poised to monetize iPhone Apps ...instead of Apple. Now AdMob is demonstrating that monetization can uniformly move beyond Applications and across all of the browsing / web-based utilities that the iPhone enables. AdMob has released a suite of iPhone specific real estate / ad units - and the interactivity is far better than the mobile text ads that are rendered through the Blackberry, sit across many sites and/or are used by Applications like Sports Tap (who uses Google). The question is how much rich inventory currently exists for these formats? Asking advertisers to produce a new 'standard' of creatives is always difficult and a potential bottleneck.

I love AdMob's approach: universally release the new ad units and showcase the formats in a simple, well presented video that coincides with MobileBeat 2008. I am excited about the innovations coming out of AdMob and companies like Twitterific and the New York Times who are creatively integrating ads into their popular iPhone applications.

Apple Has Terrific Ad in New York Times: "Leopard is Better Than Vista"

Terrific ad on the New York Times homepage from January 17th that shows how brand advertising can be done correctly. It's smart, consistent with their TV campaign, and takes advantage of multi-ad sizes in a collaborative way. It really annoys me as a consumer and an advertiser when ads appear on the same page, in different formats (normally 728x60 and 160x600) and they are effectively the same ad.

See full image here.