It's sink-or-swim in this economy, but traditional media is staying afloat

Media guru Marc Andreessen has some outrageous advice for print publications to boost their readership: commit suicide.

Playing off the tired sinking ship metaphor, he tells TechCrunch.com that newspapers and magazines need to “burn the boats” and that stronger, more powerful Web publications will rise from the ashes.

At a time when traditional media brands remain tremendously influential, we think it is ludicrous to suggest they should disappear.

Publishers of major titles such as Rolling Stone, People and Vogue have just banded together to collectively stake out their territory in the advertising world.

At Pongr, we see ourselves as a bridge between traditional media and new digital media. Both mediums can greatly benefit through cross-promotion in each other’s worlds.

Personally, I frequently learn about funny new Websites, viral videos and interesting blogs by seeing their URLs mentioned in magazines or newspapers. And as the trade ad above argues, 300 million paid print subscriptions is hardly anything to sneeze at.

Of course, digital media does allow print publications to expand their brands beyond the static page.

Pongr facilitates the union between traditional media and new media. No matter what the form of visual ad — including billboards, magazines, subway posters, TV screens and even storefronts — a quick click with a cell phone camera can deliver consumers special deals on the brands they love the most.

We recently partnered with GQ magazine to make one of its Levi’s jeans ads interactive.

At the back of the magazine, GQ readers were invited to turn to the page of the Levi’s ad, snap it with their camera phone and send it in for a special 25 percent discount code redeemable at Levis.com.

GQ marketing executive Scott Carlis says he continues to seek “more immersive experiences” for his advertising partners.

“Pongr provides a service that is enormously valuable for our clients because of the ubiquity of the mobile channel and the increasing demands for more innovative and experiential integrated marketing solutions,” he says.

This month, we’re also pleased to announce a bold partnership with W magazine. Every single ad in the latest issue will have an incentive to Pongr, as it will be tied in with a $1,000 shopping spree contest. We’re anticipating volume that has never been seen before in the magazine space!

Find out about our special image recognition technology and why consumers will welcome mobile marketing offers about brands they are already passionate about.

But back to the sink-or-swim argument about the print media, it looks like they’re answering their critics with the extremely buoyant Michael Phelps:

Traditional media may be aging, but it still is in great shape, thank you very much.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

W MAGAZINE PARTNERS WITH PONGR TO CREATE INTERACTIVE ADS FOR THE FIRST EVER SHOPPING ISSUE

Program “Mobilizes” All Ads, Making the April Issue Shop-able Cover to Cover

BOSTON, MA, March 18, 2010—Pongr, Inc., a digital marketing technology company based in Boston, MA, has been tapped by W magazine to provide turn-key mobile engagement that allows readers to get more information on brands advertising in the April issue, the magazine’s first dedicated entirely to shopping. Readers that choose to “PONGR” the ads are automatically entered for a chance to win $1000 from the magazine.

On any advertising page, readers can snap a photo of the ad and send it to w@pongr.com to receive a message from the advertising brand: a link to buy; a special shopping offer; or video such as behind-the-scenes or runway shows.

Pongr’s ad technology makes the ad pages interactive via image recognition, without requiring advertisers to modify their creative. The program equips W with an instant tool for monitoring engagement and rewards those active readers.

“W is an audience of avid shoppers, and this program offers immediate gratification,” said VP/Publisher Nina Lawrence.  “With Pongr, we’ve made the advertisements as easy to shop as the editorial in an issue focused singularly on this topic.”

Advertisers, brands, and marketers are reaching out to Pongr to help deliver mobile solutions that change the way consumers connect with brands (and vice versa). Pongr links print, TV, physical & digital advertisements to social networks via the mobile phone camera and can potentially tie ANYTHING in the physical world to a direct response marketing message.

“As publishers swiftly design programs that link digital opportunities with print, W is a shining example of how to engage readers by being accessible wherever they are,” said Pongr co-founder and CEO Jamie Thompson.  “Pongr activates an advertiser’s own ad creative without modification, and addresses readers’ already sophisticated use of technology.”

About Pongr, Inc.

Pongr is an advertising technology products and services company that focuses on mobile consumer engagement via pictures, social interaction, and brand media. For more information please visit http://www.pongr.com.

About W Magazine

W is the only pure luxury and fashion lifestyle magazine. It provides the ultimate insider experience, taking an original, provocative approach to fashion, beauty, society, art, culture, travel, and entertainment. W is published by Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, which operates in 24 countries and is the world leader in exceptional content creation. For more information, visit www.wmagazine.com.

###

For further information contact:

Joel Idelson, Pongr, 617-938-3505 or jidelson [at] pongr [dot] com

Elissa Lumley, W magazine, 212-286-2225 or Elissa_Lumley [at] condenast [dot] com

Truth be told, there’s really just one great reason to ponder Pongr:  Pongr will make you money.

And really, after that one, what other reason could you possibly need?

But, since we promised you five great reasons, here are four more things to consider about Pongr’s image-recognition technology:

• Pongr’s unique image-recognition technology gives you the ability to add metrics to your traditional advertising channels; now, you can internally gather data about your readers’ habits, giving you better insight into your traditional and digital marketing spends.  If you track your online visitors, if you have an iPhone app (or are working on one), if there’s iPad connection in your foreseeable future, Pongr is a natural, easy way to introduce benchmarking—before your advertisers force you to do it.
• Pongr lets you measure reader and consumer engagement traffic on a daily, monthly, or quarterly basis. You can introduce specific programs or value-adds for your advertisers and clearly prove the value of your publication to them.
• Pongr helps you propagate your brand image onto consumers’ mobile devices and into the increasingly sweet spot that is social networking. You can truly make your brand viral and create a unique experiential marketing opportunity.
• Pongr advances retention of existing customers and gains you exposure to new customers. Image-recognition technology, combined with your publication and your advertisers’ campaigns increase your reach and the effectiveness of your adaptive marketing efforts by engaging consumers throughout their mobile day.

Just as television neither killed radio nor movie theaters, traditional media aren’t going away. But the balance of power is shifting to a digital world.

Given its mobility and ubiquity , mobile marketing—especially leveraging technologies like image-recognition—is a picture-perfect solution for publishers, agencies, and brand marketers looking to extend their reach and straddle both worlds successfully in the future.

Twitter has helped facilitate many great discussions on AR, mobile image recognition and futuristic ideas that are coming to life in the present.  People like Chris Grayson of GigantiCo, Richard MacManus and Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, Rachael King of BusinessWeek.com, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media (see his Web Squared video with John Battelle for insight into image recognition and the future of the Mobile Web) and many others, are evangelizing augmented reality applications and core technologies.

As a provider of image recognition capabilities, Pongr is interested in helping you, your company, and your customers continue to innovate in this exciting space.  After all, the global heartbeat of the mobile Internet is connected to the billions of pictures generated by mobile consumers everywhere.  Pictures and videos are the lifeblood of how we share experiences and make connections beyond what can be said in 140 characters or less!

While we can’t predict the entire future of AR, we are certain of one thing: image recognition is a fundamental technology that will improve the way the world searches for, and interacts with people, places and things. We’d love to hear your thoughts on what you think will happen next.  Here are a few areas that we expect will continue to rage in 2010:

• Image recognition as a core mobile “search” tool
• Augmented reality that includes computer vision vs. GPS/LBS only AR Lite
• Retail uses of AR in the form of “shopper technology” to drive traffic and sales
• Gimmicky one-trick ponies vs. sustainable AR applications
• Mingling of relationships between media, mobile and advertising companies

But here’s the thing — we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of the effectiveness of actually influencing consumer shopping decisions via mobile banner ads.  What lurks beneath the surface is huge, and the implications of what happens next are significant for the business of retail, advertising, and even wireless carriers.

As Adweek’s Brian Morrissey writes in a recent article on Google’s acquisition of AdMob:

The big purchase is a clear endorsement that Google sees enormous potential in a market that’s still small. Despite the never-ending prediction of “the year of mobile,” the market has grown by fits and starts. According to eMarketer, advertisers spent just $320 million on mobile ads last year, a figure that’s forecast to increase to $416 million this year and reach $1.6 billion in 2013.

Here are some practical tips on how to include augmented reality in your mobile marketing campaigns.

Rule #1 – It’s all about the opt-in experience!

Your best users and biggest fans need to be empowered to participate in a cool, mobile experience when it’s convenient for them.  That means you should think carefully about whether you want to associate your brand with “pushing” a mobile offer when it’s not directly solicited or guaranteed to be relevant.  Instead, you should tell a story; a story that involves a mobile component, is tied into your overall marketing activities, and includes some specific special offers and social opportunities for your fans to engage with your brand on their terms.

To be clear, when we say special offers, we don’t necessarily mean just coupons.  Mobile coupons could be a sensible way to approach your objectives, but there’s a lot you can do with the post-click in mobile.  Sign-ups for insider information, mobile videos, mini-sites, Twitter and Facebook pages, product info, and game tips are a few thoughts. For some additional suggestions on what to “offer” mobile users see Pongr’s page on mobile marketing “ad-ventures” for brand image recognition.

Rule #2 – Be inclusive. Use MMS for maximum reach and supplement with smartphone experiences.

In our humble opinion, you need to be as inclusive as possible with your special, opt-in mobile offers. That means you need to acknowledge that there’s more to a successful mobile marketing campaign than just an iPhone or Android app.  Specifically, we recommend factoring MMS into your campaign plans.  It goes without saying that brands should be building, maintaining, and enhancing applications on smartphones, but to reach the masses you must do something more pervasive.

SMS is great, but it doesn’t give you the ability to be as interactive as you could.  MMS is where it’s at when it comes to getting the base of the pyramid to opt-in to your campaigns and provide unique insights about themselves.  If you want to collect user photos, encourage sharing on social networks, and build a memorable experience that takes advantage of the ubiquity of picture sharing on the Web, you need to have an MMS plan for all those feature phone users.  The best plan in the world won’t move the needle if it doesn’t have the reach.

“You’ve got to be able to run on all phones, not just smartphones.” – Alistair Goodman, Placecast

Rule #3 – Be clever & take advantage of the latest technology, but keep it simple!

The third rule of getting augmented reality into your ad campaigns is to keep it simple. OK, nothing Earth-shattering here, but as we all know, the more complicated it gets, the less likely you are to have a successful outcome.   Worse, your target users might be left feeling dumb or betrayed by your brand because you didn’t include them, or set the bar too high with something too complicated.  We’ve written a number of posts and tweeted a lot about QR codes, so we won’t rehash it all now, but fundamentally, Pongr believes a pure-play image recognition solution is better for users, creative directors, brands, and pretty much everyone.  Exceptions include enterprise use-cases like airline ticketing or monopolized wireless carrier countries, like South Korea.  Besides, if you want to look magical, why not go for the best, keep it easy, and keep it omnipresent.

Augmented reality is not new to many of us in the artificial intelligence/machine learning community and there’s been plenty of moderately nifty consumer applications out for a number of years.  However, with major brands, publishers, media companies, and consumer technology providers embracing the underlying components of augmented reality, we’re all about to see some dramatic & widely used AR and AR Lite applications in mobile marketing.

Advanced image recognition technologies and MMS advertising solutions are here now.  If we’re even close to being correct, image based search and other AR technologies will soon influence how you effectively send & receive message to customers.

If you’d like help planning or executing campaigns using augmented reality, image recognition, MMS, or mobile-to-social brand interaction, give us a call or zing us on Twitter!  Pongr provides leading-edge image recognition technology and turn-key augmented reality marketing solutions.

If you’d like to share your two cents, we definitely want to hear it!

• Mobile optimized web pages & mini sites
• Mobile analytics & reporting tools
• Direct response inputs – MMS/SMS, email, apps
• Mobile couponing & POS integration
• Direct sales & payment systems
• Strategic integration with non-mobile campaign spend
• Creative execution of the mobile call to action
• Leveraging social media with tactical mobile initiatives

While Pongr’s core scientific pursuits have been focused on product building around object recognition and related visual search technology development – we’ve happily found ourselves at the vanguard of mobile marketing on all sorts of applied use cases of our visual search, and all of the related components required to deliver an end-to-end solution for the ultimate business objective.

We’ve seen that in order to extract as much value as possible from the growing mobile opportunity, it’s important to understand the complexities of how to make it all work seamlessly for consumers.

Mobile marketing does not offer a silver bullet just yet, but when done correctly the net results can be a simple, seamless and memorable experience for the user that delivers tangible results for the marketer – a 100% opt-in experience that is viral, social and reinforces campaign messaging.  Our best advice starts with looking holistically at your goals and then thinking critically about each aspect necessary to execute a solid campaign.  More likely than not, the best overall mobile strategy is one that involves an ongoing series of well executed tactical plays.  For example, just publishing an app isn’t good enough; it needs to be baked into a greater campaign and purpose-driven approach to creating a win-win for the users, the products that are ultimately being sold, and any of the partners or stakeholders that help deliver value to the end consumer, like retailers, publishers and the loyal fans who already support the cause.

We’d be delighted to hear your thoughts on what’s worked for you in the past and what mobile marketing techniques you’d like to share with others.

What Pongr has done is taken two potentially crippling steps out of the typical user experience for mobile marketing.socialmediaexplorer.com, Pongr Brings Better Opt-In To Mobile Marketing, Aug 2009

You should read the whole article.

Brands and big media outlets can leverage tactical mobile technology infrastructure providers to achieve better results, faster and more efficiently.  If you’re looking for realistic ways to capitalize on the post-click of mobile marketing and you need scalable infrastructure to execute your campaign while leveraging all your existing media assets, drop us a line.

While our visual search system still requires more data to make it as useful as possible for people, we are pleased that the application to TV is working as well as the application to print, billboard, in-store, etc.  We have an even more robust system still under development,  which will provide additional forgiveness to less than optimal user generated images/video, and can’t wait to give that a shot (on lesser quality TVs – not that this will be an issue for most users as time marches on in HDTV world).

The matching ad of the television search shot is here: Pongr Share page.

At lunch today, a marketing executive said to me, “it used to be easy to market to people – you would show them the value points and they’d decide if they liked it enough to buy it.” The underlying theme of our conversation was around the shifts in how we, as wired (or wireless as the case may be) consumers connected to our friends, family, followers and fans, are looking for more than just a list of “features” when it comes to buying the things we do. We want relevance more than ever. We want experiences. And, we want it all connected into the multiple dimensions of our lives; online, offline, social, work, family, etc. We want it now, but not without checking in on those other worlds, all connected through the Interwebs. Online and physical are not distinct in the mind’s eye of hundreds of millions of enthusiastic mobile fans. Why not push beyond the parochial views of “traditional” media and create something better; something fresh, something fun, something valuable for consumers, brands and media purveyors alike.

So what’s the relevance to Pongr you say? Easy. Pictures and video originated from mobile are one of the new major sources of consumer and brand intelligence; intelligence for the user who’s looking for something valuable and relevant, and intelligence for the brands looking to maximize the value experience for their customer and themselves. Sharing pictures, and soon enough video, is a quick and painless way to get information about your thoughts, and possible intentions, to trusted purchasing advisers like friends or product experts.

Sharing pictures into social networks while simultaneously running Pongr’s visual search recognition system is a way to exponentially increase the value of that experience. Mobile users get to engage in a one-to-one relationship with the brand they desire, yet that 100% opt-in “search” or “connection” can easily be transformed to a one-to-many when the mobile user “shares” their mobile picture or video and any relevant Pongr provided search results, user generated tags, or comments. The “share” takes the form of a link that fits nicely within the confines of the 140 character limitations on Twitter and similar constraints for Facebook, and points to the actual user generated photo (plus the branded response if one was created by the user’s target owner).  The richness of the experience and the information sent to and from the mobile user searching for a connection with a possible purchase is unprecedented when brands, or the people responsible for their interactive marketing campaigns, customize the Pongr response.

Now back to the economics of all this mobile picture taking, sharing into social networks and Pongr’s automated visual recognition system… According to data gathered from leading consumer marketing research organizations, including the Nielson Company, the importance of socially guided influences on consumer purchasing decisions cannot be overstated.

Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International for the Nielson Company recently said, in reference to the trustedness of “social” when it comes to advertisements, “The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly.” You can find additional stats on the social phenomenon on trust in advertisements on Nielson’s advertising blog.

In today’s world of economic challenges and fundamental shifts in consumer purchasing patterns, it is absolutely critical that marketers find effective ways to leverage the mobile-to-social phenomenon that is occurring around the world. Consumers rightly demand an experience that tightly integrates all aspects of marketing.  So, to those reading this that want to actually sell anything to the new world order of consumers who will be more careful with their spending money, but in turn more “social” about what they buy and how they make their choices, you, our marketing friend, must find creative and effective ways for tying your distributed media efforts together.