Last week saw the annual Future of Digital Marketing conference in London, presented by Econsultancy. For me, a long day’s exposure to many stimulating speakers boiled down to a multifaceted take on the concept of value. How can marketing deliver value for advertisers in 2010? What value (and values) do consumers look for when they consider the options presented to them? What new behaviors made possible by digital media are attaining value? Below are a few points raised or prompted by the occasion.

Value comes in many forms these days.

At the most basic level, there is value in technology itself, including Internet access and mobile devices. These things make it easy to get information, find products and services, save time and save money. A milestone in this appreciation of technology as value, as keynote speaker Gerd Leonhard reminded us, is that from July 2010, access to broadband will be a legal right in Finland.

While some things are gaining value, others are losing it. A corollary of recent technological development, Leonhard observed, is that the intrinsic value of copies (such as songs, video and written content) has declined, turning many old business models on their heads. Now it is often the context of information or creativity that makes it valuable, and those who can create a compelling context will attract audiences.

One of the greatest sources of contextual value is online community. Facebook is the headline example—demonstrating that not only the site itself but advertisers who use it well can reap big rewards. But there are countless examples of smaller communities creating value through shared interests.

One speaker, Rowan Gormley of Naked Wines, has built his business on a blindingly simple win-win premise: Wine lovers get together to support independent winemakers with a proven pedigree, and commit to buying specific wines before they are made. Because the winemakers effectively pre-sell those wines, they don’t need to market them, and many upfront costs are also met. For their part, buyers save an average 33%—often more—on the wines themselves. The earlier they commit to buy, the lower the price.

Of the 80,000 members of Naked Wines, 20,000 also spend £20 per month to support winemakers who need modest investment to launch a new wine or begin a new project—perhaps buying an additional parcel of land to cultivate. In 2009, Gormley noted, Naked Wines was the largest single investor in new wine ventures in the world. Beyond this, the company works to harness the full value of users’ comments and to provide good customer service.

It’s not difficult to see the concrete value in Gormley’s business: for winemakers, for wine drinkers, and for Gormley himself, who clearly loves his job. Tom Savigar of the Future Lab discussed value in a broader sense. Savigar aimed to look “beyond retail” in his keynote speech, and ask questions that are fundamental in the multichannel age: “Why do I go to a store? Why do I go to a Website?” What are the differences, and how are these categories blurring as we all learn to shop in different ways?  More importantly, how are retailers recognizing the value they provide, and using that knowledge to rethink their businesses?

Angela Maurer, senior marketing manager at Tesco.com, lifted the lid on the grocery giant’s API strategy to reveal another win-win situation. First, Tesco managers spent some hours together brainstorming ideas for online and mobile applications, and drew up a list of priorities in various areas. These were written on Post-It notes and stuck to the walls of their very large meeting room. That same evening, the firm threw open the doors to interested programmers recruited online.

Browsing among the posted ideas, programmers could choose the projects they wanted to tackle. Tesco managed the assignment process, and gave programmers all the information they needed about the store’s API and related infrastructure. Result: Tesco is taking advantage of some of the best brains in the field, programmers get payment and credit, and the customer gets better service. Moreover, said Ms. Maurer, the entire process of brainstorming, commissioning and delivery took a tiny fraction of the months that older processes would have required.

Marks & Spencer is also squeezing extra value from existing assets—in this case, its branded video content—according to Chris Gorell Barnes. Barnes is CEO of Adjust Your Set, which helped the retailer launch M&STV. The site is now populated with more than 1,000 pieces of intelligent content, and has generated over 4 million minutes of views.

Much of the content is also syndicated for broadcast on video sharing sites, social networks and other content and media portals. Crucially, these videos incorporate a click-to-buy facility, taking viewers straight to M&S for purchase. So far, data shows customers who viewed M&STV spending 23% more. And, said Gorell Barnes, video delivers value in other ways. His firm has seen e-mail response rates rise by up to 300% when outgoing messages contain video elements.

Inevitably, Facebook plays a growing role in any assessment of value on the Web. Beyond its importance to users and product advertisers, however, is its growing value as a broadcaster. As Gerd Leonhard noted, even content from major media owners is increasingly seen within this social environment, as a currency shared between friends or given new meanings by Facebook groups. Content owners are just beginning to think about how this may raise or lower the value of what they produce, and how their business models need to alter in response.

The emerging mobile arena was another key topic of the day. Douglas Orr of price comparison engine Sccope discussed the rapidly growing market for mobile commerce. His firm is the global m-commerce partner for BlackBerry, which aims to launch mobile buying facilities from this August. Orr and other speakers on mobile were joined on a panel by Jo Vertigan, Head of Digital at England 2018 (promoting England’s bid to host the FIFA World Cup eight years from now) and Patrick Mork, CMO of GetJar, a site offering “appsolutely everything” in the way of applications for mobile handsets.

M-commerce promises greater convenience for buyers and a new revenue stream for sellers. But what other values attach to mobile? Are apps better value for advertisers and consumers than mobile Websites? Advertisers often opt for a site strategy, which removes the need to cater for different handsets. But will the mobile Web win out in the long run?  

Mork, not surprisingly, favored apps over sites. Apps offered deeper brand engagement, he said; users experienced no network delays, and payment was (at the moment) easier and more secure from within an app. But he acknowledged that advertisers interested in reach probably find better value in building mobile sites.

A final insight agreed by all the FODM speakers: The pace of change in the industry, though frightening, is also inherently valuable, keeping marketers on their toes and sparking innovation.

In a push to promote its E-Class vehicle, Mercedes-Benz USA has made a few interesting forays into mobile marketing to help deepen engagement, loyalty and purchase consideration. Along with a sponsorship on AutoTrader’s mobile site, Mercedes also began running rich media ads on Motor Trend’s new iPhone app.

I recently chatted with Beth Lange, a digital media specialist at the Mercedes, about the company’s objectives in sponsoring the apps and its mobile marketing goals. Here’s a snippet from the full interview, which is available on eMarketer Total Access. (Read more…)

We’ve covered several mobile efforts from brands and agencies over the past few months. Here’s a collection of the interviews and case studies we’ve conducted on mobile app development, cross-channel strategies and general best practices for mobile marketing. (Read more…)

Give beleaguered General Motors a few points. Its all-American Chevy brand had a major presence at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. In March, the 2011 Chevy Volt electric car and Chevy Cruze sedan were front and center at the Austin, Texas–based confab of cool as the brand tapped mobile media to bond with the tech-savvy, early-adopter attendees. SXSW took place March 11 to 20, its interactive track March 12 to 15.

Challenge: As a super sponsor of SXSW, Chevy used the event as a showcase for the Volt and the Cruze and test bed for mobile marketing. That neither vehicle was available presented a challenge for Chevy. “We recognized that to be effective with a digital, social media audience you can’t just go in and put a logo all over something. That’s not engaging and it wasn’t an automotive event,” said Christopher Barger, General Motors’ director of global social media, in an interview with eMarketer May 20.

Chevy wanted to build awareness among attendees for both the vehicles before the major marketing pushes began, but it didn’t necessarily see SXSW a near-term lead-generating opportunity. It decided to offer experiences that would inspire attendees to associate the brand with cutting-edge cool. (Read more…)

With change the new constant in mobile marketing today, basic tenets often get lost in the shuffle. The key is finding examples of brands that get it right.

In my May 2010 report, “Mobile Banking: Financial Services Firms Look to Cash In” (available on eMarketer Total Access), I cited Wells Fargo for its best practices, namely, offering its customers full mobile banking access on all three primary channels (Web, apps and SMS), even for those who have not signed up for online banking.

For my next report, on automotive mobile marketing, I spoke with Sharon Knitter, senior director of consumer products at Cars.com, where she has led the company’s mobile initiatives, from launching a mobile-optimized site in 2007 to the iPhone app that reached the App Store in February of this year. Ms. Knitter is also the co-chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mobile Advertising Committee, so she is an ideal position to preach what she practices.

In our interview, Ms. Knitter demonstrated some of the key ways Cars.com gets it right. One is tailoring content to the mobile environment and ensuring it serves the needs of the company’s end users. Here’s an interesting insight that appeared in our newsletter last week (the full interview with Ms. Knitter is available on eMarketer Total Access):

eMarketer: Can you give an example of some type of content that is on the full desktop Website but not on the mobile site or vice versa?

Knitter: On the Website we’ll do very, very lengthy reviews about all the specs and type of information about a new vehicle. An automobile is still a pretty considered purchase, and we don’t believe that people will do all of their research in a mobile environment today, on a phone especially. So we might not include the very long reviews, but we might include a truncated review for someone to be able to get essential information.

We know from our research that about 40% of the folks who use the mobile Website are actually on a dealer’s lot. And what are the types of things they want in that situation? They want to be able to search listings for other cars, they probably want a dealer locator, they might want to know how much their car is worth as a trade-in, so it’s very tools- and functionality-based with some reviews of at a higher level.

Automotive brands have different incentives for entering the mobile market than those in the retail and tech industries, but mobile advertising, at the very least, has been shown to be somewhat effective for automakers. According to the 11th installment of InsightExpress’ Digital Consumer Portrait, which I mentioned in a previous post,  the auto industry ranked second behind consumer packaged goods brands in effectively driving brand favorability with mobile ad campaigns.

As I conclude in my latest iMedia column, which draws on my conversation with Ms. Knitter, “change might be the new constant where devices and the mobile landscape are concerned, but the elements that make for successful marketing and customer outreach remain in force.” Cars.com is a case study in finding this delicate balance.