NRF divisions Shop.org and the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA) joined forces to stage the inaugural Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference, held March 2-4 in San Francisco. The agenda for the sold-out conference was specifically designed to address the issues most critical to digital retail and marketing and advertising professionals.
In a session titled “The Mobile Revolution,” shopkick co-founder Cyriac Roeding told a capacity audience how cell phones are poised to become a major factor in the U.S. retail arena — not so much as a sales channel, but as a marketing medium. Roeding’s company developed the CauseWorld cell phone application that allows users to earn credits for visiting retailers and donate them to various charities/causes.
By the end of this year, the number of cell phone users – five billion worldwide, according to a U.N. estimate – will have increased more than 500 percent since 2001. In the United States, cell phone penetration is roughly 90 percent, Roeding said, and the technology is undergoing a sea change. At the core of this change is 3G architecture — soon to be succeeded by 4G, which will feature connection speeds akin to those of broadband.
A recent poll of U.S. cell phone users reveals that, overall, 13 percent use them to browse the Internet – but 85 percent of iPhone users do so. Search the web for a brand or product? Six percent overall, 59 percent for the iPhone. The gaps are similar for social networking (4 percent vs. 50 percent) and music downloads (7 percent vs. 74 percent).
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