The DMEXCO way of matchmaking
Dr. Dominik Matyka, Chief Advisor DMEXCO
The statistics on use of mobile are regularly published, as is the astounding figure that
mobile users spend between 80 and 90% of their time on mobiles in Apps. The figure varies depending on whether it comes from the Comscore or Flurry reports and interestingly, does not vary much across geographical region. UK App usage may be 1-2% higher than in Germany but there isn’t any big variation across the world. App usage is also increasing by 6% per year according to the Flurry 2018 App usage report.
The numbers are slightly inconsistent but the trends towards more mobile usage and more time spent in Apps is clear. There is no place that is more ‘mobile first’ than a business community at a trade fair or a conference. Dragging a desktop laptop around for days spent in hotels, walking around vast expanses of trade halls, meeting hundreds of people is a waste of human energy when there is the option of a mobile phone in your pocket. It won’t be long before Generation Z, the first generation of ‘mobile natives’ also comes into the marketplace. Real life is moving to mobile but what does that mean for mobile marketing?
App-as-a-service or In-App Advertising
Apps can be closed systems and some are open to In-App advertising such as Tinder or Spotify but other premium apps like Uber, are tight silos. These app ecosystems may be seen as potential gold mines for advertisers but as the age of one-to-many broadcast advertising model dwindles, this may not necessarily be the way mobile marketing evolves. Advertising is evolving in the digital age into less of a broadcasting and more of a matchmaking process. App creators and marketeers wishing to reach an in-app audience may have to move from traditional advertising to providing service and access benefits that enable collaboration in a many-to-many model of users and involve co-creation. The app marketing for Wireless Festival, a large music festival in London and Frankfurt, is an example of how ‘access benefits’ to the fans and service have been maximized using a great mix of new technology and marketing. All news on the fully sold out event is delivered on the app and fans can find out if their favourite rapper is out of jail in Sweden and will make it to the stage. In cooperation with Melody VR, Wireless has been able to extend the fan base in the App to a global audience as those who didn’t get a ticket get to see the coverage of the event and virtually step into a backstage area, a specially created VR space where they can ‘hang out’ with some of the biggest names in the festival.
DMEXCO Conference brings together key players in digital business, marketing and innovation for two days and the DMEXCO App to be launched this year will connect the community all year. Its vision goes even further, offer the DMEXCO App to other organizers, in an ‘app-as-a-service’ model. During the conference, full service is provided for the users in the form of personalised agenda and exhibition schedule, access to tickets, a QR scanning code that facilitates lead generation from the booths at the event and live networking as visitors can use their mobile phones to scan each other’s badges. Like the Wireless Festival app, ‘access benefits’ include news and content delivered through the app. It also has a function in which visitors can set up their profiles and peer to peer communication is encouraged. The app aims to be as close to real life and social media networking as possible.
T.O.T.E. Test. Operate. Test. Exit
With App development and marketing, it is important not to forget to keep experimenting. To help you remember, think of the acronym T.O.T.E. – test it, operate it, test it again and exit if it is not working or exit the test phase if it is successful. Think of app marketing as a marathon not a sprint, a marathon running in constant perpetual Beta.
With almost 4 million apps in the Apple App Store and in Google play and a Statistica forecast for 188.9 billion dollars in app-generated revenue by 2020, apps are a significant part of mobile marketing. As In-app and cross app communication technology improves, it will become an even more exciting marketing place. Apps have moved beyond gaming, social media and messaging and are coming into the mainstream. Apps, as a form of mobile marketing for a company or event, are an increasingly important component of omni-channel strategies where the traditional marketing thinking of understanding your customer is just as important at every touchpoint. In today’s data era, collecting user and interest data at every touchpoint is becoming easier, as is following the customer buying profile. An app is one channel, an important channel in which it will be possible to facilitate the real life matchmaking at, for example, a single event and that matchmaking and communication can be continued outside of the live event in the world of a good app over 365 days of the year.
Dr. Dominik Matyka, Chief Advisor DMEXCO
Dr. Dominik Matyka has been Chief Advisor of DMEXCO since January 2018 and is responsible in this capacity, among other things, for DMEXCO Strategy. He holds a doctorate in economics and is a passionate entrepreneur, successful founder and internationally connected venture capitalist. Matyka founded the data-driven native advertising platform plista, which operates in more than 20 countries. He served as CEO of plista until 2015. The company was acquired by WPP in 2013. Dominik has also been involved in the formation of several start-ups and is now an angel investor and advisor through u25 ventures as well as founder and partner of the institutional venture capital firm Cavalry Ventures. His main expertise is Publishing-, AdTech and MarketingTech. He further has substantive knowledge in Property-, HR- and MedTec.
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