Two observations stood out from Ross Sleight’s presentation at FIPP World Congress recently. The average user spends 2hrs 25mins on their smartphone each day and 56% of millennials believe they are using their smartphones too much. People know they’re addicted and are trying to do something about it.
Now that’s not a reason to retreat from mobile because mobile is pretty much 90% of everything that’s digital. We just need to do it better.
Ross had some advice for the assembled publishers: 1. Be mindful of the fact that most users are trying to moderate their usage, so don’t overload them just for the sake of it. 2. Be easier to use. Most pages take way too long to load and time-pressed users will have given up on you before your page has even loaded. Speed is crucial. 3. It’s not all about apps. Most people only use a handful of apps and two of those are Facebook and YouTube. Voice is becoming a real opportunity and clever publishers are developing their audio strategies. There are also new opportunities for engagement with calendars and maps. 4. Be relevant! Ross reminded us of Clay Shirky’s 2009 observation that the problem with the internet was not “information overload” but “filter failure”. We need to make our content relevant, using data about context, known behaviour and location, to customise our offering. 5. … and finally … Be WOW! Consumer like to have their socks blown off, they love to be first and to have new experiences. Ordinary doesn’t cut it.
The challenge, concluded Ross, is ‘legacy’ – legacy tech, processes and culture. We struggle to act quickly enough. To my mind, culture is key: we need to speed up our thinking and execution. Simple.
