A recent article in Mobile Marketing Watch discussed survey by Knowledge Networks, a research firm, revealing that 86% of iPad users would watch ads for free TV programming or quality magazine content. When I discuss mobile magazines with mobile or advertising industry professionals, they generally aren’t impressed with digital magazine experiences. That made me think about how mobile design could improve the advertising experience innovating iPad magazine ads and content.

How many times have you seen a magazine on an iPad and felt the publisher did little more than produce a slideshow with simple navigation? In many cases the mobile ads, as well as the publication’s content, looks like PDF copies of the print version. I think publishers are on the right track in modeling layout of a digital magazine based on its print counterpart. But improvement is needed.

Blend Magazine Layout Design with Website Functionality

The mobile user interface design of an iPad could take a lot of inspiration from layout but the familiarity should stop there. Once you get to the actual features or experience, I recommend looking at what’s working best in your website instead of your print publications. How about taking the best interactive features of your site and making it easier to use? Improve the mobile user experience. Create a friendlier user interface ensuring the magazine is easy to consume.

Including social media features would also improve user experience. Let viewers share articles, excerpts and photos on social networks. Create engagement and conversation with user comments.

Mobile Advertising in Digital Magazines

One of the reasons for low click-through rates online is due to dull advertising. What about taking best of breed online ads like integrating homescreen takeovers and trying them in digital magazines? What if publishers and advertisers produced better interactive ad units using IAB standards? How about serving intelligent ads based on former ads the user has engaged with in your publication?

Recently, the Wall Street Journal’s iPad app introduced an inline video on the front page and sprinkled elsewhere throughout the publication. CNN now has a gorgeous, very attractive layout with scrolling horizontal article teasers (photos and text) and vertical rich mobile ad design columns on the home page. It’s like a kaleidoscope of international, national, entertainment, technical and other news that keeps readers’ eyes glued to each page. Mobile ads are designed carefully blended with news content.

Experiment with Virtual Currency and Mobile Advertising

Creative advertisers and brands could even experiment with virtual currencies to reward readers for watching ads and sharing information. They could give points for “unlocking” and viewing ads, for example, while varying the number of earned points. By employing game mechanics you create deeper engagement that encourages readers to earn more points for additional magazine content.

As a result, advertiser and publisher creativity would improve, exposing readers to superior innovative media.

A new post from MediaPost reports that nearly four in ten mobile users find mobile branded apps from their favorite brands disappointing. How can a mobile marketing and advertising app create user experiences and functionality to engage their customers? Web strategy doesn’t transfer to mobile. Brands need to expand beyond awareness and education and focus on the mobile user experience design when creating mobile branded apps.

The study also showed that 70% using mobile branded apps agreed that an app that isn’t useful or easy to use contributes to a negative perception about a brand. Brands today can’t ignore critical elements of the mobile user interface design and mobile user experience design when creating an app.

Close to three-quarters (73%) of users believe a mobile advertising app or a mobile marketing app should be easier to use than the company Web site. How many times have you felt confused when using a branded app?

Remember in the late 90s when the early web was evolving commercially? A visually unappealing website, frustrating to navigate with clunky functionality clearly conveyed “Wow. That company doesn’t get it.”

This is EXACTLY what brands portray - even to fans - when they execute a branded mobile app poorly.

A branded app is not just a checkbox on a list. Mobile branded apps for marketing and advertising have a valuable function and can sway consumer perception with the press of a button. Here are some factors to consider when executing a branded app:

• Is your branded app integrated well with your marketing campaigns across multiple platforms?
• Does your mobile user interface not only conform to device specific UI guidelines but exceed them? Good enough doesn’t cut it.
• Are you effectively communicating your message through utility or entertainment? The medium is NOT the message. The message is the message.
• Are you providing ongoing fresh content to drive repeat visits and encourage social media sharing?

Pad Gadget had a post about the just released NBC Universal iPad app. Bravo Now is designed to be a companion to live television viewing. Bravo Now delivers a tight mobile user experience integrated into Bravo’s chat network “Talk Bubble” that connects viewers with the behind the scenes creators and stars of its shows.

Interactive and social television is usually delivered ALONG with a broadcast stream. However, a companion app to a show is a great idea that brings Social Television over and above traditional programming and viewing. The use of a mobile device makes deployment easier and quicker than tv devices. It can also deliver great mobile user experiences that are optimized for mobile devices.

The Superbowl might be the only televised event these days that brings people together at the same time, in the same room to experience a televised event simultaneously. With the evolution of DVRs, Hulu, YouTube and other online streaming sites, shared television watching has been deeply fragmented. Social TV brings together programming, communication and social interaction to perfectly promote next-day water cooler talk. This is vital not only for word-of-mouth promotion but important for advertisers and sponsors.

I had a few ideas about how to expand and improve the mobile user experience on a tv network application:

• Sell season passes to a show
• Sell monthly subscriptions to the network as a whole
• Offer discounts for DVD purchases if you’ve purchased earlier shows
• Offer viewers a limited amount of recent episodes for free but charge for older episodes
• Offer discounts for additional merchandise (such as associated games)
• Offer free content (like daily trivia or wallpapers) that a user can distribute virally

Benefits include:

• Harvesting valuable viewer demographics by offering free programming in exchange for answering profile questions
• The ability to promote other shows on network at same time
• Create deeper immersion with characters and network experience with the ability to look up information on your favorite actors or their characters.

Look for other networks to quickly enter the live TV app market.

InteractiveTV today had a post about an outdoor advertising campaign that uses shoppers own faces for a gigantic DVD promotion. It’s a high exposure campaign showcasing unique user experience design. And it’s a perfect fit for mobile.

Inwindow Outdoor, a company that does digital storefront and mall advertising, launched the interactive augmented reality display at Los Angeles’ The Grove, to promote the Blu-ray release of “Avatar.” The display is a free-standing structure of multiple digital screens. Using technology developed exclusively for this project, shoppers faces are morphed into the wide-eyed blue creatures from the film. Once the morph is complete, users can enter their email address via touch screen, in order to be sent a video of their transformation, along with information on where to purchase the Blu-ray disc of the movie.

Down the road, this will be able to happen via a mobile. Imagine getting a message from a friend with their facial expression (or their kids or boss or pets) mapped to a branded character. This is a great way to build a buzz for any animated or costumed character-driven film – think Iron Man or Shrek. Send it to yourself, friends and family and some transformations are sure to go viral when they hit the social networks.

The display was introduced last Friday and set to run for a month – if you’re in L.A., check it out.

Fast Company reported on a new promotion that might be a glimpse into the mobile design of smartphone commerce in the future – advertising that combines virtual goods and LBS to tap into on-the-spot purchases and promotions.

Location-based game start-up Booyah is introducing in-game, virtual goods placements, based on your real-time location. The Mobile User Experience Design will lead consumers right to the cash register of a “real” store selling real goods for very real cash.

The campaign stems from Booyah’s partnership with international clothing retailer H&M but this could apply to ANY consumer campaign – from liquor to cars to network television. This particular promotion pings mobile users near an H&M location on a piece of clothing or accessory that appears in Booyah’s MyTown location-based social game. Discounts and promotions reward the Booyah user that visits the actual store location.

Here are some ideas I have for additional location based campaigns. Again, any consumer campaign could benefit.

Users could be rewarded with free virtual goods if they spend a certain amount of time inside a retail location. The goods should have a high value perception and be unique to that store. If the user wore or showed off or used a virtual item in a social network, they could get real world discounts on that product line.

The biggest fans of a company – the ever valuable influencers – could receive limited edition virtual that are exclusive or awarded before general public release.

Feedback about the unique product could be analyzed and the most popular ones could turn into physical products.

Another way to engage users (and potentially spark a viral campaign) would be to give the consumers tools to design the next generation of virtual product ala crowdsourcing. Implement a voting aspect and social network exposure to build buzz. Winners could get a high value prize and their creations could turn into physical goods. Imagine a fashion oriented tween designing virtual fashion items and being rewarded for it.

Unique mobile user experiences and advertising seem to be made for each other – mobile is also a great bridge between the physical and the virtual. I’ll be watching the H&M campaign with interest.

A FastCompany post announced that HarperCollins has launched www.inkpop.com –an “interactive writing platform for teens.” Inkpop allows members to post books, short stories, essays, and poetry for review and critique by the community.

The website copy claims that inkpop.com will connect “rising stars in teen lit with talent-spotting readers and publishing professionals.” And that “members play a critical role in deciding who will land a publishing contract with HarperCollins.”

Pretty brilliant on the part of HarperCollins – they enlist the help of a narrowly targeted community to vet aspiring writers. My guess is that a teen who totally into literature these days might feel slightly isolated. So I’m happy to see a social networking site bringing kids together that promotes reading and writing.

This is perfect for mobile. Teens today can’t imagine a world without their mobile device and if this catches on, mobile apps to enhance the site will probably happen quickly.

HarperCollins is also benefiting from the ability to grab key demographics and has a perfect forum for targetted advertising. If the inkpop model catches on, I image it will move beyond a teen-only site. After all, it’s just teens that are reading a certain off-the-charts popular vampire series, right? And those books weren’t written by a teen but by a stay-at-home mother of three.

It will be interesting to see how other companies create interactive forums and social networks that enable their future suppliers as well as consumers.

An InteractiveTV Today post revealed that Verizon may have bigger plans for it’s recently launched Widget Bazaar applications marketplace than originally announced. Verizon’s software development kit is set to launch soon opening up a host of possibilities for creative mobile design outside of the television experience. A quote from Verizon’s Widget Bazaar press release states that the company is looking for tools to engage TV viewers and enhance the living room experience in new ways.  

Verizon opening up its television widgets is a good thing as consumers will get more options and will be more of a hot content ecosystem. More  choices = more revenue. It’s a win-win for developers and consumers. 

I’d really like to see Verizon promote more convergence between mobile and television. For example, a TV widget could come bundled with a discount on an equivalent or similar app for mobile. Perhaps there could be a variety of features exclusive to the device. In other words, the mobile device can do certain things while the TV has a different host of features. 

The widgets could eventually be tied into a particular network or a specific TV show.  When viewers are watching a favorite show, they could connect with other fans to chat, interact and purchase merchandise from the show. (An additional income stream for the networks outside of advertising)  

I’d like to see more companies embracing mobile design and convergence across numerous platforms to shape the future of entertainment and communication.

Textually.org noted an unusual campaign for the Google Android-powered Vodafone HTC mobile phone.  Users upload what they “wish” their handset could do to a website where the wishes are ranked. The brand says it will work to make one of those wishes come true. The Wish Factory campaign went live in June and early results have shown an average of 1,500 campaign site visitors per day. This is a clever way to get lots of input for mobile design.

Of course, getting valuable marketing information is one of the immediate benefits of this campaign. I think a reward system would make a visit to the website even more attractive – perhaps the end users who submit the most popular ideas could be rewarded with additional services, free devices or some type of monetary payment. 

It would be interesting to apply this concept to improvements for major handset apps or services. Users could submit ideas for the apps on their device about improving usability, features, or mobile user interfaces. Again, the reward system would be an incentive to participate. Power users or top contributors could be rewarded with special access to beta programs to get the features first. 

As devices advance, marketers could take this a step further by allowing users to access collaborative technologies to custom design their own features. For example, someone with a good idea could do collaborative whiteboarding – multiple users tapping into a virtual space together – to share skills to improve a device. This could be anything from sketching wireframes or creating a full mockup. 

I’m looking forward to more user input campaigns and the creative rewards companies will offer to get creative feedback.

Fierce Mobile Content had a post on Universal Studios Home Entertainment adding a ton of iPhone and iPod touch enabled features on upcoming Blu-ray releases, the first is Fast & Furious. One of the bonus features is a “Virtual Car Garage” where users can control 360-degree views of street-racing scenes. Integration with Twitter and Facebook is coming as well.

The feature I really like is letting users use their mobile devices as a “virtual remote” to control Blu-ray disc features. This allows you to design any mobile user experience as opposed to being restricted to hardware buttons. Interactivity can be more finite and each screen/device can have its own unique features and experience.

Unique experiences are key for attracting die hard fans of a film. They love the opportunity and ability to be creative with beloved characters (or cars or aliens, etc) and storylines. From a profit standpoint, this is a great opportunity to make money on a popular and costly release long after the domestic and foreign box office premiere. A few upsell examples for these high profile titles might be the ability to buy a video game, ring tones, soundtracks, etc. from your mobile device or console.

Viral promotions from within the title itself could infuse a “must buy” element for hard core fans of the movie. Imagine the user being able to customize a Fast & Furious car as an animated MMS or video with text overlay. They could then send it to a fellow fan and invite them to join you on the Blu-Ray experience. Additionally, if you send the content to a friend without the Blu-Ray release, they are given an ability for an easy one-click purchase from their mobile device. 

Integration with social networking apps works really well to promote the title also. Users can update their network while they’re in the middle of an experience without a break to go to another device. 

This is an excellent example of convergence. I like how the exclusive content will encourage users to choose specific mobile devices to access Blu-ray titles. And users will want to buy specific Blu-Ray titles with the exclusive content to access features on their mobile device.

How can virtual goods turn into cash? Check out this recent article from Fast Company that gives a detailed list of how corporations are turning healthy profit with virtual products. $200 million in virtual goods were purchased in the U.S. last year. Tencent, China’s largest internet portal, made over $1,000,000,000.00 last year. 88% of that billion was from virtual goods.

This made me think of ways, other than direct-to-consumer sales, that individuals and corporations can reap financial rewards. 

Interesting when more companies provide a virtual environment and virtual tools as well as a marketplace to sell stuff for financial rewards. Creative users could “co-creating” a product with an established brand or celebrity. Both could profit from the sale. 

For example, focus groups and consumer testing are invaluable for new product development. Instead of costly prototypes and time consuming market research, corporations can roll out brands in a virtual environment like Second Life. If there is anything true about today’s online user, they love to give feedback that can yield precious information from specific target audiences. A great response to new packaging or a concept could even help attract investors while a tepid reaction could save millions by scrapping a dud project early. 

When I think of the young and computer savvy, I can see how virtual experiences can have a direct impact on their future earning power. For example, imagine a fashion crazy teen designing virtual clothes and having online fashion shows for her high school friends. When she applies for design school, she’ll be way ahead of the game and already on her way with experience that includes material choices, budgeting, production and target audience awareness. 

Could the next media mogul use mobile technology and virtual goods to make their millions?