“Howard and I signing the deal last evening. #Onward” — @jack
Historic day. Mobile payment just got a major caffeine injection with an extra shot: Jack Dorsey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sign milestone deal. The Seattle-based coffee giant will invest $25 million in Square as part of the company’s Series D financing round, which values Dorsey’s mobile payment company at $3.75 billion. Beginning this fall, approx. 7,000 US-Starbucks stores will ‘get Squared’, paving the road to a mainstream roll-out of the leading mobile payment solution.
“As the largest retail mobile payment platform in the U.S., we’re excited and proud to accept payments with Square,” said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman, president and ceo. “The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business. Both Starbucks and Square take a similar approach when building products and running our businesses, and together we can bring the best possible payment experience to Starbucks customers.”
Jack Dorsey on the deal:
We’re proud that Starbucks chose Square, as we share the value of always putting customers first.” - “More than 2 million individuals and businesses can already use Square. This partnership will accelerate our ability to provide them with the tools they need to grow their business and thrive in today’s economy.”
Jack Dorsey is a confessed lover of authentic coffee craft. He part-owns Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco, one of the ‘real deal’ coffee culture places and the first shop to accept Square. Wonder where he will be getting his latte now. In any case, big day and big deal to bring mobile payment to the masses.
Source: twitter.com
“ 50% of our 5.5 million members joined from social sharing. 20% of our daily traffic comes from social. Our live feed is one of the most popular features on Fab and one of the biggest conversion drivers from visit to purchase. 30% to 40% of Fab’s daily visits come from our mobile apps on iPhone, iPad, and Android.
WILL BANKSY BE ERASED?
The location still has to be revealed, but Banksy has made his Olympic mark. The secretive artist has stirred up discussion worldwide about the removal of graffiti work in London and is daring Olympics city authorities threatening to erase street art.
Banksy’s two new stencil pieces - a missile image and a pole-vaulter - appeared on his website after graffiti artist Darren Cullen was arrested last week, despite working with official Olympic sponsor adidas.
Banksy is known for clashes with government officials who label graffiti as vandalism. Diane Shakespeare from Keep Britain Tidy, was once quoted as saying: “We are concerned that Banksy’s street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism.” In 2009 Hackney council officials painted over a Banksy cartoon of the royal family waving from a balcony, after it had been left untouched on a house in Stoke Newington for eight years. East London has become an international mecca for street art, and graffity works are an essential part of its rough-around-the-edges culture.
Banksy (born 1973-1975, depending on varying reports about his identity) was part of the Bristol underground scene with Nick Walker, Inkie and 3D of Massive Attack. The list of his most expensive artwork is led by “Keep it Spotless”, a defaced Hirst made in 2007 and sold during a Sotheby’s Charity auction in New York in December 2008 for a record price of $1.87 million. A very tidy sum.
Source: banksy.co.uk
//MOBILE FUELLED CANNES — Nike+ takes home Titanium Lion, Hilltop Re-Imagined for Coca Cola tops Mobile Category//
It’s Cannes Lions time on the Roaring Rivera - and Nike’s mobile ‘+’ concept continues its victory run with Nike FuelBand — scoring both, the prestigious Titanium Lion (for most innovative projects) and the Cyber Lion (shared with Curators of Sweden).
Coca Cola scooped the Mobile Grand Prix with a digital reinterpretation of Coke’s iconic ‘Hilltop’ commercial from 1971. Featuring the same song “I want to buy the world a Coke”, the 2012 mobile ad version enables viewers to actually buy a Coke for someone in a city of their choice. The ad was created as part of Google’s Project Re:Brief in which 4 classic ads where re-imagined with a digital twist for the modern day. We recently attended the premier of the Re:Brief Documentary in New York after AdAge Digital and interviewed Google’s Aman Govil and Emmy-winning director Doug Pray.
//INSIDE THE NIKE+ FUELBAND — “You can’t improve what you can’t measure” //
The Nike+ FuelBand is all the rage. “The entire insight behind the Nike FuelBand is Motivation,” explains Stefan Olander, Nike’s VP Digital Sport, the core of the data driven product that easily synchs with mobile devices and an associated web platform to keep you on track. “People want to be motivated. We wanna make it very easy to stay motivated and more active.”
Many brands are trying to extend their product portfolio into mobile to become engrained into their customers real-time life on the go. Automotive brands like BMW and Audi are moving into mobile navigation and in-car entertainment, Coca Cola has been heavily engaged in mobile music, Puma partnered with Sagem to release the Puma Phone – most of these highly motivated attempts didn’t measure up with commercial success, yet.
Nike is different. With its Nike+ suite of mobile accessories and apps, the sports giant has launched a consistent portfolio of data driven performance devices that are brilliantly simple yet sophisticated.
Life Is a Sport. #MAKEITCOUNT
“ Running a successful start-up is no walk in the park. You may have a hockey-stick looking growth chart, but there’s always chaos in the middle of it.
//LAYAR TAKES ON PRINT// — The Amsterdam-based Layar team around Raimo van der Klein has always been on the forefront of the AR movement. Infact, I just came across our campaign for the MTV Europe Music Awards when we first augmented unlike.net in 2009 with Layar.
However, fast forward 3 years and AR hasn’t really grown beyond the gadget hype yet, although the technology itself offers some valuable use cases - from architecture to LEGO previews and IKEA augmenting its entire catalogue. Now, Layar is taking an interesting turn into print by offering a self-service web tool for print publishers to augment their publications - including Creation, Publishing and Tracking Features.
Some print AR campaigns like the Robert Downey x Esquirer version have been nice - but more on the publicity-stunt-side. What is smart about Layar’s new offering is that it takes a bigger step to become a real platform-play and empower traditionally old-school print organizations to easily create, publish and track the campaign best suited for them. The data tracking is particularity smart as it allows publishers to tune their campaigns as they experiment.
So, what is the pricing model? There is no usage fee for publishers but a price of 15 euros per published page, although there are free ad-supported options. As part of the launch campaign, Layar Creator will be completely free to use until August 1st. More details here.
Surely, print is not the last destination for Layar’s new publishing and tracking tool but rather a stepping stone. As mobile adoption increases and people get more used to the fact that their mobile is a navigation device to explore the real life around them, we can expect more things to be put into AR perspective — or as Raimo van der Klein says: ‘Next step is the World.’ Good luck, team Layar.
//AdAge Digital NYC// — One core themes at AdAge - and reflecting a current trend in the industry - was the increasingly closer collaboration between brands and startups. We sit down with Lucas Herscovici, Global Director Strategic Innovation and Marketing at Anheuser-Busch InBev, to talk about the company’s strategy, process and selection criteria for investments in startups. Anheuser-Busch also sponsored the Brandhack with a brief for Budweiser, which saw 6 companies battle it out for a partnership deal worth $25k . Social-planning app Wendr emerged as the winner with a more than passionate and convincing presentation by CEO Sam Zises. Even notoriously sceptic judge Ben Leerer ended up wearing a Wendr hat on stage.
// ad:tech SFO // - We speak with HasOffer’s Partner/CMO Peter Hamilton about the latest trends in Affiliate Marketing and how the Seattle-based company has developed into one of the major players in that field. HasOffers’ disruptive tracking technology allows businesses to track and manage their own affiliate programs and has gained an incredible adoption over 7,000 affiliate networks. One of our favourite stage session was the closing music panel “Digital Killed the Radio Star” diving into “How Pandora, Spotify, Turntable.fm & TastemakerX are Shaping the Future of Advertising” - with respective executives from all companies on stage.
IT’S A WRAP FOR SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD FORUM EUROPE 2012
The 2 day event boosted a full calendar of sessions with high calibre speakers, demonstrating just how much ‘social’ has been baked into the fabric of every major marketing, media, commerce and b2b efforts. As Nokia’s Mark Squires (aka@DrPinball) aptly stated regarding the necessary commitment: “Social Media is like being pregnant. You can’t be a bit pregnant”.
Interviews with MTV, LEGO, Shazam, Tumblr and Echo Labs coming up.
SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD FORUM HITS LONDON FROM MARCH 27-28
Next week, London’s Olympia Conference Centre will turn into one big Social Media Arena for the annual Social Media World Forum Europe (SMWF). This year’s jam-packed conference agenda, featuring tracks on Social Media, Social TV, Mobile Marketing, Social Business and Marketing Tech, is only another testament how much ‘social’ has grown up to become part of the fabric of all major media and marketing efforts.
A mix of speakers from popular social platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and LinkedIn will join the stage together with agency, brand and media executives from Ford, Unilever, Lego, EMI, Channel 4, MTV and CNN (to only name a few – check the full list of speakers here). Besides conference and workshop tracks, there is a free to attend marketing tech track and exhibit. You can still register for the event here. Follow SMWF on Twitter / Facebook.
“DARE TO ASK” AT LONDON WEB SUMMIT — Behind the mic and on stage: Foursquare, Earlybird, Kraft Foods, Fab.com, Soundtracking and Uber.
“CONNECTING THE ARTIST DIRECTLY TO THE FAN - THAT IS THE BIG TICKET ITEM”— We catch up with Brian Message, (one) Manager of Radiohead, to talk about mobile for established and new artists, The Rifles, Nick Cave and Radiohead’s recently kicked off world tour.
//SOCIAL x SHARING// - Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers
Is Pinterest the Next Social Commerce Game Changer? — It’s a massive 4000% increase in traffic for Social Sharing Network Pinterest. This infographic takes a closer look at the numbers behing the success.
//COMMUNITY x MARKETPLACES// — There’s been a lot of buzz around Gidsy’s latest funding round which include a familiar group of people that increasingly seem to invest as an ensemble cast in Berlin. We take a closer look at the startup that promises to be an “Airbnb for authentic experiences”.
