Like we do every year, BIA/Kelsey analysts huddle to formulate predictions for the coming year in respective areas of domain expertise.  Last month, we released a report that highlights picks across these coverage areas.

For more color on the predictions that pertain to mobile, below is the “director’s cut.” These are areas I’ve been watching, and where I think they’re moving. It’s pretty clear from the momentum that it’s going to be an action-packed year for mobile.

1. Apple Pay Won’t Take Over the Universe (Yet)

Apple pay will not “mainstream” mobile proximity payments in 2015. It will however cause a dent in in-app payments for offline fulfillment (a la Uber). The numbers don’t work out given that the iPhone 6 will not reach ubiquity until late 2015. And merchants will not be incentivized to upgrade POS hardware without that critical mass. It’s an issue of compatibility and network effect. Furthering the above points, neither consumer nor merchant will be incentivized to adopt unless there is a more compelling value proposition for Apple Pay. That includes saving time, money, or skipping lines, as opposed to the current value proposition which is the marginally different process of tapping rather than swiping. That’s not enough to alter such an entrenched and comfort-driven consumer behavior.  In the meantime, Apple Pay’s killer app will be with in-app payments for offline services, such as “order ahead” functionality or on demand local services (OLDS) like Uber.

2. The Uberification of Local

Mobile payments, search and discovery will culminate in the area of on-demand local services (ODLS). The segment is exploding in use and investment, a la Uber. This is real world products and services summoned by mobile and fulfilled offline. This outweighs M-commerce (i.e. ordering things on your phone for shipment a la Amazone) because more than 93 percent of U.S. retail spending (and near 100 percent of service transactions) happen offline. The factors that will drive ODLS and make it a more predominant area of attention and investment in 2015 include:

— ODLSs create liquidity, transparency, and supply/demand balance in traditionally opaque two-sided marketplaces (like finding a cab)
— ODLSs will be the killer app for near term adoption of mobile payments like Apple Pay (see above).
— ODLSs will create a long missing analytics “bridge” to the offline world, given that the mobile device is with you throughout. That trackability will bring more data to offline commerce,  opening the door to better analytics, user targeting and next gen functions like dynamic demand-pricing for local services.

3. Swipe Left

Given escalating share of location based search and discovery happening via mobile, content formats will evolve in ways more native to that use case. Currently most content delivery formats are inherited from the desktop, such as list views or “ten blue links” SERPS. We’ll see a revolution in design standards for mobile local search and discovery products. These will be more visually oriented and card based. Scrolling and tapping will give way to swiping, a la Tinder. This is not only more conducive to mobile, but it will naturally enable more user inputs in order to algorithmically determine user sentiment and refine content delivery accordingly (a la Pandora). Content delivery will be much more algorithmic and push based, accelerating the discovery trend that has been underway for years, replacing active search queries.  Google now will be a model for this, and companies like Weotta are doing cool things.  Meanwhile, the visually oriented nature of these interfaces will also result from better hardware such as camera optics and larger screens to view striking imagery. Some of that multimedia will be pushed from advertisers and publishers, while some will structure and organize user generated content, a la social sharing.

4. Becoming Selfie-Aware

The social sharing trend — capturing and sharing moments via instagram, vine, stapchat etc. — has been driven by better smartphone optics and larger screens (i.e. iPhone6). That has begun to reach the local level as consumers likewise share their experiences in transactional contexts such as dining out. This phenomenon will accelerate in 2015, specific to certain visual and sharable local verticals such as arts & entertainment. We’ll see most local media players embrace this trend by launching products that support the use case (i.e. Yelp’s video capture feature). This will be the foundation for clear monetization that aligns with existing models. For example, visual content shared by users aides in content marketing, SEO, and SMB landing page development. Paid tiers of merchant offerings will include things such as highlighting user generated multimedia through slideshows. Mobile will be a big user touch point to not only capture and share that media, but to also consume it via larger screens.

5. U.S. Mobile Ad Market Reaches $19B

The U.S. mobile ad market (excluding tablets) will reach nearly $20 billion in 2015. And the location targeted portion of that ad spend will be about one third. This counts all mobile ad formats including developing areas like social native ads (i.e. FB mobile news feed ads). Our figures also take into account the growth of search ads (currently the largest share of mobile ad revenue) and Google’s Enhanced Campaigns which will continue to accelerate mobile advertiser adoption. More populated search bid marketplaces that result will also raise bid pressure and increase cost per click rates. Higher CPCs will in turn boost mobile ad revenue further for Google and mobile publishers and developers. The longstanding imbalance in mobile ad rates will also begin to reverse as sources of premium ad rates continue to be found. That includes native social ads on places like Instagram, better attribution metrics, and higher performing location targeted ads from companies like xAd, Verve, and YP.

The post 2015 Mobile Predictions: The Director’s Cut appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Like we do every year, BIA/Kelsey analysts huddle to formulate predictions for the coming year in respective areas of domain expertise.  Last month, we released a report that highlights picks across these coverage areas.

For more color on the predictions that pertain to mobile, below is the “director’s cut.” These are areas I’ve been watching, and where I think they’re moving. It’s pretty clear from the momentum that it’s going to be an action-packed year for mobile.

1. Apple Pay Won’t Take Over the Universe (Yet)

Apple pay will not “mainstream” mobile proximity payments in 2015. It will however cause a dent in in-app payments for offline fulfillment (a la Uber). The numbers don?t work out given that the iPhone 6 will not reach ubiquity until late 2015. And merchants will not be incentivized to upgrade POS hardware without that critical mass. It’s an issue of compatibility and network effect. Furthering the above points, neither consumer nor merchant will be incentivized to adopt unless there is a more compelling value proposition for Apple Pay. That includes saving time, money, or skipping lines, as opposed to the current value proposition which is the marginally different process of tapping rather than swiping. That’s not enough to alter such an entrenched and comfort-driven consumer behavior.  In the meantime, Apple Pay’s killer app will be with in-app payments for offline services, such as “order ahead” functionality or on demand local services (OLDS) like Uber.

2. The Uberification of Local

Mobile payments, search and discovery will culminate in the area of on-demand local services (ODLS). The segment is exploding in use and investment, a la Uber. This is real world products and services summoned by mobile and fulfilled offline. This outweighs M-commerce (i.e. ordering things on your phone for shipment a la Amazone) because more than 93 percent of U.S. retail spending (and near 100 percent of service transactions) happen offline. The factors that will drive ODLS and make it a more predominant area of attention and investment in 2015 include:

— ODLSs create liquidity, transparency, and supply/demand balance in traditionally opaque two-sided marketplaces (like finding a cab)
— ODLSs will be the killer app for near term adoption of mobile payments like Apple Pay (see above).
— ODLSs will create a long missing analytics “bridge” to the offline world, given that the mobile device is with you throughout. That trackability will bring more data to offline commerce,  opening the door to better analytics, user targeting and next gen functions like dynamic demand-pricing for local services.

3. Swipe Left

Given escalating share of location based search and discovery happening via mobile, content formats will evolve in ways more native to that use case. Currently most content delivery formats are inherited from the desktop, such as list views or “ten blue links” SERPS. We’ll see a revolution in design standards for mobile local search and discovery products. These will be more visually oriented and card based. Scrolling and tapping will give way to swiping, a la Tinder. This is not only more conducive to mobile, but it will naturally enable more user inputs in order to algorithmically determine user sentiment and refine content delivery accordingly (a la Pandora). Content delivery will be much more algorithmic and push based, accelerating the discovery trend that has been underway for years, replacing active search queries.  Google now will be a model for this, and companies like Weotta are doing cool things.  Meanwhile, the visually oriented nature of these interfaces will also result from better hardware such as camera optics and larger screens to view striking imagery. Some of that multimedia will be pushed from advertisers and publishers, while some will structure and organize user generated content, a la social sharing.

4. Becoming Selfie-Aware

The social sharing trend — capturing and sharing moments via instagram, vine, stapchat etc. — has been driven by better smartphone optics and larger screens (i.e. iPhone6). That has begun to reach the local level as consumers likewise share their experiences in transactional contexts such as dining out. This phenomenon will accelerate in 2015, specific to certain visual and sharable local verticals such as arts & entertainment. We?ll see most local media players embrace this trend by launching products that support the use case (i.e. Yelp’s video capture feature). This will be the foundation for clear monetization that aligns with existing models. For example, visual content shared by users aides in content marketing, SEO, and SMB landing page development. Paid tiers of merchant offerings will include things such as highlighting user generated multimedia through slideshows. Mobile will be a big user touch point to not only capture and share that media, but to also consume it via larger screens.

5. U.S. Mobile Ad Market Reaches $19B

The U.S. mobile ad market (excluding tablets) will reach nearly $20 billion in 2015. And the location targeted portion of that ad spend will be about one third. This counts all mobile ad formats including developing areas like social native ads (i.e. FB mobile news feed ads). Our figures also take into account the growth of search ads (currently the largest share of mobile ad revenue) and Google?s Enhanced Campaigns which will continue to accelerate mobile advertiser adoption. More populated search bid marketplaces that result will also raise bid pressure and increase cost per click rates. Higher CPCs will in turn boost mobile ad revenue further for Google and mobile publishers and developers. The longstanding imbalance in mobile ad rates will also begin to reverse as sources of premium ad rates continue to be found. That includes native social ads on places like Instagram, better attribution metrics, and higher performing location targeted ads from companies like xAd, Verve, and YP.

The post 2015 Mobile Predictions: The Director's Cut appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Cutting through all the Apple excitement, does Apple Pay have what it takes to finally gain the scale that other mobile payment technologies have failed to achieve? Despite Apple’s halo effect my answer is no, at least in Apple Pay’s current form.

That has a lot to do with the chicken & egg implementation challenges for NFC. More importantly, it’s the classic “solution in search of a problem,” factor that has burdened most mobile payments products to date. It needs to solve actual pain points.

This is important for local media because mobile payments have the capability of attributing the efficacy of advertising by connecting the dots from ad exposures or engagements to finished local purchases. Mobile payments are a way to close that loop.

After covering Apple Pay in a blog post last week, we sat down in our analyst roundtable format (more of an interview this time). Since we covered larger screen iPhones and their ad implications on our last roundtable, we zeroed in on Apple Pay this time.

The short interview is embedded below and we’ll carry forward the conversation next week at our SMB Digital Marketing Conference in New Orleans. Hope to see you there.

The post Video Interview: Will Apple Push Mobile Payments Mainstream? appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

This week has been all about Apple. That’s included some decent analysis, and a whole lot of overblown adoration that “they’ve done it again.” Larger iPhone screens are great but I’m not sure they’ll fit into the skinny jean pockets of the millennial target audience.

In all seriousness as an Apple fanboy, longtime user, and industry watcher, I see implications for larger screens to jumpstart lots of cool app development. I’m bullish on what this will do for content and ad delivery, but downright skeptical about Apple Pay.

Building on our pre-launch analysis, let’s take those one at a time, putting aside the Apple Watch for another post.

Size Matters

Larger screen iPhones are important for lots of reasons. But let’s be clear that this is one of the cases where Apple isn’t leading but following. The SamDroid world is way ahead on this one. Regardless, the marketplace demands larger screens so that’s where we are.

This is also interestingly one of those times when Apple is going back on a vehemently drawn line in the sand. Few people remember Steve Jobs’ fastidious stance that 3.5 inches was the canonical sweet spot for a smartphone (size of original iPhone through the 4s).

Part of the marketplace demand for larger screens goes back to other macro factors such as better connectivity and Moore’s law-driven hardware improvements. These have converged to enable the age of social sharing through Instagram, Snapchat, etc..

Capturing and sharing multimedia via increasingly powerful optics is commonplace. So larger screens to consume that media is a natural progression that aligns. And we’ll see the app development community do some cool things to utilize a larger screen.

The Ad Angle

For the same reason, the ad ecosystem just got a lot more interesting. As we discussed in our last video roundtable, and Peter Krasilovsky’s post earlier this week, larger screens have lots of implications for ad delivery.

But importantly, this won’t just mean more real estate for larger banners. Successful ad strategies will take more of a holistic approach to delivering brand messaging in ways that are more native to a bigger screen… rather than making existing banners larger.

And the ad implications go back to the social sharing point.  We’re moving past mobile advertising’s first few phases which were all about banners. Content marketing is gaining lots of steam from the above cultural and technological trends around social sharing.

This translates to advertisers sharing multimedia to communicate a message. For brands, that’s Instagram images (cold beer against a sunset, etc.); For SMBs, it’s capturing experiences in and around their locations via Instagram, Vine or Yelp’s new video feature.

The point is that larger iPhones are cohesive with these macro trends so it should play well. Again, Samsung is already there, but a larger iPhone is notable given its  leading share of ad impressions — despite a disproportionately lower share of device ownership.

Hucksterism at its Best

Here we go again with the overblown excitement over mobile payments, and the inability to learn from recent events. Perhaps there’s the implicit feeling that Apple will do what others have failed to do — which it has done numerous times (tablets, MP3 players, etc.).

I don’t believe payments is going to be one of them, and for one simple reason: It continues to be a solution in search of a problem. Generalist tech media (and mobile payment providers), continue to contrive a problem that doesn’t exist: plastic credit card use.

Even Apple’s video to pitch Apple Pay had a comical “before” rendition of consumers fumbling with credit cards. It was the stuff of bad infomercials that show pasta sauce spattering all over the counter and walls; enter the magic snapping lid to solve all problems.

As I keep saying, the value proposition for mobile payments has to be something greater than reducing my wallet by the atomic mass of a credit card. Those could include tangible benefits like skipping store lines, saving time, or substantial monetary rewards.

We’re talking about deeply entrenched payment habits for which there are high psychological switching costs, due to inherent security concerns. And that might be the only place Apple went right in its Apple Pay pitch: leading with the security advantages.

As background, Apple Pay is encrypted at the point of sale, not revealing payment information. That’s more secure than plastic credit cards, given that store associates or restaurant servers absolutely can see that info — the number one source of credit card fraud.

But not sharing and tracking that information is also one of Apple Pay’s downsides. This eliminates one of the often-repeated endgames for mobile payments… to facilitate rewards programs via shopping history. That isn’t going to the the case, at least for now.

What Came First?

Finally, my reticence about Apple pay comes straight from NFC. We’ve seen this technology’s implementation struggle for years due to one main factor: the chicken and egg problem.  Merchants won’t invest in costly POS terminals without a critical mass of usage.

The thought is that Apple has jumpstarted the latter. But has it really?  We’re at least a year from ubiquity of NFC enabled iPhones — at least a level that’s going to cause a dent in retailers’ business case to upgrade POS terminals. It’s a compatibility issue.

The mismatch in this two sided marketplace — needing scale and network effect to get over that compatability hump — will be further dampened by the original argument above… no one is clamoring for a digital solution to an analog problem that doesn’t exist.

In fairness, Apple has signed on lots of retail partners already. But that’s the classic Apple halo effect… the same reason iAd had top brands lining up to run campaigns after the first shiny announcement. We all saw what happened when that died down.

Apple Pay will be a ghost town for at least several months, during which you can expect to see more than a few YouTube videos capturing POS mishaps and confusion. That won’t be quite as good for PR as the sparkling keynote address that launched it.

And Why?

Whether or not they work, let’s get straight Apple’s intention for launching these features.  It’s not ads, payment processing revenues, or anything else as others have speculated. It’s all about selling more iThings.

Apple’s core revenue stream is hardware. That is how it makes money and how it has positioned itself to derive massive margins and a stratospheric market cap.  All moves it makes are to protect and grow that revenue stream.

Making its devices more attractive via greater functionality and gadgetry is the reason for this week’s announcements (the same argument applied to its mapping acquisitions). That’s where iWatch comes into the picture. But again, that’s a post for another day.

The post Payments, Screen Size and Skinny Jeans: Apple’s Local Angle appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

This week has been all about Apple. That’s included some decent analysis, and a whole lot of overblown adoration that “they’ve done it again.” Larger iPhone screens are great but I’m not sure they’ll fit into the skinny jean pockets of the millennial target audience.

In all seriousness as an Apple fanboy, longtime user, and industry watcher, I see implications for larger screens to jumpstart lots of cool app development. I’m bullish on what this will do for content and ad delivery, but downright skeptical about Apple Pay.

Building on our pre-launch analysis, let’s take those one at a time, putting aside the Apple Watch for another post.

Size Matters

Larger screen iPhones are important for lots of reasons. But let’s be clear that this is one of the cases where Apple isn’t leading but following. The SamDroid world is way ahead on this one. Regardless, the marketplace demands larger screens so that’s where we are.

This is also interestingly one of those times when Apple is going back on a vehemently drawn line in the sand. Few people remember Steve Jobs’ fastidious stance that 3.5 inches was the canonical sweet spot for a smartphone (size of original iPhone through the 4s).

Part of the marketplace demand for larger screens goes back to other macro factors such as better connectivity and Moore’s law-driven hardware improvements. These have converged to enable the age of social sharing through Instagram, Snapchat, etc..

Capturing and sharing multimedia via increasingly powerful optics is commonplace. So larger screens to consume that media is a natural progression that aligns. And we’ll see the app development community do some cool things to utilize a larger screen.

The Ad Angle

For the same reason, the ad ecosystem just got a lot more interesting. As we discussed in our last video roundtable, and Peter Krasilovsky’s post earlier this week, larger screens have lots of implications for ad delivery.

But importantly, this won’t just mean more real estate for larger banners. Successful ad strategies will take more of a holistic approach to delivering brand messaging in ways that are more native to a bigger screen… rather than making existing banners larger.

And the ad implications go back to the social sharing point.  We’re moving past mobile advertising’s first few phases which were all about banners. Content marketing is gaining lots of steam from the above cultural and technological trends around social sharing.

This translates to advertisers sharing multimedia to communicate a message. For brands, that’s Instagram images (cold beer against a sunset, etc.); For SMBs, it’s capturing experiences in and around their locations via Instagram, Vine or Yelp’s new video feature.

The point is that larger iPhones are cohesive with these macro trends so it should play well. Again, Samsung is already there, but a larger iPhone is notable given its  leading share of ad impressions — despite a disproportionately lower share of device ownership.

Hucksterism at its Best

Here we go again with the overblown excitement over mobile payments, and the inability to learn from recent events. Perhaps there’s the implicit feeling that Apple will do what others have failed to do — which it has done numerous times (tablets, MP3 players, etc.).

I don’t believe payments is going to be one of them, and for one simple reason: It continues to be a solution in search of a problem. Generalist tech media (and mobile payment providers), continue to contrive a problem that doesn’t exist: plastic credit card use.

Even Apple’s video to pitch Apple Pay had a comical “before” rendition of consumers fumbling with credit cards. It was the stuff of bad infomercials that show pasta sauce spattering all over the counter and walls; enter the magic snapping lid to solve all problems.

As I keep saying, the value proposition for mobile payments has to be something greater than reducing my wallet by the atomic mass of a credit card. Those could include tangible benefits like skipping store lines, saving time, or substantial monetary rewards.

We’re talking about deeply entrenched payment habits for which there are high psychological switching costs, due to inherent security concerns. And that might be the only place Apple went right in its Apple Pay pitch: leading with the security advantages.

As background, Apple Pay is encrypted at the point of sale, not revealing payment information. That’s more secure than plastic credit cards, given that store associates or restaurant servers absolutely can see that info — the number one source of credit card fraud.

But not sharing and tracking that information is also one of Apple Pay’s downsides. This eliminates one of the often-repeated endgames for mobile payments… to facilitate rewards programs via shopping history. That isn’t going to the the case, at least for now.

What Came First?

Finally, my reticence about Apple pay comes straight from NFC. We’ve seen this technology’s implementation struggle for years due to one main factor: the chicken and egg problem.  Merchants won’t invest in costly POS terminals without a critical mass of usage.

The thought is that Apple has jumpstarted the latter. But has it really?  We’re at least a year from ubiquity of NFC enabled iPhones — at least a level that’s going to cause a dent in retailers’ business case to upgrade POS terminals. It’s a compatibility issue.

The mismatch in this two sided marketplace — needing scale and network effect to get over that compatability hump — will be further dampened by the original argument above… no one is clamoring for a digital solution to an analog problem that doesn’t exist.

In fairness, Apple has signed on lots of retail partners already. But that’s the classic Apple halo effect… the same reason iAd had top brands lining up to run campaigns after the first shiny announcement. We all saw what happened when that died down.

Apple Pay will be a ghost town for at least several months, during which you can expect to see more than a few YouTube videos capturing POS mishaps and confusion. That won’t be quite as good for PR as the sparkling keynote address that launched it.

And Why?

Whether or not they work, let’s get straight Apple’s intention for launching these features.  It’s not ads, payment processing revenues, or anything else as others have speculated. It’s all about selling more iThings.

Apple’s core revenue stream is hardware. That is how it makes money and how it has positioned itself to derive massive margins and a stratospheric market cap.  All moves it makes are to protect and grow that revenue stream.

Making its devices more attractive via greater functionality and gadgetry is the reason for this week’s announcements (the same argument applied to its mapping acquisitions). That’s where iWatch comes into the picture. But again, that’s a post for another day.

The post Payments, Screen Size and Skinny Jeans: Apple's Local Angle appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.