Week 1

First, a little background, both because it's necessary to the post and because I'm verbose and narcissistic.

My very first graduate course at DePaul was an introduction to my program, New Media Studies. For those of you unfamiliar with this program (I assume that's everyone), it's an MA program housed under Writing, Rhetoric & Discourse in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. (Not CDM or Communications, oddly enough.) It's pretty hard to explain what the program really is, so I usually say I'm getting a degree in the internet. (Hold for laughter.) But seriously folks... It's a program that looks critically at the web and interactive technologies and trends, as well as whatever you want to make it, since it's interdisciplinary. A few of my classmates are going more the design route, some more editorial/journalistic, some more critical/academic. Me? I'm marketing and usability. If you're ultra-curious, you can read my old blog here: http://brianblogsdepaul.wordpress.com. The stuff from September - November is my intro course, and the stuff from April - June is from NMS 504: Text & Image.

Now. Back to that very first graduate course. One of the recurring topics we discussed was the concept of innovation. Specifically, that innovation often comes through the repurposing of a technology, or a "hack." I know "hack" has a negative connotation, but to web insiders and tech geeks, it's a good thing. It's an indication of a user's desired outcome, plain as can be.

There, I fixed it: this is a hack.

I got to thinking about this the other day from a marketing perspective. I was going shopping specifically because of online marketing. That day, I visited two stores: the Levi's store and the Gap. At the Levi's store, I redeemed an online "coupon", consisting of RSVPing to a Facebook event page and showing my mobile phone to the cashier, which netted me 30% off. At Gap, I was redeeming a Groupon simply by showing the cashier the code on my mobile phone. These are the two main points of this epiphany as it relates to marketing.

1. Importance of mobile web and app development in marketing.
I do not own a printer. To get to one, I would have to take the bus, train, or walk to a lab at DePaul. In both situations above, not more than 5 years ago this would have been done on paper. Especially with the Levi's example (where it was a percentage off and not a purchased gift card redemption), I likely would not have done it if mobile wasn't a part of the equation.

Simply put, this "sale" had a low barrier of entry. Not much action, other than what normal people are already doing (out shopping, checking their phones) was required. There's no extra steps, and simply by "RSVPing" it became social on my Facebook wall: word-of-mouth. The nature of the web is now social, and the nature of the web is now mobile. It's portable and shared. While this obviously is only one aspect of a complete marketing plan, it's an increasingly important one.

2. Unintended positive outcome of mobile marketing. 
After the cashier at Gap rang up my sale, the woman behind me asked what I did, at which point I told her about not only Groupon, but about Gap's online marketing. As such, by participating in a novel (for now, this will be commonplace soon) method of redemption, Gap sealed (here it is again) the Most Important Aspect Of Marketing Ever: word-of-mouth. It's speculative whether or not this went into consideration before offering and promoting the Groupon sale. But for right now, marketers should be looking at this as a total online and mobile marketing win because of the unintended positive outcome.