Originally posted on the South Street Strategy Group Blog
By Jennifer von Briesen
At any point in the innovation process, businesses can come across new information, trends or practical issues that challenge thinking about what the end result of an innovation should look like. Maybe a new technology can’t scale or the application doesn’t have a big enough market. Or perhaps competitive analysis reveals that a new service or business model isn’t as unique as once thought. There are examples that many of us could on draw from our own experiences. Challenges like these can be frustrating and force businesses to think differently—creatively—about how to move forward. They actually provide the constraints within which an innovation project must operate.
At the FEI conference in Boston, there was a lot of talk about the role of constraints in creativity. Pasquale Cetera, VP of Portfolio Management and Strategy at Merck, brought this into focus during his presentation on R&D decision-making. Pharma is clearly a very developed industry, and this is a key challenge in innovation. The low-hanging fruit has already been developed and is on the market, so to bring new products to market requires more time and investment than ever before. This, along with the fact that regulations are ever-more stringent, means that the average length of drug development is rising, and pharma companies find themselves under pressure to focus and improve success rates at each stage of the development process.
It’s a big challenge with a significant bottom line attached to it. The necessity to maintain the business in spite of this has given rise to innovations that simply were not needed to make a profit until recently. Some of the innovations that Pasquale highlighted include:
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New lead optimization approaches in the Discovery stage, so that suboptimal leads are let go early-on
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Use of biomarkers to improve the probability of success in Phase 2 (Efficacy & Proof of Concept)
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Business model innovation: from fully integrated pharma companies (FIPCOS) to fully integrated pharma networks (FIPNETS)
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Collaboration with health payers to solve problems vs. traditional antagonistic relationships
Innovating within these kinds of big-picture constraints isn’t just a big-industry phenomenon. There are impressive innovations coming out of emerging markets, be it in the form of new agricultural models that support small farmers, mobile computing in Africa, or new type of distribution system for a CPG in India—as a few examples.
So, the next time you come across a challenge that alters the reality of your business, I encourage you to approach it not as a threat, but as an opportunity to differentiate and push innovation farther than it would have gone otherwise.
Jennifer is a Director at South Street Strategy Group. She recently received the 2013 “Member of the Year” award by the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP), the preeminent professional association for those engaged in strategic thinking, planning and action.
South Street Strategy Group, an independent sister company of Chadwick Martin Bailey, integrates the best of strategy consulting and marketing science to develop better growth and value delivery strategies. Read South Street's Strategy Group's blog here.
See how CMB and the South Street Strategy Group helped SunTrust use a customer-centric approach to inform brand strategy, improve marketing tactics, and drive organizational transformation. Read the case study.
Originally published in Loyalty360
By Judy Melanson
Most travel and hospitality brands are laser-focused on engaging guests while they’re on-property. And it makes sense, doesn't it? Guests are right there, in reach, interacting in-person with the brand and staff. But the customer’s experience doesn’t begin and end at the door, so how else can travel and hospitality companies engage their leisure customers?
One idea is to better leverage mobile technology to engage guests, pre-trip. Today, more than half of Americans over 18 own a smartphone, one-in-four own a tablet, and seven-in-ten access social media sites on their mobile device daily. How do you leverage this platform from the first moment your future guests dream of a trip to when they show up at your front desk? Here are some ideas to drive engagement in those all-important early stages of the customer journey:
Dreaming
The first stage of the travel process involves planting a seed about a travel occasion or destination and encouraging potential travelers to begin daydreaming: get them to think about their upcoming 10th wedding anniversary, remind them they need to plan a summer vacation or encourage them to check an item off their “bucket list.”
Learn what inspires your guests and then get to work encouraging them to daydream. The greater understanding you have of your customers and the reasons they stay with you for their leisure trips, the more you can do to motivate them to travel –and stay with you instead of someone else.
Here are a couple of ideas:
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Watch the weather: If you’re selling tropical vacations and you see a blizzard hitting the Midwest, create a contest and ask people to upload photos of themselves (using the camera of their smartphone) wearing a sun hat or drinking a tropical drink to your Facebook page.
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Pin it: Ensure your destination is building traction on global sites (e.g., Pinterest, Wanderfly) where travelers are creating dreams for future trips– and ensure they include your pictures in their dreams.
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Drive the next trip: Hotels, tour companies, and cruise lines can create a shopping cart like "wishlist" on their site. Knowing where someone wants to travel, companies can send fun trivia, photos, tips and offers targeted to that person.
Planning
So, now that the traveler is dreaming about taking a vacation, you’ve got to make sure that your mobile strategies help them cut through the clutter and connect with your property.
Mobile devices are portable, “pocket travel agents,” offering instant access to airfare prices, contact information, flight schedules, and bookings. According to comScore, 37% of US consumers accessed travel sites or apps from their smartphone in July 2012. Activities for the mobile traveler include reading reviews, comparing prices, and booking rooms but there are lots of ways to think about supporting your guest’s planning activities.
Here are a couple of ideas:
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It’s always a huge bummer to find out that a must-see restaurant is closed for renovations. When you’re travelling, up to the minute information is one of the most vital things a traveler can have. Help future guests identify activities of interest by encouraging them to download the Mobile City Guide from Trip Advisor. They’re convenient, easily accessible, and most importantly updated in real time. They include reviews, suggested itineraries, and tips all synched with the site’s content. An added bonus? The downloadable walking tours that don’t require an internet connection, because despite the wonders of mobile, we could all do without the roaming
charges!
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Smartphones and tablets make it a lot easier for travelers to find and plan their trips, but the flip side is that a website not designed for smartphones and tablets, looks out of touch, and more importantly it’s not convenient OR useful. Take a look at Jet Blue’s awesome mobile app. From mobile booking, mobile boarding passes, terminal maps, to a really easy to use interface —Jet Blue’s app doesn’t just meet customers planning needs, it offers flyers things features clients didn’t even know they could live without.
Booking
So we know connected travelers are using their smartphone to gather travel-related information, and the trends are on the rise for bookings by mobile device. While today, mobile booking might fall behind other activities, you can bet it won’t for long. This is especially true for last-minute bookers—according to a Business Insider report, more 70% of mobile reservations are done within 24 hours of the planned stay.
Here are a couple of ideas:
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There’s a reason Hilton Hotels is one of the most popular hotels for booking on a tablet. Hilton has had a mobile booking app since 2009. One of the reasons it’s so popular? It loads quickly, it’s easily searchable, and it links to their HHonors rewards program. As busy travelers, looking to book a room in a hurry, synching to rewards reduces a ton of hassle. DoubleTree, a member of the Hilton family, does a terrific job of with their pre-stay out-reach, and it looks great on the phone of course—reminding travelers of the hotel’s address, that they can pre-order amenities, and that a warm chocolate cookie awaits—delightful!
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If you’ve ever looked on Fab.com, or any of the other dozens (hundreds) of flash-sale sites, you know their appeal—a major discount available for often just a few minutes. Turns out that kind of deal appeals to the spontaneous traveler as well. For example Priceline’s Tonight-Only Deals feature spurred last minute bookings(made after 5pm), for hotels where many rooms might have gone unfilled.
Mobile technology is a revolutionary tool for inspiring, transacting with, and above all engaging your guests with your brand – all before they come through the front door. There are plenty of tools available today – and more coming down the pike – to help you help your guests to have a memorable experience at your property – one they’ll want to rave about to family and friends.
The first steps? Reach out to your customers to find out what inspires them to visit your property – what goals they are trying to achieve. Then find some mobile tools that you can offer to help them achieve their goals when they visit. Don’t wait to build strong engagement with your future guest!
Judy is VP of CMB's Travel & Entertainment practice and loves collaborating with clients on driving customer loyalty. She's the mom of two teens and the wife of an oyster farmer. Follow Judy on Twitter at @Judy_LC
Download our latest Consumer Pulse on the Future of Mobile Wallet here.
Check out our infographic on Loyalty and Mobile here.
By Andrew Wilson
Over the past 3 years, there has been no shortage of attempts to forecast the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on patients and insurers, but the truth is, the changing care model has ramifications that extend well beyond the waiting room. The multi-billion dollar medical device industry is smack-dab in the middle of tremendous regulatory and economic changes—including the ACA and the Medical Device Excise Tax (MDET). Earlier this year CMB’s MedTech team partnered with the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC) to survey 123 of their members for their perspectives on the past, present, and future expectations for innovation and growth in the medical device industry. Below, are a few highlights from The 2013 MedTech Industry and Innovation Study:
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One of the most profound shifts, reflected in the results of our study, is the emerging influence of economic buyers on medical device innovation. The traditional med device market model places physicians at the center of innovation efforts, and to be sure they’re still very much at the forefront of med device companies’ minds. But as the ACA’s cost containment policies come into effect, hospital administrators and insurers will see their influence grow, as they become increasingly involved in purchasing decisions. Indeed, while just under one third of respondents said they have focused their innovation efforts on economic buyers in the past, 53% said economic buyers would receive their attention in the future.
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Not surprisingly, the MDET has elicited a great deal of conversation, with med device companies’ still strenuously objecting to the tax that came into effect last year. However, while the industry as a whole has actively advocated for MDET’s repeal, a surprising 40% have yet to plan to address the tax. For those who have made or acted upon plans to address the tax, workforce reductions and reductions in R&D spend top the list of mitigating actions. Despite considerable concerns over the changing care model, many respondents were optimistic for the future, with the bulk of respondents expecting increased revenue, both inside and outside the US in the coming 5 years.
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Asked to evaluate their performance on key success factors, the vast majority indicated that their company currently meets or exceeds expectations when it comes to identifying customer wants and needs and determining the most compelling features set—table stakes in new product development in any industry. Respondents also identified areas for differentiation (i.e., capabilities that are important for future success, but that most don’t perform well on). Organizations that with the following core skills will win in the future - prioritizing resources, determining how to price product(s)/service(s) given the dramatic changes, and developing compelling clinical data to support their product(s)/service(s).
The results of this study were presented at MassMEDIC's 17th Annual Conference on May 8th 2013.
Andrew runs CMB’s MedTech practice and has spent the better part of the past decade helping some of the most successful MedTech companies make difficult strategic decisions. In his free time, Andrew enjoys scrubbing into tracheotomies with clients, and running with his dog Moby.
By Jen Golden
When the 820 consecutive home game sell-out streak ended on April 10th at Fenway Park (just two games into the 2013 season), the Boston Red Sox found themselves in a unique situation…Red Sox brand loyalty was no longer just a guaranteed thing.
Since the Red Sox won the World Series in ’04 and again in ‘07, brand loyalty has come easy to the team – the fans were just there, happy to support their world champions. But after a rocky end to the 2011 season and a weak 2012, loyalty has waned and the organization actually needs to re-build that loyalty again.
So where do they start? Obviously on the field actions play tremendously into brand loyalty of any professional sports team. If the team is winning, fans will come to cheer them on and if the Red Sox continue their already hot start to the 2013 season that may help to re-build the loyalty all in itself. But besides just winning games and acquiring new and exciting players to drive fans into the ballpark - what have the Sox done to keep Red Sox Nation committed and coming back to the brand?
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Commitment to the brand’s heaviest users: A new loyalty program has been put in place for the brand’s repeat purchasers (i.e., the devoted season ticket holders who come to game after game). Enrolled into a tiered loyalty program, they can earn points towards rewards (such as throwing out the first pitch at a game) every time they scan their loyalty card at the ball park or make a purchase at a concession stand. By committing to their heaviest users and brand advocates, the Red Sox are aiming to keep their best customers happy.
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In-Game Promotions: To show fans they are valued and appreciated, the Red Sox put promotions in place at food stands around the ballpark for the start of the season, including Kids Eat Free and $5 Beers. Even with high ticket prices, these promotions might drive both new and old fans into the ballpark and provide them with a great customer experience once they are in the door of friendly Fenway Park.
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Rebuilding brand trust: Maybe most importantly, the 
Red Sox have campaigned to bring trust back to its fans. The Red Sox have always had brand loyalty— even in the 86 year stretch without a World Series win – but trust kept those fans believing that soon their suffering would be over. After the 2012 season, many fans were left feeling that the team had quit on them and weren’t committed to winning. To combat this mentality in 2013, commercial, print advertisements and billboards showcase players with the message that “What’s Broken Can Be Fixed” and “162 Ways to Restore the Faith.” New manager John Farrell has also promised to do everything he can to help the team win. However, while this assurance and transparency with the fans is reassuring off the field, the team now must follow through with this commitment on the field to truly gain back the trust.
Professional sport teams are a unique brand; sometimes no matter how much loyalty the Red Sox organization might try to create – advertising, loyalty programs, promotions, none of it will matter without a competitive team on the field. However, it’s times like this when the Red Sox can show their dedicated fans they really are valued. They must maintain their brand advocates and deliver on their promise of a committed ball club in order to keep Red Sox Nation faithful even when the League Standings on the Green Monster might show the Red Sox slipping a few games behind the dreaded Yankees.
Jen Golden is a Senior Associate Researcher at CMB. She’ll never forget the first time her Dad took her to her first Sox game and she saw the Green Monster for the first time – her brand loyalty for the team has never wavered since.
Interested in joining our team? We're hiring, check out the opportunities here on our Career page.
Next week you'll find us at the Front End of Innovation 2013 sharing how we, along with our partners at South Street Strategy, took a practical, focused, and innovative approach to new product development for Tauck Worldwide. Read a little bit about what we did here:
The Challenge
Tauck Worldwide, an industry leader with over 85 years experience in premium guided tours, wanted to create a new travel concept to meet the needs of a population increasingly comfortable with researching, planning, and traveling on their own. Tauck needed innovative thinking to define and build a new type of tour product – one that appealed to next gen customers, conveyed a unique brand identity while standing out from competitors in the crowded travel market space.
What We Did
CMB and principals from South Street Strategy Group used a multi-method, multi-source approach to:
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Select top opportunities on which to focus
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Ideate across functions with executives and senior managers, leveraging insight and experience in the market
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Research and assess the competitive landscape and baby boomer’s core travel goals and needs – particularly un-met needs
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Test alternatives to guide product development, pricing and identify target guests who are most interested in the new product line
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Identify acquisition targets in the travel industry, new business models, and new product offerings, by leveraging core competencies, that would create significant value for the company and address baby boomer needs
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Work with the CEO, CFO, and COO and the New Ventures Group to ensure recommendations were aligned with business constraints, addressed operational challenges and met business goals
How It Was Used
Tauck launched the Culturious brand as a totally new product line on time and with unanimous board approval. The new brand, which currently consists of 8 packages and destinations, meets customer needs by offering small-group tours geared toward active baby boomers with an interest in active, culturally engaging travel. The brand has won awards, including the 2010 Innovation prize from the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnerships (CQIA).
To learn more about our approach to New Product and Service Development click here.
For more of our case studies click here.
To learn more about our sister company South Street Strategy Group click here.
Originally posted on the South Street Strategy Group Blog
By Jennifer von Briesen
With ever more crowded industries, and customers’ ever-growing access to information that guides decision-making, if ever there was an era where the customer came first, this is it. Landing on a strategy that will delight current and prospective customers requires getting to know them both qualitatively and quantitatively. And herein lies the challenge. This kind of insight takes time and money and often gets pushed off or short-changed.
It’s true that data should not be the only driver of your strategy. Indeed, as Steve Lohr of the New York Times recently wrote: Listening to the data is important…but so is experience and intuition. After all, what is intuition at its best but large amounts of data of all kinds filtered through a human brain rather than a math model?
Taking these words to heart, strategy is both an art and a science. At some point, asking for the umpteenth model of sensitivity analysis simply isn’t productive to decision-making. On the flip side, building a strategy based on anecdotal evidence from the sales team (for example) will usually result in more pain than gain, financially and operationally.
Data will ground your thinking in facts. Intuition and experience will guide your thinking on why the facts are what they are and how to take action.
I often find that data is at its most valuable when used to:
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Prioritize. Having data around which questions or problems are most important to address and which opportunities are most attractive is imperative to prioritizing which paths or solutions a company chooses. Even one data point can have big impact: when one of our clients learned that 50% of its online directory was inaccurate in some way, the decision around which customer-facing channel to focus on first was easy to make.
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Challenge assumptions. Without an outside-in approach, companies are making big bets on assumptions about the market and their customers. An insurance company I once worked with wanted to extend their brand into what seemed to be an adjacent product space from their point of view. However, customer research revealed that customers actually didn’t trust that company—or any insurance company—to manage this new line of business well.
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Shore up confidence. Whether launching a new product or service, redesigning a brand or moving into an adjacent market, a new strategy needs to be sold up the executive chain. Data, from the mouth of the customer, not only reduces risk in decision-making but helps sell the decision internally. Bringing the outside in changes people’s minds.
How well do you apply the science of data to the art of strategy?
Jennifer von Briesen is a Director at South Street Strategy Group.
South Street Strategy Group, an independent sister company of Chadwick Martin Bailey, integrates the best of strategy consulting and marketing science to develop better growth and value delivery strategies. Read South Street's Strategy Group's blog here.
See how CMB and the South Street Strategy Group helped SunTrust use a customer-centric approach to inform brand strategy, improve marketing tactics, and drive organizational transformation. Read the case study.
By Dana Vaille
The New York Times article, The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, caught my attention by linking the hot topic of “junk food” and the obesity epidemic to the market research that supports it. This is where my inner geek gets really excited—it’s not often that two things I’m passionate about (nutrition and market research) are so perfectly linked.
Ever wonder why it’s virtually impossible to eat just one Dorito? Or how they got the recipe for Dr. Pepper just right? How do you think they engineered Cheetos into the perfect cheesy, crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth treat? As any market researcher knows, it goes far beyond basic trial and error—this isn’t like asking a few people if they like your new brownie mix. But even for someone who lives and breathes market research, the article was incredibly illuminating. Companies put a lot of time and effort into developing foods that will both taste good and be profitable; they consider the basic principles of supply and demand, and couple that with food science and a lot of market research to fill our needs and desires.
Because I know very little about food science, I won’t talk about the “bliss point” (the levels of sugar, fat and salt in processed food that keep us craving more) though I find it fascinating. Instead, here are some fascinating examples of how market research plays a role in determining what foods end up on the shelves of your local grocery store and in millions of pantries around the world.
Qualitative research identifies a need
In the article, we learn how Oscar Meyer conducted focus groups comprised of working moms to learn not what they were feeding their kids for lunch, but how they felt about the challenges and expectations they had in providing meals for their children. Oscar Meyer learned that these moms were strapped for time and felt pressured to provide a full lunch, while also getting themselves out the door, and to the office. The qualitative research revealed some of the tremendous sociological, psychological, and economic pressures faced by moms. The company’s solution was Lunchables—a hugely successful product, with sales of $218 million in the first year.
Conjoint analysis configures a new product
Campbell’s Soup used a statistical method called conjoint analysis, to determine the optimal product configuration(s) for their soups. We use conjoint analysis quite often ourselves because it lets us measure and evaluate the relative importance of individual characteristics and determine the right combinations of these characteristics. Campbell’s used conjoint the same way—to optimize the perfect combinations of ingredients, texture, taste, mouth feel, and so on, to (literally) engineer the ideal food.
Segmentation pinpoints a new target audience
Prego conducted segmentation research to find that there are three primary segments of spaghetti sauce consumers: those who like their sauce plain, those who prefer it to be spicy, and those who like it extra-chunky; the key here is that when the research was conducted, there was no extra-chunky tomato sauce on the market! Prego was able to identify a huge segment of the market whose needs (for extra-chunky tomato sauce) were not being met; the result was a new Prego “extra chunky” sauce that dominated the market.
Food is more than just fuel, especially for those of us lucky enough to have plenty to eat… it’s about things like family, comfort, convenience and love. And whether you won’t touch a GMO or want Mayor Bloomberg to leave your giant sodas alone, it’s important to know when you grab that bag of chips—the first ingredient is most likely a ton of market research.
Dana is Research Director at CMB. Her husband’s recent conversion to a vegan diet has her thinking about food science even more than usual, though she continues to enjoy cheese.
Check out our latest webinar: The 6 Secrets of Succesful Segmentation, it's much healthier than Doritos we promise.
Originally posted on the South Street Strategy Group Blog
By Rachel Corn
How many times have you looked at all of the to-do’s you’ve crossed off your list during any given week and wondered, “What do I actually have to show for it?” The fact of the matter is that the work day is a constant struggle to separate out the important from the urgent and from the importantly urgent so that we maximize our time on activities that are most likely to contribute to corporate metrics. We must be strategic about how we get through the day.
This same concept applies when growing a business. When it comes to growth strategies, most firms don’t suffer from a lack of ideas and paths to choose from. Conceptually, most business leaders understand that deciding what not to invest in is just as important as deciding what business opportunities to pursue. Yet many companies still find themselves stretched in many directions, with various product lines, strategies and consumer segments. Budgets, time and employee energy are spread across too many initiatives, many of which are low ROI activities
It’s hard to say “no” when opportunity—in the form of a potential revenue stream—comes knocking. But the irony in finding growth is the ability to focus and say “no” even when it means turning down a potentially exciting or even lucrative business initiative. Without this focus, businesses can’t make sufficient investments in the most high-priority initiatives. Management struggles because they are doing everything at once. A company’s best people are spread across different projects and can’t execute efficiently. And, in some cases, even finding time to meet and move projects forward is stymied by overcommitted schedules.
A business leader must find the courage to make decisions and focus their people and their funds on the goals that are most likely to get them ahead of the competition.
How do you get to “no”? For starters:
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Focus on one or a few key customer segments where your value proposition is most differentiated. Look at customer segments where you perform better than the competition and customers feel you truly—instead of marginally—meet their needs. This typically requires a robust market segmentation to guide your focus.
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Focus on your business’ core capabilities and strengths, and commit to investing only in these capabilities. Many companies run into trouble when they move away from their core in search of more attractive opportunities. Cisco’s Flip phone was an attractive idea, but turns out the fickle world of consumer electronics was too far afield from the company’s core business.
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Focus on balancing the needs of your customer today versus your customer of tomorrow. A tech company, for example, will want to devote more of their investments (20-30%) on future customer needs. On the other hand, more mature industries such as insurance will dedicate most of their budget to current customer profiles and any directly adjacent capabilities.
Saying yes to everything makes it harder to achieve anything. How effective is your company at getting to “no”?
Rachel Corn is a Director at South Street Strategy Group, she specializes in finding growth opportunities in new market segments, new products and businesses and innovative business models.
South Street Strategy Group, an independent sister company of Chadwick Martin Bailey, integrates the best of strategy consulting and marketing science to develop better growth and value delivery strategies. Read South Street's Strategy Group's blog here.
By Hilary O'Haire
I don’t want to brag, but my smartphone is in really good shape.
Like millions of other people, I have multiple fitness and health-related mobile apps, and they’re constantly alerting, pushing—begging me to login, add my stats, and track my diet and exercise. And while I’ll confess there are times these apps get more of my attention, they are awesome tools for getting and staying in shape.
Of course, they’re not a brand new phenomenon, and in a 2011 Consumer Pulse study: Consumer Perspectives on Health and Wellness, we found 7 in 10 smartphone users interacted at least weekly with mobile fitness and diet apps. With smartphone ownership growing, the number of people using these tools has only increased, and companies are responding by bringing new and exciting additions to the mobile health (“mHealth”) app marketplace. In fact, over the next 5 years, the mHealth market is expected to grow annually by 23 percent.
There’s much more to mobile health than tracking calories and reps, and what’s truly exciting is mobile’s capacity to revolutionize how we understand and manage our health. As Mark Curtis notes in “Your phone will know you are sick before you do,” new mobile technology—like “body hacking” will put more of our own health data literally at our fingertips. Body hacks include tools like GlucoDock, a plug in for the iPhone, allowing diabetics to track their blood sugar easily on the go; or the simple but elegant pill bottle cap that connects to a patient’s phone and alerts them when it’s time to take their meds. Besides being extremely clever, these mobile technologies also change how we interact with those involved with our care—hospitals/providers, insurers, and pharmacies. These tools have the potential to give patients an unprecedented level of control and involvement in their own care. What was once hidden in a doctor’s files is now available to be examined by patients themselves.
Way back in 2011, we asked consumers how much they expected to communicate with their healthcare provider, insurance company, and pharmacy in the next few years. Of those who used mobile apps to perform health and wellness activities, over one-third expected their digital communication with each to increase. Well, these “next few years,” are here. Health apps are no longer restricted to physical betterment through diet and fitness; they’re helping us take control of our own health maintenance—from identifying ailments to tracking provider-patient interactions. What’s next? Look into your crystal ball, what do you wish your phone could do to make and keep you healthier?
Hilary O’Haire is an Associate Researcher at CMB. Although she enjoys working out and her RunKeeper app, a love for good food keeps her determined to eat at every Boston restaurant ever featured on a Food Network show.
Read our latest Consumer Pulse: Leveraging the Mobile Moment: Barriers and Opportunites for Mobile Wallet.
By Judy Melanson
The Mobile Wallet is a hot topic for those in the retail, technology and financial services industries. As you may know, mobile wallets allow customers to pay at store checkouts with a tap or wave of their smartphones. In our recent Consumer Pulse study of 1,500 smartphone users, we learned that half are unaware of Mobile Wallets.
To drive adoption, retailers and technology providers will need to overcome a lack of awareness and fear of new technology, all while offering a clear advantage over more traditional payment methods. As shown below, loyalty programs provide a key leverage point to drive Mobile Wallet adoption.
Click to see larger version
Download our latest report on the Barriers and Opportunities for Mobile Wallet and learn more about what will drive (and block) adoption, and who has the advantage as we enter the next leg of the mobile wallet race.
Judy is VP of CMB's Travel & Entertainment practice and loves collaborating with clients on driving customer loyalty. She's the mom of two teens and the wife of an oyster farmer. Follow Judy on Twitter at @Judy_LC