Google Wallet, ISIS’s biggest rival and frontrunner in the mobile payment race, already has check-out scanners in more than 100,000 retail locations, including the Gap, Office Max, and Walgreens, and many retailers will even offer both ISIS and Google Wallet as mobile payment options. However, there is little word regarding the lack of smartphone support for either system – Google Wallet, for example, is currently available on only four Sprint smartphones.

ISIS’s concrete stake in the race has launched the discussion of the future of mobile payment straight from conjecture into plan-of-attack. Our most recent Potty Posting offers a whole slew of information about the implications of mobile payment for brands and marketers, the technology used, category competitors, and the possibilities of what’s ahead. We’ll continue to track developments in these trends as the push for mobile payment progresses.

But as for now, it’s clear that brands, retailers, and even marketers who aren’t fast enough to keep up with the demand for mobile payment will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage when it comes to leveraging the opportunities it offers. Stay smart about mobile payment by keeping up with the Awesome Blog – we’ve got you covered.

Debit and credit cards are so last year. Checks have all but crossed the line into social taboo. And cash is basically, like, archaic.

Ugh, it’s like retailers don’t even want our money.

But wait! A few days ago, a Pew study found that 65% of surveyed tech critics and stakeholders believe mobile payments will replace cash and credit by 2020.

Even though mobile payment is still in its infancy, it seems like everyone is hopeful about its future, especially when it comes to improving the process with updated technologies.

Unfortunately, good citizens, we have cynics among us – those who worry about things like security, standardization, and the cost of new gadgets.

But fear not. We wouldn’t want you stranded in the Dark Ages of outdated currency. With this handy guide, follow us into the realm of information so you, too, can help welcome this brave new, digital-financial world.

What Is This Sorcery?

Put down the torches and pitchforks, townspeople. Brands that you already know and love have signed on to create promising mobile wallet apps, using these new technologies:

NFC, or Near-Field Communications, allows you to pay simply by waving your mobile phone at an NFC receptor at the register.  RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, is like NFC but can be used at a longer range. And 2D barcodes can even be scanned at the register from a customer’s phone to charge a pre-paid account.

Rather than producing your credit card at every purchase, mobile wallet apps store your financial data and use these technologies to pull it for you automatically, at the point of purchase.

The Google Wallet app, which uses NFC, currently only works with Citi Mastercard and the Google prepaid card, but it does sync with your Google Offers and hopes to soon hold all card types.

Acceptance is liberation. (credit: fullissue.com)

Like Google Wallet, ISIS, a joint venture of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, will also use NFC and will hold credit cards, loyalty cards, and promotions.

PayPal also plans to release its PayPal Wallet app soon. Unlike Google Wallet, it won’t use NFC but will let you change your payment method up to 7 days after you pay.

These apps will soon be able to hold multiple card/account numbers and allow you to choose which account you’d like to charge when you wave your phone at the receptor. They will also have the ability to store coupons, receipts, and past purchase information to facilitate discounts and returns easily.

However, as mentioned earlier, there are dissenters. They wonder if it could be easy for someone to access your bank accounts just by waving their phone near yours (no.) They don’t want to have to buy NFC-enabled phones (they’ll change their minds). And they complain about the lack of standardization in mobile payment technologies (ok, that might be a good point).

How Can Marketers Conjur This Black Magic?

What the dissenters don’t see is that evolving mobile payment platforms are prime real estate for marketers!

Imagine the ease of distributing targeted promotions! Using NFC, mobile wallet apps can already track a consumer’s location and purchase history, allowing brands to send her coupons for the store she’s browsing in or updates on items she frequently purchases.

Think of the social media integration! What if a check-in immediately rewarded her with a coupon loaded to her mobile wallet, and her purchase was discounted automatically at the register? And if she allows Facebook to post which coupons she was receiving, not only would it encourage more check-ins, but it would encourage her friends to adopt the app, too.

Plus, there’s potential to move into other forms of media – MasterCard’s QkR app can pull purchasing information from just about anywhere, including QR codes, TV signals, and the Xbox Kinect. Praise technology of the future!

Say NO to the tyranny of physical currency! Demand your NFC-enabled smartphone today!

(credit: venturebeat.com)

The opportunities of mobile payment are looking promising. While the technologies and full capabilities of the apps are still to be cemented, brands are sure to see significant benefits when the rough edges are smoothed out regarding standardizations and security misperceptions. But, once mobile payment technology is ready for the mainstream, brands can use it to inspire action and usher in the glorious age of mobile finance!

Recently hitting 10 million unique monthly views faster than any standalone site in US history, Pinterest is becoming too big to ignore, especially for brands and marketers. Curious about what this site is and how to utilize it? Check out our new Potty Posting, which takes a look at how brands can use this site to “pinspire” consumer action.

The Ego to Her Id

Do you often find yourself planning a hypothetical wedding, decorating a hypothetical house, or building a hypothetical shoe closet out of items you probably can’t afford?

If so, you might have a Pinterest problem.

At least you’re not alone. Apologies in advance to anyone who’s already familiar with it, but Pinterest is a social media site for users to gather, organize and share things they find on the Internet in a visually-stimulating, digital scrapbook. With over 11 million unique monthly visitors in January and referral traffic equaling that of Google and Twitter, it’s gaining a lot of attention.

“NOOOOOOO!” you exclaim in a fit of rage. “I can’t keep track of all these stupid social networks anymore! What makes this one different?!” Geez, calm down.  Have some pins to help you relax.

A user’s Pinterest boards, or categories in which she “pins” items, are filled with inspirational quotes, entertainment ideas, parenting tips, recipes, decorating palettes, and everything else she can relate to. Even if the user doesn’t have the time, money, or energy to achieve or own all of the cool things she pins, she can still customize her scrapbook so that it becomes a visual representation of her ideal self, or what she would do if she could. Essentially, Pinterest is the organizing, rational helper to her passionate, impulsive instincts – the ego to her id.

In this way, Pinterest is the perfect platform for brands to connect with users. Whether they realize it or not, brands and marketers have been tapping in to the id and ego for decades, convincing consumers to satisfy their impulses by rationalizing those choices for them. That’s why brands have really started taking notice of this new platform. Some active brands on Pinterest, like Chobani yogurt and Gap clothing, post photos of recipe ideas and clothing combos (respectively) to allow users to save the brand as a “maybe someday” wish, without the immediate commitment to buy.

And when these brands trigger her lustful impulse to pin their attractive or delicious products, she shares it with the entire Pinterest community (there are no privacy settings on boards yet), and it guarantees that she’ll recognize it and be more likely to purchase it when she sees it in real life. Plus, on Pinterest, brand content doesn’t come in the form of a sponsored story or a traditional ad – it’s mostly re-pins from other users, which is, essentially, a recommendation of that brand by other community members. This recommendation is invaluable, because every marketer knows that people trust friends and virtual strangers more than advertising.

There’s only one problem: brands have to make it seem like they’re not selling anything. This is easy when it’s other users re-pinning a brand’s content, but with the ability for brands to create their own profiles and boards, the directness of the brand’s self-promotion could make users wary. A user’s boards are really personal – they’re an open exhibition of her philosophies, goals, dreams, and lifestyle. This puts brands at a disadvantage: a Pinterest user is not going to respond very well to impersonal ads and marketing messages taking advantage of the personal information she shares on her boards and cluttering up her ideal-self-collage.

This makes it necessary for brands to use Pinterest’s platform, and the nature of a user’s impulsive id, to do the marketing for them. On Pinterest, images take center stage, so brands should focus on eye-catching photos of their products to encourage re-pinning. Descriptions should be kept short and sweet, with just enough information to warrant a click. An important but often overlooked rule of thumb is to make sure pins are added to the right boards; if a brand offers a great product for a user browsing a “Midnight Snack” board, it’ll be a perfect match.

In addition, since Pinterest doesn’t have an established revenue plan, brands can leverage this user-driven community for creative advertising. For example, Corona could host a “Pin Your Beach” contest based on its “Find Your Beach” campaign, in which users pin images of their perfect getaway and win prizes. Her re-pinning the image, and the next user re-pinning it from her, will ensure a degree of separation that still brings a brand’s image to a user’s board, but without the directness of something that could be considered an advertisement.

The opportunities Pinterest offers brands is enormous, and by getting savvy to the platform and inspiring action in re-pinning, a brand can target a user’s impulsive instincts and ensure its place on her ideal-self-collage.

Meet Pinterest, a social media site for users to gather, organize and share things they find on the internet in a visually-stimulating, digital scrapbook. There are all sorts of things on Pinterest, but the savvy user knows that most of it can be found in categories like decorations, crafts, food, and wedding planning. That’s not too surprising, considering that as of last month, 80% of Pinterest users were women, most between 25 and 34.

People use Pinterest to “pin” things around the web that they identify with, but since so much of it is too expensive for the everyday user to buy, a user’s Pinterest board represents what she would buy, what she would craft, and what she would cook, if she had the time and the means. Essentially, a user’s Pinterest board is a visual representation of her ideal self.

So, how can your brand leverage this site for your romantic Valentine’s Day campaign? Check out your target’s board! She’s already been pinning tablescapes, yummy recipes, baking ideas, and dresses, so you have plenty of information to get to know her personally. Is she pinning in a certain trend, like recipes that include chocolate or cheese? Has she been “liking” pins about fruity cocktails or hot toddies? Has she been re-pinning posts about beauty treatments?

With this information in mind, recognize your brand’s most romantic asset and how couples can use it together. Can your ingredients be used in a homemade dish that even culinary novices can master? Pin it! Does your brand offer an aroma-therapy candle or night-time bubble bath? Pin it! Does your brand’s liquor make the sweetest, more share-able cocktails? Pin it! Yoplait pins delicious dessert recipes featuring its yogurt, and HGTV even has its own Valentine’s Day board full of crafts and other visually loveable items to get your romantic wheels turning.

Remember: for best results, tag your pins correctly, and keep them short, sweet, and eye-catching. By using this great new site to get familiar with your target, your brand can make her Valentine’s Day that much sweeter.

But hashtags weren’t the only form of social media making waves in the coveted Super Bowl ads. Cars.com and Pepsi (among others) used Shazam’s audio-recognition software to promote secret offers, full-length videos and charitable donations. GoDaddy.com’s ad with Danica Patrick used a QR code to send viewers to “too hot for TV” extended content featuring The Pussycat Dolls (for the record, my hubby and a friend watched it and were unimpressed). And in perhaps their most popular spot of the evening, Bud Light’s ad featuring a dog named “Weego” that fetches beer used Facebook to generate awareness for rescue dogs by promising to donate $1 (up to $250,000) to Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation for every “like” Weego receives. Best Buy didn’t actually use any of the noted social media, but instead highlighted several mobile innovators, ranging from the sender of the very first text message to the creator of Instagram.

According to Bluefin Labs, the game generated more than 12 million (and counting) social media comments across sites like Facebook and Twitter, with nearly a million relating to the commercials alone, making Super Bowl XLVI the biggest social media TV event ever, by a wide margin. A perfect example of our Seamless Tech trend, marketers used social media to let users live in the moment and interact with the ads in new ways, without interrupting the moment—that is, the next big play of the game.

Which Super Bowl ad was your favorite?

http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/dont-break-internet

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/SOPA/Blackoutpage

It’s Potty Posting time! Need a refresher on the purpose of the Po

These monthly articles take a humorous, yet informative, approach to emerging cultural trends, new technologies, and innovative marketing tactics. And yes, they’re posted in the Upshot bathrooms, where we know we’ve got a captive audience. Click the image to the right for a PDF of the post and share with your network to build your Klout, duh.

You Know You Make Me Wanna Klout

To over 3500 brands, the world of online social networking is beginning to look a lot like a high school. Cliques are forming, popularity is becoming a tool, Lindsay Lohan is giving high-calorie nutrition bars to the Plastic Queen to sabotage her weight and status…

OK, maybe not that last part. But, when it comes to social media, brands are paying attention to the widening gap between those who matter online and those who don’t. By targeting the people who are most likely to influence others – the ones who inspire the most buzz with their tweets and posts – brands can maximize their reach while putting in minimal cost and effort. In essence, this online popularity contest could be the key to doing word-of-mouth marketing right, and Klout, a social metrics service, was made to do just that.

The aforementioned Plastic Queen, Regina George, owns a silver Lexus and allegedly does car commercials in Japan. She’s also teen royalty. So not only is she pretty popular, she’s also pretty influential. Now, if only there were quantifiable data to tell Mercedes how influential Regina George really is, especially on the topic of cars, so they can give her a free SL550 Roadster in the hopes that she ditches that Lexus and tweets about her new Mercedes.

“My Klout Score is so fetch, I haven’t paid for anything in months!”

Bingo. Klout is a website run by a team of digital engineers, marketers and analysts who have made it possible to quantify a person’s online influence, or ability to drive action on the internet. Taking data from a person’s social networking accounts, Klout measures True Reach (how many people someone influences), Amplification (how much that person influences them), and Network Impact (the influence of the people being influenced), with a single number between 1 and 100 as the result.

No longer is the internet democratic. No longer does everyone’s voice hold equal weight online. And far from being ashamed about being the harbinger of online social inequality, Klout is actually partnering up with thousands of brands to take advantage of it!

Brands have started using Klout to give away free stuff, “Klout Perks,” to the most popular influencers (or social networking users) in their fields and provide them with a good experience or a good product so they can tweet about it to their friends. For example, HP offered high-scoring film influencers an HP laptop pre-loaded with films from Cinequest film festival, and Audi invited top design, technology and luxury influencers to test drive their new 2011 Audi A8 at exclusive events.

Yeah, but does it work? Influencers who receive Perks aren’t required to post positive things about the brand. They’re not even required to post anything at all.

To ensure that giving away Perks will be worth a company’s expense, Klout has begun to up the demand and cool factor of a high Score and the Perks that come with it. When Spotify, a wildly popular music-streaming service, first came out in 2008, Klout gave free account access to only some of its high-scorers before Spotify was even released in the United States. In addition, some special events, like the annual after-hours shopping extravaganza, Fashion’s Night Out, require a Klout Score of over 40 points in order to attend. This not only ensures the exclusivity and coolness of the Perk, but the honor of having a high Score as well.

And it has definitely been working for a ton of brands. Like Virgin America, who offered only 120 free flights to top travel influencers, which generated over 4,600 tweets and, subsequently, led to over 7.4 million impressions and coverage in top blogs and news outlets. And, for a very small price, that’s good business.

But it hasn’t just been working for brands. While Klout’s expertise in generating buzz has been great for building brands’ reputations, it’s also been building their own. People have been putting their Score on their resume and many competitors and copycats have begun to emerge, like PeerIndex , Twitter Grader and, most recently, PeopleBrowsr’s Kred, which will up your Kred based on real-life achievements like degrees and awards.

“People have even started attaching it to their wardrobes. Ladies love it.”

And while there certainly are downsides for the people being judged on their Score, there are also downsides for brands. How does a brand do damage control when a top influencer receives a product, hates it, and blasts the company on Twitter? The best response is to turn it positive – using Klout, brands can decide which reviews they can ignore and which they need to address. 70% of companies ignore their customer complaints on Twitter, yet nearly half of Twitter complainants expect the company to read them. Plus, 83% of complainants on Twitter who have received a reply either liked or loved the fact that the company responded.  So, when a brand comes across a bad review from a top influencer, they should see it as a great PR opportunity.

While the concept of Klout is certainly proving to be integral to brand marketing, its underlying foundation is nothing new. They’ve recognized social group behaviors and separated the popular from the ordinary, but by mathematically proving the amount of a person’s popularity, Klout is able to help brands single out the people who will, hopefully, inspire action and do a good chunk of their marketing for them. And therein lies the innovation:  realizing the marketing potential of good ol’ fashioned cliquishness brought into the modern, digital age.

Want another good Klout read? Take a gander at OMG! Your Klout is Showing! posted earlier this year by Jaclyn Gordyan.

Many hotels are already offering experience-based rewards in their loyalty programs and enhanced concierge services to assist guests with discovering the world outside of the hotel. Instead of stockpiling points for a free night’s stay, members of these programs can earn cultural activities, like going backstage before a performance at the Peking Opera or spending the day with a professional bullfighter. Some loyalty programs even offer express experiences specifically designed for business travelers who may only have an hour or two to spare but who still want to go home with at least one memorable insight into the destination they visited.

Additionally, several startups have recently emerged to meet the wanderlusty needs of travelers by offering trip curation tools, local knowledge and a much-needed dose of personalization to the online trip planning process.

Launched in April, Vayable connects travelers with tour guides offering unique and intimate local experiences, like scouting Montmartre street art in Paris or visiting sample sales in NYC with a fashion insider. By allowing these independent guides to sell their local knowledge, Vayable is redefining the tour and activity segment of the travel market.

And then there’s Fortnighter, also launched this year, which provides (for a fee) made-to-order itineraries from professional travel writers based on the user’s dates of travel, interests and budget. Fortnighter brings currency, personalization and expert knowledge to the travel planning table and allows users to steer clear of the unreliability of algorithms and user reviews.

A slew of other services have also cropped up recently. All of this suggests that the travel experience marketplace is heating up, and there appears to be room for more. When looking across the dreaming, researching, booking, experiencing and sharing travel cycle, what kind of product or service can you offer that will assist travelers with collecting those sought-after experiences? How do you evoke the moments that inspire us when we travel? How do you help deliver more authentic travel experiences?

We love cheat sheets at Upshot, and make a point of creating them whenever possible. At my recent “Content Marketing Lunch-n-Learn” I closed with the following best practices. Planning a campaign, promotion, or marketing vehicle where content plays a role? The following will help keep you on course and hopefully provide some food for thought:

1. Think Long Term. How can we use this opportunity to create a marketing platform we can leverage ongoing?
2. Be Resourceful. What assets do we already own that can be repurposed, revamped or redone? Is there public data or an API (social networks, etc.) we can use? What media partnerships could be forged with brands that already have content our consumers want?
3. Stay Relevant. What can we create that consumers will find of value? What will put a smile on their face or change their lives for the better?
4. Treat it like an Investment. Marketing-related content we create or generate via our users is an investment in assets we can reuse and repurpose as our marketing efforts evolve.
5. Be Patient! Payoffs are not always immediate.
6. Fill Gaps in the Niche. What’s missing and what are people demanding?
7. Be Clever and get More Play. Appear non-competitive and offer something the big guys don’t have—done right, the competitors will link to your content!
8. Don’t half-ass it. Content marketing works—that’s why 6 out of 10 marketers increased their content marketing budgets last year. It’s only going to get more crowded and cream rises to the top.
9. Understand Your Targets. If you’re creating content for specific types of consumers, then you better understand their lifestyles. If not, hire someone who does to create the strategy.
10. Have Fun, be Creative! Content marketing is fun and an opportunity to be creative in countless ways. Embrace it!

Want this list in portable format? Download it here.

Here’s their exact copy for the search:

Think you are the Next BIG Thing?

Calling curvy ladies everywhere! Our best-selling Disco Pant (and around 10 other sexy styles) are now available in size XL, for those of us who need a little extra wiggle room where it counts. We’re looking for fresh faces (and curvaceous bods) to fill these babies out. If you think you’ve got what it takes to be the next XLent model, send us photos of you and your junk to back it up.

Just send us two recent photographs of yourself, one that clearly shows your face and one of your body. We’ll select a winner to be flown out to our Los Angeles headquarters to star in your own bootylicious photoshoot. Runners up will win an enviable assortment of our favorite new styles in XL!

Show us what you’re workin’ with!

As a copywriter and as a woman, there are just so many things wrong with the wording of this campaign, including but not limited to the fact that not once do they use a positive or real adjective to describe plus-sized women. As one irate blogger says, it’s just “jokey, made up words like ‘junk’ and ‘XLent.’ Nothing that denotes attractiveness without a crude reference to size.”

Essentially, it was hard for me to take this campaign seriously, and apparently, I’m not the only one.

To Nancy Upton, a Dallas-based blogger, the contest was one big fat insult. “The puns, the insulting, giggly tones, and the over-used euphemisms for fat that were scattered throughout the campaign’s solicitation began to crystallize an opinion in my mind. How offensive the campaign was,” Upton wrote in a post on the Daily Beast. To Upton, “The company was co-opting the mantra of plus-size empowerment and glazing it with its unmistakable brand of female objectification.”

And not only did her words strike a chord with American Apparel’s Creative Director, Iris Alonza, so did the spoof photos she submitted to the contest. Upton teamed up with friend Shannon Skloss to take modeling pictures of her devouring fried chicken in a pool, soaking in a bath of ranch dressing, smearing an entire pie on her face and body, and other satirical situations.

Photo credit: Shannon Skloss

See Upton’s full submission here.

The irony here is that Nancy Upton won the contest, at least in popularity, but she won’t be modeling for the company anytime soon. The brand hasn’t announced their official winner, but in a scathing response to Upton, Alonza wrote:

“Oh—and regarding winning the contest, while you were clearly the popular choice, we have decided to award the prizes to other contestants that we feel truly exemplify the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company.”

What she meant to say was, “We decided to pick a winner who already likes our brand in hopes that she will just sit there on her ‘full-sized fanny’ and look pretty, er…I mean, XLent.”

So what can we learn from all this not-so-XLent publicity that the “Next BIG Thing” campaign has garnered for American Apparel? To put it simply, tone is everything. And for a company who’s built their brand with what some have labeled as misogynist advertising, they probably should have steered clear of their “Hey, girl, we get you!” tone, especially for a target that’s been purposely excluded up until now.

*Made-up statistic pulled out of thin air to add some color to this post
**American Apparel (AA) threatened to file bankruptcy this year. With the belts of so many Americans loosening, maybe AA decided it was time to expand…literally.