Mike McGuire is the Vice President of Research in Gartner for Marketing Leaders which specializes in mobile marketing, guiding digital marketers on how context, community, location and time converge on a consumer’s mobile device to change the relationship between customers, prospects and brands. He is responsible for the mobile marketing research agenda and also covers the online music segment specifically, digital distribution and also looks after Gartner’s coverage of legal and regulatory issues that affect media companies.

How to get this week’s and past podcast episodes:

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Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:

• 01:12: As VP of Research, Mike enumerates the areas he focuses on in the mobile marketing agenda. This includes their marketing team’s dedication on mobile marketing research. In here, they zoom in on the breadth and depth of the tools and techniques which are important to mobile marketing.
• 02:55: Mike’s definition of how context, community, location and time are changing the relationship between the consumer and the brands. He also provides examples of how you can now do fine-grained distinctions from the cues derived from data gathered by mobile technology and change user experience leverage on this information.
• 06:46: With the massive push towards mobile, we discuss where a brand can start and how they can pull in contextual data to use for a certain return to justify investment.
• 13:51: If there is an opportunity for unique mobile engagement but a company that missed the boat in terms of being mobile first, should the company start with being mobile responsive/mobile friendly or invest more in mobile engagement? Mike devotes time in discussing why, since becoming a mobile responsive site isn’t a flip of a switch; the next big investment of a company should be towards being one.
• 21:09: The exciting things which Mike thinks are coming next including the extreme line of convenience which voice interfaces and the notion of virtual private assistants can possibly bring. We add in the positive and potential negative of VPAs and how it will affect brands and products.

Rapid Fire Questions

• What is your definition of innovation?

Polyurethane foam and neoprene wetsuits.

• Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why?

25% idea, 75% execution. What turned Apple around was the focus on execution and not just pure innovation and ideas.

• What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far?

That inertia is a really hard thing to overcome. I’m not an advocate of going towards the bright and shiny object but inertia is really a hard force to deal with.

• What is your favorite business book?

Insanely Simple by Ken Segall

• What is your favorite digital resource?

Ars Technica

Wikipedia

Bruce Schneier

• What is your favorite app?

Live Nation

The Wall Street Journal

• What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about?

We are exploring how organization and marketing teams are focused around mobile. We are seeing in our research that mobile marketing is increasingly becoming a shared responsibility within marketing organizations. This is good but can also be potentially negative because, as the old adage goes, if it’s everybody’s responsibility, it’s nobody’s responsibility.