Tap: Unlocking the Mobile Economy

by Anindya Ghose

How the smartphone can become a personal concierge (not a stalker) in the mobile marketing revolution of smarter companies, value-seeking consumers, and curated offers. Consumers create a data trail by tapping their phones; businesses can tap into this trail to harness the power of the more than three trillion dollar mobile economy. According to Anindya Ghose, a global authority on the mobile economy, this two-way exchange can benefit both customers and businesses. In Tap , Ghose welcomes us to the mobile economy of smartphones, smarter companies, and value-seeking consumers. Drawing on his extensive research in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and on a variety of real-world examples from companies including Alibaba, China Mobile, Coke, Facebook, SK Telecom, Telefónica, and Travelocity, Ghose describes some intriguingly contradictory consumer people seek spontaneity, but they are predictable; they find advertising annoying, but they fear missing out; they value their privacy, but they increasingly use personal data as currency. When mobile advertising is done well, Ghose argues, the smartphone plays the role of a personal concierge—a butler, not a stalker. Ghose identifies nine forces that shape consumer behavior, including time, crowdedness, trajectory, and weather, and he examines these how these forces operate, separately and in combination. With Tap , he highlights the true influence mobile wields over shoppers, the behavioral and economic motivations behind that influence, and the lucrative opportunities it represents. In a world of artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, wearable technologies, smart homes, and the Internet of Things, the future of the mobile economy seems limitless.

Genres: Business, Economics, Nonfiction, Technology

240 pages, Hardcover

Published April 17, 2017

Reviews

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Due to my focus in business, this is up there in the top 25 books I have ever read!
There are so many useful studies and thoughts in here that it's hard to condense them into a review.

That said, even though this is a few years old, the overall premise is not only still relevant but now coming to fruition before our eyes.

Phenomenal book!

[Guthrie C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a strategic view of smartphone’s impact on businesses, specifically the relationship between customers and businesses mediated through smartphone apps and data availability. Written in 2017, much of its predictions have arrived (or have come closer to arriving), yet this isn’t the book’s most compelling content. The best part of this book is its many revealing reviews of well-designed and executed marketing experiments related to smartphones as part of a modern media channel mix. The research results are both inspiring and provide a mental toolkit for brands to execute their own studies to realize the biggest impact smartphones can create in improving their relationships with their customers.

[Beverly Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me understand more about mobile ads as well as the psychology of the consumer. I learned more about distance based ad targeting through this book! The studies conducted were relevant and interesting as well.

One interesting study I recall is how Coca Cola had wanted to build a vending machine that changed prices according to the weather (weather based ad targeting), I thought that was very intriguing and it got me thinking how these different types of ad targeting can be used for my work.

[Rajan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the TAP, The author described the mobile economy and how effective marketing can be done to the consumer. In the world with lot of distractions going on, It's a quite tedious task for the marketers to target a customer. With the effective utilization of data and mobile economy one can target specific set of audience. It also enlist the future areas of research to utilize the mobile economy.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mobile is not only a new channel for marketing, it also enables new kinds of marketing. Ghose explains why and how, with lots of research to back it up

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but verbose and repetitive

[Anwesha Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a good overview of the various possibilities of mobile by marketing, what one can do with various types of data.

[Truong Binh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book provides useful background on mobile commerce before dividing his coverage of the major forces of mobile marketing into nine areas:

- Context
- Location
- Time
- Saliency
- Crowdedness
- Trajectory
- Social Dynamics
- Weather
- Tech Mix

Each area requires a few tactics to improve and try with tests and research. This is a recommendation for marketers but not deeply focus on the UX and CRO

[Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book primarily focused on location based advertising and various related issues such as privacy and having detailed consumer histories in the mobile era. It has some interesting studies.