Mobile Payments: What’s the freakin’ hold-up?
For the last couple of years, mobile payments have been a holy grail for tech companies, financial service providers, and marketers. Yet, do you know anyone who’s actually making them? I use my phone for a lot of things—watching videos, extending car rentals, tweeting minutiae—but paying for my convenience store purchases is not one of them. And I am a noted smartphone addict (well, “noted” among friends and family, at least). Most people aren’t even excited about the idea. Even among 18 to 34 year-olds, 74% are not at all or not very interested in mobile wallet technology. So what’s the barrier?
Last month, eMarketer published “Mobile Payments: Moving Closer to a World without Wallets”, which surveyed the mobile payment landscape and gave us some interesting insights into why consumers aren’t yet chomping at the bit for a wallet-phone and how they think marketers and technologists will overcome that. eMarketer pinpointed a major fear inhibiting widespread mobile payment adoption: consumer concern about data privacy and fraud.
And how will marketers get them over this fear? Apparently, by emphasizing not just convenience, but also the “benefit” of targeted offers. Quoth eMarketer: “Because each of the systems proposed will entail gathering data about what, where, when and how a consumer buys, the possibilities for accurately targeted offers and discounts are huge.” And this is supposed to entice consumers into using it?
Let’s just say I’m skeptical.
Please, marketers, advertise to me. I beg you
The convenience factor I can’t deny. Though with a number of the different mobile payment options eMarketer discusses, inputting a PIN is necessary, so it’s not quite tap-and-go and thus not that much faster than a debit or credit card.
But the idea that marketers are going to change consumers’ minds about the dangers of information-sharing and data-mining by showing them offers, discounts, and deals seems terribly optimistic. Oh hey, folks? You’re freaked out by how much access to your private information and shopping habits we might have? Let’s prove how much data we’re mining by sending you advertising that is obviously based on your personal mobile purchasing behavior and use! To make an analogy that might verge into hyperbole, this is like a woman being afraid that a man might be stalking her, and the potential-stalker responding by saying “I know, I’ll buy her favourite flowers and her favourite chocolates and some shoes and underwear in her size and she’ll totally love me.”
I think marketers might be getting a little tunnel vision, due to our immersion in the business. We need to take a step back and consider things from a consumer perspective. The average person, even the average iPhone user (iOS sees a 0.78% click-through rate on ads, higher than Android or Blackberry), rarely thinks of marketing messages as a benefit. They’re a side effect of media use. Sometimes a good one, on the less-frequent occasion when an ad makes you laugh or shows you something you want to see or helps you out. But often just another piece of white noise to be almost unconsciously ignored.
Of course, we’ll still advertise
I’m not saying, let’s not send people targeted messaging if and when mobile payments start to really take off. What I am saying is, let’s not pretend that “targeted messaging” is really perceived by the consumer to be a benefit. Let’s focus on creating real consumer benefits, and let targeted messaging stay behind-the-scenes as a business objective.
Because then maybe people will actually start to adopt mobile payments, and it will hit critical mass, and I can start hitting the town with only my phone in my pocket. I’m sick of carrying a purse.
