Wisdom.Applied Wednesday: Fortunes, Failures and Modern Mobile Phones

Fifty-six percent of Americans carry around phones with more computing power than the machines used to send men to the moon in 1969. Technology has seeped into every aspect and element of our lives as it progresses to be more efficient, smaller and more users friendly. Marketers have found countless ways to fit emerging technology into their marketing strategies, which has both entertained and excited us, but sometimes they have risked our financial security. This Wisdom.Applied Wednesday, let’s take a look at some examples of technology impacting our lives in big and small ways.

LG Sponsored Oscar Selfies

At this past Sunday’s Academy Awards, Ellen DeGeneres, the evening’s host, took a series of selfies throughout the show, one of them notably breaking the twitter record for most retweets in a half hour. The host snapped two selfies live: one of her looking at the audience and another with perhaps the biggest group of A-listers to ever be featured in a selfie. While backstage, the host snapped several more; however, these selfies were a little different: onstage, Ellen used her Samsung Galaxy Note 3, offstage, Ellen used her iPhone. So could one of the most famous selfies of all time be a clever product placement? While DeGeneres could certainly have multiple phones, the back-and-forth usage seems a little far fetched. After all, the selfies turned out great, but how much positive association can the brand receive if the endorser continues to switch to its competitor? Either way, placing such a simple yet powerful piece of technology in front of an audience that large is certainly a win for Samsung. 

CarPlay IOS Integration

Apple announced that its newest feature CarPlay is now available in select luxury cars (presently Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo), and will soon be expanded to other car manufacturers (BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai and Nissan, to name a few). This technology is an advancement of the prototype “iOS in the Car” and it mirrors the Apple TV product development, which has grown to be a billion-dollar product. CarPlay offers users a more “safe, fun way” to integrate phone usage – for calls, messaging navigation and music – into the driving experience, with a button on the steering wheel connecting the driver directly with Siri. An update to the iOS (and a compatible car) are all that’s needed to integrate this Apple experience behind the wheel.

SSL Breech

Recently, a flaw in the coding of the iOS operating system brought to light a group of hackers who have become privy to all browsing and sensitive information displayed on mobile Internet–even on pages with an SSL certificate. Apple has since released an update to its mobile operating system that will patch the hole leaving the SSL vulnerable to hackers, but sources close to the company imply that the breach of security may be more extensive than just one software update.

As we’ve become more and more dependent on mobile devices for browsing and buying on the go, security is a growing concern. Reports of ISP and certain websites (Facebook) tracking and distributing information about consumers and their habits to marketers, as well as breeches of retail giant’s security systems, are causing consumers to second guess the trust they place in organizations. Marketers rely on using smartphones as a part of their marketing strategies, whether to sell phones themselves, use integration features to entice heavy phone users or push to mobile marketing and purchasing. Smartphones are going to be a part of the communication and business stream for a long time to come, bringing both fortunes and misfortunes for marketers and consumers.

Cover Photo Source: Feng Yu

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://wpmaster.sjadv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Our-Space-Mary-Bio-Pic.png[/author_image] [author_info]Mary is an Assistant Account Executive at SJG. She earned her BA in Communication from the University of Evansville in 2013. In her spare time, when she’s not engulfing novels in a coffee shop, Mary feels most at home celebrating life and love with her family and friends, and visiting the streets of Paris in her dreams. [/author_info] [/author]