Walmart is adding new augmented reality tools to its app to make the site easier to shop -- and help it win more sales in the upcoming holiday quarter.

The first, 'View in your home,' lets users see potential home furnishing and décor purchases in their living space. It recognizes walls and includes haptic feedback, ensuring shoppers can see what the purchase looks like and that it fits.

Shoppers feel the vibrations as they move the 3D models around their homes, stopping them from dragging items past the room's boundaries, making the experience more real.

Compared to early AR efforts, it's got improved realism and lighting.

"We've also turned it on for TVs," says Brock McKeel, senior vice president of site experience, "and we're excited about the results we're seeing there."

And as the retailer looks for new categories to introduce that technology, it's hoping to "allow users to have some fun with it, making sure it's personalized to them, that they can see what they're shopping for in their space."

Part of the challenge of such add-ons is that while retailers have been experimenting with AR for years, the experience has often been clunky, slow and unrewarding.

McKeel tells Marketing Daily these latest introductions are based on extensive testing and customer feedback.

"We put the customer in the center of everything we do and integrate their feedback, streamlining their experience."

The main goal is speed. "We want to make shopping faster, finding ways to make shopping more engaging and personalized."

From there, "the 'Buy Now’ feature gets them through the checkout as fast as possible, onto the next moment in that customer's busy life."

The new AR tools also aim to inspire confidence about purchases, especially high-demand items. "We want it to be super easy for them to see, making sure it feels good and looks good in their home. When it arrives, we want it to meet their expectations."

AR also enables new in-store experiences, allowing customers to point their mobile device camera at a shelf, using the app, to learn more about the item. Eventually, it may also let users know if coupons are available for that item. 

Walmart has also recently expanded its virtual try-on functions for apparel.

McKeel says future add-ons will come from "getting more customer feedback and finding those moments where we can interact with them, saving them time. We want to make the experience as seamless as possible, especially during the holidays."

The more consumers enjoy it, he says, "the more we think they'll continue to come back for us, not only on these items but for other experiences that we're bringing to life."

Marketing and sales (and by extension, email) are far down the list for AI deployment by  mobile providers, according to Artificial Intelligence: Charting the Way Forward for AI, a global study written by Heavy Reading, sponsored by Coresite and Ericsson. 

Only 32% of mobile network businesses have deployed AI for marketing. Another 25% are bringing it on within one year, while 39% are investigating it and 8% have no plans.  

But 42% have deployed AI for customer care, and 27% will do so within a year. And 42% have brought it on for IT and cloud operations, with 31% expecting to do so in the next 12 months.  

Overall, 82% expect their AI use to increase over the next five years to enhance the customer experience, accelerate innovation, increase revenue generation and decrease churn.

What’s more, the three top benefits of AI for mobile service providers are improving customer experience and limiting churn (40%), improving network and/or IT performance (39%), and driving innovation and revenue for new business (37%).

Of course, 64% of these providers lack a single company strategy for AI, while 45% have different strategies for different parts of the organization.  

One caveat: Only 84 service providers were surveyed for this study, although they do represent a specialized sample.  

Of those polled, 76% work for network operators, including 39% who work for converged operators (those with both fixed and mobile service) 30% for mobile operators and 7% for fixed network operators.  

Companies with revenues of less than $5 billion are more beset with challenges than larger firms.  

For instance, internal collaboration was cited as an issue by 44% of the larger firms in this set, versus 25% of the smaller ones.  

However, 37% of the smaller companies complain that costs for development and deployment are too high, compared to 19% of the larger organizations.  

Data privacy was listed by 22% of larger respondents and 32% of the smaller ones.

On a positive note, here are what companies see as the potential benefits of AI over the next five years (each respondent was asked to select three):  

• Improve customer experience and limit churn — 40% 
• Improve performance of network and/or IT — 39% 
• Drive innovation and revenue for new business — 37% 
• Savings in network and IT operations (opex) — 36%
• Savings for network and IT planning (capex) — 30%
• Improve product development and offerings — 21%
• Improve security — 20% 
• Improve IoT complexity — 20% 
• Lower customer service costs — 13% 
• As a revenue generator for existing business — 13%
• Improve energy efficiency — 13%

The malicious actors who breached Twilio’s security in July were also behind a smaller incident in June.  

These cyber criminals sent hundreds of smishing text messages to the mobile phones of current and former Twilio employees, Twilio says in a blog post.

In addition, they created fake Okta login pages, using such domains as twilio-sso.com, twilio.net, twilio.org, sendgrid-okta.org, twilio-okta.net, and twilio-okta.com. 

The result: Some Twilio employees entered their credentials on these fake pages. 

“The malicious actors then used the credentials of these Twilio employees to access internal Twilio administrative tools and applications to access certain customer information, which we have detailed in previous blog posts on the incident,” the post says. 

But only 209 users had their accounts impacted by the incident, the company adds. And there is no evidence that the threat actors accessed “Twilio customers’ console account credentials, authentication tokens or API keys,” it adds.

The company also concluded that the same malicious actors were behind the June incident, in which a Twilio employee was “socially engineered through voice phishing (or “vishing”) to provide their credentials, and the malicious actor was able to access customer contact information information for a limited number of customers.” 

Twilio, parent of the SendGrid email service, has taken these actions: 

- Resetting credentials of the compromised Twilio employee user accounts;

- Revoking all active sessions associated with the compromise of Okta-integrated apps 

- Blocking all indicators of compromise associated with the attack

- Initiating takedown requests of the fake Twilio domains.

Nearly a third (30%) of U.S. consumers say they’ve dropped a subscription-based video-on-demand service in the past 12 months, while 25% say they’ve added a free ad-supported subscription service (FAST), according to a new survey from LG Ads Solutions, the advertising arm of the smart TV manufacturer.

Ninety-three percent reported having access to CTV. 

Netflix was the most-reported subscription, at 72%, followed by Amazon Prime Video (59%), Disney+ (52%), Hulu (49%) and HBO Max (42%).

The survey, conducted in September with 773 U.S. respondents representative of the U.S. population as a whole, also found 31% reporting that they expect to remove at least one SVOD, and 23% expecting to add at least one FAST, in the next 12 months. 

Three quarters 76% agreed that they will accept ads in return for cheaper subscriptions; 80% said they already use some version of ad-supported CTV; and 67% agreed that they prefer streaming free video with ads over paying for a subscription. 

Nearly a quarter (21%) report watching less linear TV than 12 months ago. 

Asked what actions they had taken in the past 12 months after seeing streamed ads, about half said they have searched for a product, 48% said they’d visited a product website, 33% had talked about a product, 23% visited a store, and 20% actually purchased (chart top of page). 

Three quarters (76%) agreed that they prefer ads that are relevant to their interests, and 65% that they prefer ads relevant to the content being watched. 

Nearly half agreed that streaming ads are more relevant than linear ads, and more than a third agreed that they pay more attention to streaming ads.

Nearly all (96%) say they sometimes use a mobile phone or laptop when watching TV, and 30% said they “always” multitask. 

Eighty percent said that the living room TV is their primary TV. 

Large majorities said that they prefer watching movies, sports and TV shows on TVs as opposed to mobile phones. 

The exception was social video, where 57% overall prefer viewing on the mobile screen. But even there, in homes with kids, a majority (47%) prefer TVs to mobile.

American teenagers who live with their married biological parents spend about nine hours a day on digital media, compared with 11 hours for youths in non-intact families, according to a study by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute

In the survey, 43% of teens in intact families …

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Remember Linda Blair from The Exorcist?

If you saw the movie, how could you forget, right? She played Regan MacNeil, the poor little girl possessed by the devil, who at one point spews a gusher of green vomit at a priest trying to un-demonize her. She won a Golden Globe for the performance and was nominated for an Oscar (best supporting actress.) These days Blair is devoting as much time to animal activism as acting. 

Now she’s in a new ad for Mint Mobile that also features projectile vomiting.

But in the ad, timed to Halloween, Blair is neither possessed nor vomiting. She has a measure of protection from downright shocking and evil phone bills because she’s a Mint Mobile subscriber. At least that appears to be the ad’s message.

But her neighbor is not so lucky.

Have a look here if you dare.

And of course, Happy Halloween.

Factoreal is offering a customer engagement platform that it says can help SMBs deliver hyper-personalized consumer experiences that increase ROI across online, on-site, social, and mobile channels.

The announcement comes at a time when many marketers are struggling to connect with their customers and meet higher expectations with fewer resources. 

The goal is to “put new tools into the hands of small and medium businesses so they can evolve from piecemeal marketing to a rich customer engagement platform that’s affordable and simple to use, yet powerful enough to scale as they grow their business,” says Aditya Dhruva, CEO of Factoreal.

The firm points to Futurum research showing that 90% of companies feel they need better tools to track customer journeys. 

Factoreal’s customer engagement platform features email and text automation, social media and display ad management, web and mobile push notifications, machine --learning insights, customer journey automation, segmentation and audience building, and much more, the firm says.

The new enhancements include a simplified user experience, prebuilt campaigns and goal-based, guided templates (aka Journey Wizard).

One user of Factoreal’s technology is Steve DeLay, owner of the Macon Bacon and Florence Flamingos baseball teams.

“Factoreal’s combination of email, texting, and social media tracking all on one platform" was exactly what the company was looking for to drive ticket sales and increase social media engagement, DeLay says. 

Apple’s focus on the latest release of its Watch and related apps announced in September points to fitness, health, and wellbeing, proving that services and subscriptions can offset any revenue declines or slowdowns for hardware.

The company on Friday released a 30-second spot on YouTube based on Apple Fitness+, which launched last week. It shows that people can exercise anywhere using the Apple Fitness+ app as long as they have an iPhone.

“All you need is iPhone to subscribe and access thousands of video and audio workouts — everything from HIIT to Yoga, and guided meditations,” according to Apple. “Take it further with personalized metrics from Apple Watch. Find it in the Fitness app on iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.”

Images take the viewer from a home gym to courtyard, public park, and work area.

The ad highlights the iOS 16.1 feature that allows iPhone users to access and use the subscription service without an Apple Watch.

Apple Watch has been the device in which users can track workouts, with fitness information collected by the Apple Watch. The latest version of the operating system allows Apple to let ‌iPhone‌ owners without an Apple Watch participate in the workouts on their ‌iPhone‌.

Earlier this month, Apple also launched a spot for the Apple Watch Ultra called Call To The Wild. The Apple Watch Ultra has a titanium case with crips display, customizable Action button, water resistant 100m and three specialized bands made for athletes and adventurers.

Apple on Thursday reported revenue and profit that topped Wall Street targets, despite its grim holiday forecast predicting a slowdown. The company said revenue growth would fall below 8% in the December quarter but did not go into details.

iPhone sales set a record for the September quarter, up 10% compared with the prior year's quarter and exceeded the company's forecast.

Apple reported having about 900 million paying subscribers to its services, up from 860 million in the previous quarter. The company said that paid accounts are growing faster than transacting accounts, so the penetration of paid accounts is increasing.

Services in the quarter recorded revenue of $19.2 billion.

"We have a great subscription business, 900 million paid subs now on the platform and growing very fast,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the company's Q3 2022 earnings call. “We doubled in 3 years. This is the part that is really interesting to us because we really believe that the engine for services growth is there, foreign exchange is a temporary thing and the fundamentals are very good,"

Marketers may be under-using some types of connected TV (CTV) platforms and content genres, according to a new survey commissioned by mobile marketing analytics and attribution platform AppsFlyer.

The survey, conducted in August and September by Global Surveyz Research, spanned two groups: 200 director/C-suite marketing/martech executives from gaming, retail and fintech companies, and 500 consumers between 26 and 50 who watch CTV. Respondents in both groups were from North America, Europe and APAC, with 24% of advertisers and 36% of consumers from the U.S. The marketers asked to participate have all built mobile apps and have run (64%), or plan to run (36%), CTV campaigns to drive mobile conversions. They were recruited through a global BtoB research panel and invited to respond via email.

Marketers were asked which streaming device brands they advertise on currently and which they plan to advertise on, and consumers were asked which devices they use to watch CTV.

Based on consumers’ reported usage, CTV advertising investments within this group of marketers, at least, appear to be somewhat over-weighted to smart TVs and under-weighted to gaming consoles such as Playstation and Xbox. (Chart top of page.)

Additionally, these marketers’ investments by content genre do not necessarily align with the proportions of consumers watching  the categories.

For example, 64% are targeting sports and fitness, while only 42% of consumers report watching sports. In the other direction, 62% of consumers report watching documentary content, but just 26% of marketers reported targeting that content.

The marketers’ most-cited reasons for using CTV were reaching new audiences (73%), increasing engagement levels (73%) and driving higher lifetime value (50%).

CTV’s reported share of overall ad budgets for 2022 averaged 11.3%, with marketers planning to up that to 16.3%, on average, next year.

The top KPIs that brands aim to improve when advertising on CTV are return on advertising spend (ROAS), lifetime value (LTV) and retention. The top KPIs among those with the highest percentages (15%+) of advertising budgets already allocated toward CTV are cost per install (CPI), ROAS and LTV.

Interestingly, although the advertisers surveyed are marketers of mobile apps, nearly all of them (except 2%) indicated that they believe that ad spend in CTV will eventually surpass spend in mobile. Thirty-seven percent think that will happen within three to five years, 25% within two to three years, and 36% predict it will happen “one day.”

Queried about use of QR codes, 38% of marketers reported that the codes work well for driving mobile app installs, and 26% said they don’t perform well. Another 33% indicated willingness to test the codes.

Consumer CTV Behaviors/Perceptions

The consumer sample was split about evenly by age (51% under 42, 49% over 42) and gender (50/50).

Eighty percent report watching CTV on TVs, 70% on mobile phones, 46% on desktop/laptop and 36% on tablet.

Probed on advertising attitudes,14% said they don’t want to see any ads on CTV, 30% said ads “don’t bother” them, 41% said it depends on the cost of the content/service, and 15% said it depends on the amount of ads.

Asked what would stop them from watching CTV, 39% cited “too many ads,” 20% privacy-related issues, and 12% “non-relevant ads,” while 6% said nothing would stop them from watching it.

On average, consumers said they’re fine with watching 1.7 ads within 30 minutes of content. But if the ads are relevant, this sample of consumers claim they would be willing to watch 5.8 ads on average during that short viewing timeframe.

On average, consumers reported watching 5.3 hours of streaming content on CTV per week. In North America, the average is 11% higher, at 5.9 weekly hours.

Forty percent overall overall (and 50% in North America) said they’ve downloaded mobile apps after seeing ads for them on CTV.

More than half said they are quite likely (40%) or very likely (13%) to do this using QR codes, versus 28% and 19%, respectively, saying that they are not very likely or not at all likely to do so.