Email senders may soon have their messages read by iOS users driving cars. Microsoft’s new Outlook for iOS Version 2.45 (20122801) includes a Try Car Mode, along with a Smart Compose feature, the firm announced this week. 

Microsoft describes the Car Mode as “a full screen experience designed to improve the PME experience for onboarded users while driving.”  

The company adds that the Car mode auto launches when auto play is turned on, and that users must open Outlook and not do anything for four seconds—the car mode then launches automatically. 

The Smart Compose feature suggests words and phrases for iOD users.

T-Mobile has closed a data breach that exposed phone numbers and possibly diagnostic metrics, following an earlier leak that let out email addresses and other information, according to media reports and the company. 

 “We are reaching out to let you know about a security incident we recently identified and quickly shut down that may have impacted some of your T-Mobile account information,” Matt Staneff, chief marketing officer of T-Mobile USA, said in a message sent to customers. 

The statement continues, “The data accessed did not include names on the account, physical or email addresses, financial data, credit card information, social security numbers, tax ID, passwords, or PINs.”

The breach affected less than 0.2% of T-Mobile customers, but that could add up to 200,000 people, based on a total customer count of roughly 100 million, Bleeping Computer reports. 

Despite the limited impact, Android Policecalled the breach “the cherry on top of this stupid sundae.” 

It adds that “T-Mobile has made itself out to be a frequent victim as it has been affected by at least one big attack every year.”

Moreover, the incident may not be as benign as it seems.

“Although personal information like names and addresses were not accessed, call diagnostic metrics were,” Android Headlines alleges.  

Staneff notes that the exposed data included “phone number, number of lines subscribed to on your account and, in some cases, call-related information collected as part of the normal operation of your wireless service.”

The hackers accessed customer proprietary network information (CPN0, as defined by the Federal Communications Commission), Staneff states.

He continues that the company worked with cyber security experts to stop the “malicious, unauthorized access to some information related to your T-mobile account,” and has notified law enforcement. 

In March, T-Mobile acknowledged a data breach that exposed employee email addresses that could be used to access customer names and other information, Android Headlines adds. 

As someone who has spent decades in media planning and buying, Richard Whitman’s recent article on Magna’s new study, "Does Every Second Count? Planning Ad Lengths Across Platforms" is interesting on several fronts.

While the Magna study looks exclusively at :06’s vs :15’s on mobile and PCs, ultimately recommending that media planners should adjust ad length to platform, length of programming and ad objective, those of us who work with clients on linear television have known for many years that running short-form TV ads in the form of 10 second spots is highly effective and efficient.  

Unfortunately, these ad units continue to be under-utilized in what, if planned and bought correctly, can be a strategic and efficient use of a client's resources, helping them build reach quickly, and more importantly, frequently saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

For example, Magna’s study finds that the :06 unit is less effective than the :15 on FEP (full-episode player), or long-form content. In our experience, with client after client, 10-second ads on linear television are highly effective in driving purchase decisions. In fact, they have led to up to 30% or more increases in sales versus a non-advertising period.

So, while we agree with Magna’s findings and Whitman’s reporting, it doesn’t surprise us. Short-form advertising on linear TV has been an effective and cost saving tool of smart advertisers for years and will continue to be even as content and channel distribution continue to expand on new platforms.

Zoom became a verb in 2020. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook will be in better shape next year than most companies. The five are expected to generate "an additional $160 billion in combined revenues, as the world struggles to get past the pandemic.

Amid a pandemic, the online industry — advertising and marketing — moved at warp speed, forming a work-at-home and play-at-home culture that propelled ecommerce and online services, such as video streaming and conferencing.

China shut down manufacturing in July and locked down residents by closing stores and borders, stalling manufacturing and causing a shortage of some products, such as Sony's and Microsoft's game consoles.

On the innovation front, cloud services jumped in acceptance to support ecommerce and streaming video. Consumers faced new realities, like buy more online and pick-up curbside. Restaurants reinvented business models with online ordering and delivery options. Google aided brands, such as L’Oréal, to implement augmented reality to help consumers try on makeup in the colors they love.

What’s in store for 2021? Here are some predictions from experts across the industry.

Verified Reviews, Data Security, Cookieless Standards: Greg Sterling, vice president of insights at Uberall, believes marketplaces, consumer platforms and vertical sites will increasingly turn to verified purchaser review models to combat fraud and review manipulation. Consumers will become more sophisticated and discriminating about data security, privacy and transparency. The advertising industry will standardize around two to three methods for personalization, retargeting and attribution, but Apple’s mandatory permission-to-track rule, taking effect in 2021 and have a materially negative impact on in-app advertising on the iPhone. 

Buy Direct On Google: Ashley Fletcher, vice president of marketing at Adthena, not only believes consumers will begin spending more money on Google, buying direct from brands, he also thinks snippets and rich results will become a bigger focus on its search engine result pages, presenting addition risks for organic search. Today, only paid ads appear higher than snippets, meaning users dedicated to finding organic results have to travel further to reach them. To find success in the evolving search landscape, advertisers need to focus on leaning more heavily on PPC to rise above organic results and ensure on-site microdata works properly as a way to appear above competitors in snippets.

Clouds Are Lifting: Verizon Media’s Iván Markman, Chief Business Officer at Verizon Media, said smartphone use is forecast to account for 50% of global internet traffic in 2022, with nearly 80% of that mobile traffic for video. The deployment of 5G is central to that growth, as greater bandwidth and speeds will trigger greater demand for high-quality video content, services and experiences. To fulfill that demand, content delivery networks become crucial, and demand for CDNs will skyrocket in 2021 as 5G scales further. He also believes email will replace cookies as the debate between open source identity and walled gardens continues.

Share of Search Replaces Share Of Voice: Anand Siddiqui, global vice president of insights and analytics, Captify, thinks the industry will see an evolution in the type of metrics brands used to measure the impact of advertising. For example, volume alone should not be a proxy for intent. He expects share of search to replace share of voice when measuring interest and intent. Share of Search answers “why” and “what happens next” as consumers move further through their purchase journey, giving brands a much more immediate view of the world.

Data-driven TV Becomes Standard: Cathy Oh, global head of marketing and analytics at Samsung Ads, believes that while linear addressable TV never realized its full potential, streaming in just a few short years forged ahead. Streaming has proven its one-to-one reach, and in 2021 the industry will start to see more collaboration around standardized measurement and attribution. TV marketers will prove sales attribution vs. modeling. They will use advanced technology and AI to find new audiences and opportunities that traditional TV can’t support.

Brands Gain Device Options In Which To Advertise: Lenovo’s Dilip Bhatia, vice president of global marketing at Lenovo, says expect to see dual-screen configurations, growing and new folding form factors, such as on-screen keyboard inputs and voice-to-text tools, that are less reliant on a physical keyboard. Bhatia also believes connectivity will break free from WiFi as 5G becomes more accessible, making consumers and workers more independent.

AsA Service (AAS) Business Model: Lakshmi Srinivasan, global head of TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) Interactive, believes companies will expect CMOs to make the digital-first business model work. This is an enormous multi-stakeholder agenda change. They will need to step into the CEO’s shoes to plan and execute. Expect consolidation of in-house efforts and “As A Service" outsourcing across creative agencies, technology and business ops domains. CMOs will prove themselves as CGOs, displaying a new integrated mantra of marketing-led sales and service, as opposed to the traditional approach of marketing as the enabler and sales functioning as the driver.

Increase In Self-Service Models: Melissa Burdick, president of Pacvue, believes the surge in ecommerce shipping and returns will require companies to develop self-service models. The increase in gift cards sold during the holiday season will lead to an immediate shortage of products, increase in production by brands and constrains on fulfillment. Convenience will push the self-service model.

Privacy Becomes Differentiator, For Now: Dan Clarke, president at Intel-backed IntraEdge, believes the California Privacy Rights Act, which passed in November, will have a significant impact on brands as publishers and advertisers. It may result in better advertising by improving the quality and relevance of ads, encouraging all to make privacy requests a prominent part of their consumer interactions.

Be well. Stay safe.

I'll meet you back here in 2021.

Last year at this time, we confidently predicted that there would be a vast increase in AMP and BIMI usage in 2020. 

It’s doubtful that any of this happened. Within weeks of that prophesy, the country was staggering under the weight of the pandemic and an economic downturn. 

What did occur was a mass switch to online shopping, requiring companies to tone up their tech stacks with email marketing software. 

Many of our standard pundits predicted that although they were wrong about the cause. And we're sure we followed their lead. With that in mind, let’s look at the boilerplate predictions of 2019 and see how they will impact 2021.  

The Ecommerce Surge — There’s no doubt that the surge happened -- a recent study shows that 19% of all shopping is now online, compared to  13% last year. And the trend is growing by staggering amounts. 

But it’s not clear what will happen next. Predictions will need to be based on assumptions that may not play out. Will the world be deemed safe from the virus by June, December, or in the year 2025? This will determine when people can carefully return to stores, movie theaters and ballparks. 

Martech Consolidation — This continued at a rapid pace in 2020. In the arena of email marketing, Validity acquired 250ok, following its 2018 purchase of Return Path. Terminus acquired GrowFlare and Ramble. And in the broader realm, Salesforce bought Slack in a $300 billion deal. This trend will continue, although it may be more difficult to negotiate while wearing face masks, or via Zoom.

What we haven’t seen — yet — is a wave of bankruptcies or closures in the email marketing vendor community, unless you include that of DatabaseUSA, which long predated the pandemic. Some firms may take on more venture capital if they can. 

AMP and BIMI — There were several developments during the year. On the downside, SparkPost recently reported that only .03% of firms have adopted BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification), an email security standard that helps brands display a logo in their email subject lines.. But DigiCert and Valimail are partnering to move brands into it, and Google said it was beginning a long-awaited pilot. That means BIMI is being supported by two of the biggest North American free mailbox providers, according to Twilio’s Len Shneyder, with Yahoo first out of the gate.

Expect this creeping progress to continue. 

Then there is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) for Email. Announced by Google in 2018, this provides a new level of interactivity. Consumers don’t have to move to a web page to order or take other actions — they can do this right from the email. But few firms have tried it, due to tight budgets and the pressures the pandemic has placed on staff. However, tools do exist to support dynamic email, and we still have high hopes for it. 

Compliance — The tough new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) took effect on January 1. And in November, citizens of that state approved a ballot measure that went even further: The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA). It mandated several changes, including tougher protections regarding sensitive personal data and consent, while expanding the private right of action for data breaches.

Expect other states to enact similar rules, while the Biden administration may seek national legislation that brings us more in line with Europe’s GDPR. 

With that out of the way, let’s make a couple of personal resolutions for 2021. On the professional front, let's denounce and do what we can to fight the increasing wave of violence as well as the jailing of journalists around the world. This was a sorrowful and frightening year for anyone in this business on any level. 

And on a more positive note, let’s all try to remain safe. You don’t want to wear a mask? Remember the old Jiminy Cricket song:

Spending on mobile apps and games in 2020 had a record-breaking year, surpassing $100 billion for the first time ever in November.

This trend continued through to Christmas, when consumers worldwide spent an estimated $407.6 million -- up 34.5% -- across Apple’s App Store and Google Play, according to preliminary Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates.

In 2019, data shows that Christmas day brought in $303 million in 2019. The 2020 number is nearly 17 points higher than the growth experienced last year, when spending grew 17.7% year-over-year (YoY).

Mobile spending on Christmas comprised 4.5% of the month’s total spend so far, which reached approximately $9 billion globally from December 1 to December 27. The majority of the holiday spending was on mobile games, which climbed 27% from $232.4 million during Christmas 2019 to $295.6 million this year.

Apparently it cost more to get consumers to spend. AppsFlyer earlier this year published a post stating that the cost per app install spiked 30% post-COVID-19 lockdowns, leading to higher spend, despite a drop in non-organic installs.  

The competition for user attention accelerated this year, and with it the cost per install jumped 30% between April and November — a trend that was seen in self-reporting networks and non-SRNs, according to AppsFlyer. Many app marketers tend to look at the app ecosystem, and even their own category’s competitors, per the data, but the reality is they compete with anyone who advertises on a given platform.

Sensortower data suggests U.S. consumers spent nearly $130 million across both Apple’s and Google’s app stores this Christmas, representing 38.7% YoY growth, up from $93.7 million last year.

Entertainment generated the most revenue outside of games on both Apple’s App Store and Google’s platform, according to Sensortower data On the App Store, Entertainment apps took 21.8% of all non-game spending, reaching $19.3 million. On Google Play, the category generated 18.5% of all revenue generated, about $4.3 million.

Outside of mobile games, TikTok took the top honors in terms of consumer spend, generating $4.7 million globally in revenue on Christmas.