Sustaining a successful public transportation system, such as train service, depends on that system being both convenient and safe. For train passengers, especially women, safety (both actual and perceived) can be a major issue.

In a recent article in TRACKTALK, “What puts women off using the train?” Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Associate Dean at University of California Los Angeles’ School of Public Affairs and Urban Planning, shined a light on the critical role video surveillance and passenger information systems (PIS) can play in helping female travelers feel safe. As she noted, “Dark and deserted stations and trains are understandably off-putting and can encourage people to seek alternative means of transport, or even not travel at all, to avoid feeling threatened, or in some instances becoming a victim of crime.”

For the uninitiated, PIS are electronic information systems that provide real-time information about estimated arrival and departure times, as well as brief descriptions regarding the causes of disruptions. PIS not only can be strategically located at transportation hubs but their information can be accessed remotely via a web browser or mobile device.  As the author says, video surveillance solutions like those developed by Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), using a new Critical WAN Infrastructure solution based on IP/MPLS, go hand-in-hand with PIS as tools that, when combined with human staffing, can address the most pressing aspects of safety for all train passengers.

Loukaitou-Sideris researched this topic in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, and found that women train passengers are most concerned about their personal safety in several types of situations: 

• Waiting for a long time at a station
• Poor visibility at the station (e.g. night, poorly lit)
• Lack of staff members at the station
• Being the only passenger on board a train carriage
• The presence of another single, male passenger, or a crowd of drunken passengers

“Darkness, isolation, and limited opportunities for surveillance were all identified as the major reason that anxiety might increase among passengers, particularly women,” the author said. However, she found that unfortunately there is a gap between security measures that women feel are appropriate, and security measures operators generally choose to provide.

Transport authorities, Loukaitou-Sideris found, tend to prefer installing technology like closed-circuit TV (CCTV) video surveillance rather than adding more security staff, because it costs less. Video surveillance, of course, is only effective at actually stopping crimes if security staff is watching the feed and responds promptly when there are issues. “Technological solutions that are currently available and widely used such as communication points, and emergency buttons are viewed as a positive means of drawing attention,” stated  Loukaitou-Sideris. She added, “However, concerns though remain about where exactly the operator at the other end of the line might be, and how quickly they will be able to respond.” 

While the most fear-inducing possibility is a violent crime like rape or other physical assault, instances of intimidation, verbal assault and groping are much more common yet hard to prove, and thus tend to haunt female passengers.  Women, Loukaitou-Sideris says, feel that if there were more security staff around, these “lesser” crimes would occur less often. 

That said, if used appropriately, video surveillance and other technology can and does make passenger safer. For example, accurate information about train arrival and departure times—displayed on screens at the platform, or delivered through other means like on-board communications—helps passengers minimize the time they spend waiting at an unstaffed station.

Where Alcatel-Lucent’s Critical WAN Infrastructure Solution serves a vital function is to automate and simplify operations management. As TRACKTALK highlights, as a result of the increased desire by transit authorities around the world to protect not just passengers but critical physical assets that might be targeted by terrorists, there has been an increasingly holistic approach to railroad security.  This is driving the need for interconnected surveillance and alerting.  In this regard, several perspectives — social, economic, customer and transit system operations — must be taken into account.

It may sound a bit obvious but this approach must rely on a networking environment that is always on, always available, and can provide a level of granularity that enable authorities to accurately identify trouble spots and people and react quickly. In short, there can be no alternative to being on constant watch and having trained professionals ready to react to any contingency.   

Finally, Loukaitou-Sideris states that security must be balanced with efficiency. After all, the goal is to get people to use the system.   The implementation of cumbersome and time-consuming security practices, especially for mass transit systems in urban hubs, could dissuade not just women but all potential customers from riding the train.  She found that, “Anything that delays the transport process makes public transport less attractive compared with automobiles…Airline passengers are able to tolerate more delays, but it is not the same for rail passengers who would not wait for hours to go through security. In busy cities where thousands of people are flowing through stations this is impractical anyway.”

While we live in an increasingly dangerous world, having a high-performance communications network that can support all aspects of rail security (in stations as well as throughout the physical transit network) is no longer being viewed as a luxury, but as a necessity.  Finding the optimal balance to assure safe journeys with minor inconvenience is a complicated task which is why transit authorities are working closely with communications solutions providers to achieve that balance.  

As active transactional individuals in the Internet age, here are a few questions to ponder for a moment.

• How do we present ourselves to the world, or choose not to, and why? 
• What does our view and management of our multiple identities —on multiple physical, virtual (and where they intersect/converge/blur) platforms —tell us and others about predicting and/or leveraging our behavior?
• Does where you are in your life matter? 
• In an age where dynamic context-based identity mediation will be paramount (for individuals and organizations alike), whom do we and can we trust and entrust with our identities?
• How does trust factor into our purchasing decisions?

These are not existential questions.  In fact, as pointed out in a previous blog, they are the subject of an important new book, Identity Shift : Where Identity Meets Technology in the Networked-Community Age, written by Alcatel-Lucent’s Allison Cerra and Christina James. 

I recently had the privilege of speaking with author Cerra to get deeper detail and insights into her work with Ms. James. It happened to coincide with an Ad Age article by Michael Learmonth entitled, “CMOs Explain Why They're Flocking to Vegas for CES,” which was fortuitous. 

The book is about advancing the science of understanding behavior (aka shifting IDENTITY) and the role and criticality of trust in a world of accelerating technologic change. The article had a great quote from GE CMO Beth Comstock that validates why the Cerra/James work goes far beyond being an academic exercise.  Comstock says she and other marketers need to be at CES because, "I'm a marketer and that makes me a behavioralist…How is tech changing the behavior?"  Finding the answer to that and other questions like the ones above is why CMOs should attend CES. She might have added, as the book does, that there is a vice versa involved here since what the Internet has done is profoundly change the nature and relative power in buyer/seller relationships.

A look between the covers

OK, so maybe this is not just a deeper dive between the traditional covers but the virtual ones as well. It is instructive to look at the flow of the sections of the book to get to the meat of the matter.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the research model employed is Ethnography. This approach goes beyond the number crunching of demographics and psychographics to focus on how close-up observation of human interactions correlate, corroborate and yield insights that can be extrapolated and used with insights from larger behavioral studies.

Cerra fleshed out the authors’ “3-P Model of Identity.” and why understanding the categories and where and how they intersect, as well as relate to the issue of trust, is so critical as a tool for causal explanations of what was observed and how the observations can be applied.  

Presentation:  This is the predominant thing most of us worry about.  It is about how the world views us.  In the physical world we tend to have more than a modicum of control over our image/reputation.  However, in virtual world our image is as much created by anyone else as by us.  This creates tension according to Cerra, “I can choose who I want to be, but have little or no control necessarily over who I am.”  In the context of identity management online it means having a presentation strategy that encompasses our various persona modes —personal, professional, visible and known and anonymous.

Protection:  Cerra says this is the one that grabs the headlines, but it turns out the research indicates people say they are very concerned, yet for the most part willingly provide information online without taking precautions.  As she pointed out in the interview, “Not all harms are created equal. We are equipped with primal senses that guide us as to whether “fight or flight” is the path to feeling safe about our privacy, loved ones, and valuables.”  She noted that physical defenses are rendered useless in the virtual world, and that the dynamics of constantly changing and blurred personae at any given decision point are all related back to the issue of trust in terms of behavior. This is a case of “watch what I do and not what I say”, since actual behavior can veer widely from stated intention.

Preference:  This aspect of the role of identity looks at how, when, where and why future actions can be understood in the context of what we prefer is likely to be what we want. In fact, preference is an important component of sites such as Amazon, Pandora, Spotify, etc.  

Cerra cautions that the conscious and sub-conscious dynamics of these aspects of identity can turn on a dime which is why observation of individuals as they act are key.

Universal laws

Based on the model, and a close analysis of observed behavior as tested against a broader look at the actions of 5,000 individuals, the authors came up with what they call “universal rules.” They are examined in the book to demonstrate how the power of rationalization and confluence exemplified in these laws, “lay the foundation of behavior and perceptions that unites consumers, no matter their age, socioeconomic status or gender…Represent the entry point for understanding individuals in a virtual world – whether as ourselves or as consumers we attempt to serve.”

The laws are as follows:

• The Law of Learned Helplessness— we fail to do things because of a perceived lack of control over our environment.
• The Law of Illusion— roughly translated means I can’t handle the truth but am ok with a rationalization that makes me feel good about a decision.
• The Law of Recall— we fall back on what’s familiar – either because an experience or recollection is recent or prevalent in our own lives – regardless of the true probability of an occurrence.
• Rationalization: Finding Harmony in the Discord — doubt is good because it gives us license to act without feeling responsible or accountable.

It is all about trust 

The section following universal laws on identity attributes during life stages is worth a read because it shows that when it comes to transactional issues and how we behave when faced with a decision, even taking into account the laws, where we are in our life and what is important to us at that stage matters. However, at the end of the day, the 3P Model and the universal laws, roll up into that “behaviorist” thing, i.e., given our various personae in a virtual world, whether we are driven by presentation, protection, preference or looking through the world via age-colored glasses, it all comes back to trust. 

In other words, at any given moment in time, based on the policies and rules we associate with the virtual dissemination of our volition via electronic means, what level of control are we willing to give up/tolerate to not only get what we want, but to feel good about the experience. Why the book is such a breakthrough is the application of its analyses as predictive of what identity profiles are willing to accept, including such things as privacy conditions and opting-in versus opting-out models of interaction, to be transactional.  This includes a thorough discussion related to the title that our identities are not static but are constantly shifting. In fact, they need to be mediated by us manually, automated through the enforcement of our policies and rules, or in partnership with trusted service providers.

In fact, as Cerra highlighted, the book goes a step further.  It provides a peek into the value of the analysis. She offered a couple of titillating findings from the authors’ testing of 20 possible identity-oriented services against the 3P profiles:

• Those who are primarily presentation-oriented represented  50 percent of those studied
• They also represented 66 percent of buyers of identity services
• Four of top five services were presentation ones  

In addition, they found that when they measured trust there was a 60 percent correlation with a willingness to pay for identity services.  And, reflecting the universal laws, customers love or hate of a brand seemed to bear little or no correlation with willingness to pay if a customer perceived value in the offering.   As Cerra stated, “it turns out that what I say is different from what I do and from what I value.” This is certainly a profound finding for CMOs.

Getting closer to finding the Holy Grail

As the saying goes, “the bottom line is the bottom line!”  CMOs as accurately observed are behaviorists.  They do need to understand technologic change and its impact on shifting consumer transactional tipping points.  CES is the perfect place for them to get educated.  However, they also should read, Identity Shift: Where Identity Meets Technology in the Networked-Community Age, if they want deeper context. 

People do not buy and use technology for technology’s sake.  The Internet changed that aspect of the buyer/seller relationship forever. It has also accentuated the need to recognize, understand and act upon the shifting nature of our multiple personae, especially as more and more of who we are, and how we act/transact moves into the virtual world. 

A marketer’s Holy Grail is being able to target a market of one with perfect knowledge as to what can/should/will motivate a transaction. A consumer’s Holy Grail is having perfect knowledge, absolute comfort when they purchase something, and control over the terms and conditions of a transaction. Are we there yet on either front?  No!   In fact, as we all know there are no perfect worlds. However, there is certainly invaluable illumination to be gained from the quest.

That said, thank you, Allison and Christina, for your contribution to making the journey well worth it. 

The influx of smartphones, tablets and next-generation networks has created a number of new ways for brands and marketing agencies to reach consumers. Unfortunately, many of today's mobile marketing techniques fail to engage consumers, who often find the advertisements to be bothersome, intrusive and unrelated to their interests.

One innovative and effective way to bridge this gap is a strategy called permission-based mobile marketing, a targeted advertising technique that changes the marketing paradigm by creating a dialogue with consumers, rather than an invasive, one-sided monologue.

The basic premise of permission-based mobile marketing is rather simple: users opt-in and give their consent for brands to send them targeted, preference-based marketing materials for products and services that they are interested in. If executed properly, a permission-based mobile marketing strategy can create value for brands, agencies, consumers and mobile network operators.

A recent white paper, Building Permission Based Mobile Marketing, authored by the Mobile Marketing Association and its Task Force members, including Alcatel-Lucent, Vodafone and other major players in the telecom space, details permission-based mobile marketing, how it works and the benefits that it can bring to all parties involved.

The strength of the marketing technique relies on the fact that mobile devices are now near-ubiquitous. In addition, the mobile platform is currently made up of multiple, flexible channels including messaging, browsing, apps and proximity channels. Needless to say, the mobile platform offers advertisers an expansive field to play with.

Taking advantage of mobile channels is easier said than done, however, because consumers get turned off when they receive marketing materials from brands that they don't care about. This is where permission-based mobile marketing can succeed.

Targeted advertising dramatically increases response rates and creates an engaged audience, says MMA, and also gives consumers reason to share their demographic information and other data that can help encourage commerce.

Consumers have plenty of reasons to opt-in to marketing campaigns, including a more personalized and deeper connection to the brands that they love, a two-way dialogue in the format of their choosing and, most importantly, access to special deals, alerts and discounts.

In fact, a recent Alcatel-Lucent survey found that 63 percent of mobile youth indicated that they would be more willing to purchase products or services from preferred brands using a permission-based mobile marketing service. More than three-quarters of respondents said that it's important for mobile ads to be based on their interests, while more than 80 percent said it's "very/extremely" important for brands to ask permission before sending them advertisements.

In addition to benefiting consumers, permission-based mobile marketing provides a number of opportunities for brands and agencies, the most obvious of which is a significant reduction in advertising spending that is wasted on consumers who have no interest in their products and services.  The strategy also increases consumer engagement and real-time interaction, which, in turn, boosts ROI numbers.

Additional benefits include quick response rates – with 90 percent of SMS text messages read within three minutes of receipt – and the ability to create long-term relationships.

Finally, permission-based mobile marketing can be a major aid to network service providers, who can leverage the strategy to improve customer satisfaction numbers and open up new revenue streams by partnering with advertisers and content creators.

MMA Task Force member Alcatel-Lucent is one of the leading supporters of permission-based mobile marketing, and has designed its Optimism solution to help provide the aforementioned benefits to all parties in the commerce value chain. The Optimism Mobile Advertising Solution, which helps advertisers and operators connect with a 100 percent opted-in audience, has proven to be extremely effective in multiple global campaigns.

As an example, Egyptian mobile network operator Mobinil has seen their response rates on mobile ad services climb to as high as 54 percent on the back of the Optimism solution.

"Since the introduction of our mobile advertising service, we have been able to further increase our relevance to end-users, brands and advertising agencies. Leveraging the Optism solution, we are in a unique position to provide brands and advertising agencies access to — and a better understanding of — their potential customer base," Ahmed Saber, Head of Mobile Advertising at Mobinil, noted in a recent case study.

Alcatel-Lucent will continue to work with the MMA to push permission-based marketing to the next level and enable advertisers and operators to make the most efficient use of their budgets.

 “We’re very excited that the MMA recognizes the importance of permission-based marketing and that Alcatel-Lucent has the opportunity to help shape the efforts of the taskforce as we evangelize and educate the industry on best practices,” said Lisa Ciangiulli, Director of Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Commerce Solutions.

Check out the complete white paper to read Alcatel-Lucent's four-stage process for launching a permission-based mobile marketing campaign and some recent success stories.

By Erin Harrison

As Alcatel-Lucent Market and Consumer Insight groups, along with a team from IMRB International, wind down their neo-urbanization research in India, this week we learn that the group landed in an area that is finding prosperity, representative of a larger trend in the country.

The final leg of Alcatel-Lucent’s three-week journey took them from Bhiwadi to Coimbatore, a “town” of 1.25 million people located at the base of the Western Ghats foothills in the Tamil Nadu region of South India.

Formerly a textile town, Coimbatore is inching towards a new level of prosperity as it evolves into a regional center for healthcare, education and information technology. This kind of transformation is mirroring a larger trend towards self-contained, technology-fueled cities across South India.

As one example, in 2010, the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation doubled the size of the city, absorbing 12 surrounding semi-urban local bodies, which has dramatically altered the limits of the city. The result is a unique techno-hub town – more neo-rural than neo-urban, according to the Alcatel-Lucent researchers.

Technology adoption is also transforming such areas as the village of Bungalowpudur, where students are now required to learn basic programming. However, despite such strides, some areas of the village are still stuck in the “old world.”

Urbanization is modernizing many areas of the world that were previously without access to healthcare, education, employment – and technology.

In particular, parts of India are becoming networked hubs that are oriented and planned around smart functionality and sustainability. In cities such as Ahmadabad, where the research group first set out, what was once home to jungle territory 10 years ago now supports large concrete buildings with rapid changes occurring on an ongoing basis.

You are encouraged to learn more about ALU’s Market and Consumer Insight (MCI) organization’s efforts, and bookmark this page to stay updated on insights as the team concludes its journey. Read, hear and see what neo-urbanization in India can teach us about the role of ICT in accelerating economic development in a rapidly changing part of the world.