Marketing a large catalogue of content and services to a diverse audience, through a small screen, is a challenge. The typical model for content marketing is the “supermarket model” with the screen representing shelf space. The catalogue is tailored for the mass-market, in order to appeal to a broad base of users, in the absence of a personalized storefront.

Research shows that consumers are interested in mobile content and willing to increase the amount they spend on data services each month. Familiar reasons that consumers have for not spending more is that the content isn’t interesting enough, or that it is difficult to find. As service providers struggle to maintain margins while accelerating the introduction of new content (mass-market, branded, expensive yet undifferentiated), the life of each content item (and therefore its ROI) reduces.

A conflicting position has developed: it is not possible to market a diverse range of content to consumers through the current distribution model, yet that is exactly what is necessary in order to increase profits.

Discover is a solution based on the Ripple platform, which alters the model of distribution of content and services. As the name suggests, Discover is all about helping your consumers connect to, or discover, content and services that they are interested in. It enables the migration from a supermarket model of content distribution to a more effective model that increases the return on each content or service item, and increases the spend of each consumer.

Discover dynamically selects recommendations for each individual user from the entire content catalogue, and serves them in real-time as the user browses the WAP portal (“Recommendations for you…”).

As consumers browse through the portal, they are constantly guided with personalized recommendations at each stage (“See similar content…”). And after a transaction, consumers are prompted with other suitable options (“People who bought this also bought…”). Discover allows users to share content they like with the friends they love, with a few simple clicks. Unlike other solutions in the market, users do not need to remember their friend’s phone number to do this.

Further, Discover rewards consumers for their participation in this viral chain, with loyalty points that they can exchange for discounts on content. Popular content thus spreads virally, on existing devices and networks.

Discover makes marketing easier, by identifying in real-time what services and content to promote to which consumer. Suddenly, choices from a vast and ever-increasing array of content are made available to each consumer in a practical and actionable way (one-click). It isn’t mass-market anymore, but personalized.

The three key components of personalization, viral, and loyalty are modular and we have experience delivering each component independently as well as together. Discover reduces the number of clicks before a transaction, increases the browsing time after a transaction, increases the number of transactions in each session, and reduces the time between sessions. Through viral marketing and loyalty, it increases the number of new users to your portal, and increases the activity of existing users.

Less obvious benefits include the fact that smaller content providers who may not otherwise get visibility in a crowded portal now have the opportunity to be promoted to relevant consumers. Importantly, niche content is promoted and circulated within communities: enabling more choices and higher margins for all. Since the available shelf space no longer serves as a limitation, content can stay on the shelves for longer, increasing the return on each item.

The functionalities of Discover are delivered through a few simple APIs that connect to the service provider’s content management and delivery platforms. Our customers typically have a WAP portal running, and within weeks Discover-enable their portal: which allows their consumers to have personalized recommendations delivered to them in real-time, to share what they like with friends, and to earn points that they can exchange for downloadables.

In order to achieve high availability/reliability, data consistency, scalability, and pluggable framework architecture, Discover has been built on the J2EE 1.3/1.4 standards for application server frameworks, using a classic n-tier client-server architecture. An MVC-II design pattern is used in order to provide for quick deployments especially in a managed service environment. For more information on the architecture and integration with existing systems within the service provider environment, please contact us.

View architecture of Ripple Discover.
Download marketing brochure on Ripple Discover.