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Payment apps, driverless cars…the Jetsons are upon us, wherever you sit on the adoption lifecycle!

November 24, 2016 | Posted in: Articles & News, Marketing pow wow

The world of my favourite childhood cartoon, The Jetsons, doesn’t seem so far-fetched these days! It is a weird feeling when a prediction nearly 25 years ago comes true…the future is now reality with mobile payment apps! A word of warning for anyone reading this who is used to getting some tips or advice from my articles…I am not sure if this one is any more than a personal observation, but it does illustrate the marketing theory of how things move along the technology adoption lifecycle quite nicely!

Back in the early 1990s when I was working for Diners Club (how times have changed…they are hardly around these days!) our General Manager came back from some sort of technology conference or credit convention in the States reporting that charge/credit cards of the future would be in the form of a phone.

The only mobile phone I could picture at that time was the one our print broker carried around, full of self-importance in his white VW Golf and it was the size of a brick. Mobile phones were not widely popular, did nothing more than send/receive calls and people like my mum thought they were just an unnecessary fad that would pass! So you can imagine how hard it was to get my head around how a mobile phone could be a credit card! I guess it would be akin to picturing the future with driverless cars, although by all accounts that reality is less than 25 years away!

Clearly not an “innovator” or even an “early adopter”, I regard these payment apps with the same level of caution and suspicion as I used to with internet banking! With the latter, I have been well and truly on board for over a decade, however consumer behaviour research would have predicted (from my technology lifecycle classification) that I would wait until at least a couple of my peers were using and recommending it first! I would probably place myself in the “early majority” section of the lifecycle. I am sure we all know some technology “laggards”…they are probably just trying to purchase their first DVD player now!

So, what is it going to take for me to shake off my hesitation and concerns when it comes to mobile payment apps? Time. And as with other technology, some reassurance from peers who have embraced it for long enough without being over charged, ripped off, the victims of fraud etc. From a marketing perspective, “education” is also key to encouraging people like me get on board – clear communication that addresses the safeguards that are in place to prevent fraud, to protect you when things do go wrong, to reinforce how much easier and better life is with the added convenience

Here is a personal anecdote, which serves as a good example of the type of “barriers” that marketers have to overcome! I declined my first offer of a Paywave card – partly because I took objection to the way it was forced upon me by my bank! My Eftpos card that was still a long way from expiring was effectively “cancelled” when the bank mailed me a new, super duper Paywave card with a letter saying that my other card would no longer work by the end of the month (unless I contacted them before that date). Unfortunately I only glanced at the letter, cut up the new card without reading the letter properly, thinking it was an optional new product they had pre-approved me for. When my card stopped working and I visited the bank, I put two and two together and realised what had happened. The bank teller was not able to convince me, in this adverse situation, that the Paywave card was the best thing since sliced bread, so I had the inconvenience of being “Eftpos-cardless” for a week while I waited for a replacement card to be delivered!

Not long after this frustrating experience, when my credit card expired (with a different bank that used a less aggressive way of getting new technology into customers’ hands), I was the recipient of a sparkling new Paywave credit card. Now, I must admit, I have found it quite convenient at times being able to save 30 seconds by not having to type in my pin number, however my original fears were confirmed recently when I discovered that it IS POSSIBLE to have money taken off your card unwittingly!…

At my local café, I put my wallet down next to the EFTPOS machine to help me use only one hand to retrieve some cash from inside it (other hand must have been holding something), and the person serving me had already added the transaction onto the EFTPOS machine assuming that was how I intended paying! ZAP – off came the $4.50 from my credit card! Too late, damage done! Fortunately this has only been a single occurrence and knowing that there is a transaction ceiling of $80 is some reassurance, however the stories of criminals standing next to you with mobile phones in their pockets with apps reading to swipe multiples of $80 off your nearby Paywave card is a bit worrying to say the least, because I now know from my café experience that your card does not have to be perfectly positioned over a device for it to work!

And so, I wait, I watch, I listen and I learn…however at this stage, I don’t have a payment app on my mobile phone! And as for driverless-cars, well as much as it appeals to the ‘Jetsons’ fantasyland of my youth, it feels a bit scary and still quite remote from my current reality!