Nice product if your just a shop-a-hollic without any control and a wallet like Bill Gates lol - this is just SPAM in a can

AMAZING is it not this article is only 3,5 year’s old… seems like forever…
Directions Magazine

Mobile Marketing & LBS: What’s Next for Advertisers?

By Joe Francica , Editor-in-Chief and Vice Publisher, Directions Magazine July 25, 2006

In the early years of mobile marketing, “push marketing” was the big thing whereby the mobile consumer would be happily strolling by his favorite retail store and he would suddenly receive an advertisement on his mobile handset. Of course, frequent buyer programs needed the appropriate privileges, but the idea was perhaps ahead of its time and certainly the handsets were not yet equipped with the technology to derive an approximate location. Plus, five years ago, access to the Internet was spotty and certainly not yet available on cellular phones. Tasks that are routine today were difficult back then.

But this is 2006 and both technology and the consumer have reached a level of maturity that allows different business models to take shape. Zoove Corporationis looking to make it easier to link product information directly with the mobile consumer through “pull marketing.” Zoove enables consumers to “dial-up” information directly to their mobile device when prompted for a “call to action.” For example, a potential customer is walking past a retail electronics store and sees an ad for the latest iPod. The “call to action” to find more information about the iPod is a number to dial preceded by star-star (**) on the phone’s keypad. The number to dial could be: **iPod or **4763. After dialing the number, the customer will receive product information. However, Zoove uses the SS7 protocolthat provides information to the marketer about the type of cell phone in use, the carrier, and the location of the customer, in much the same way a 911 call can identify those same characteristics. Thus, the ** dialing sequence enables some key demographic characteristics to be transmitted to the marketer.

So, just as in the early years when marketers found it necessary to include their URL with print, TV or other media advertising, the same may be coming to pass for Zoove-type numbers. Tim Jemison, CEO of Zoove, outlines three primary elements taking place behind the scenes of intelligent networking afforded by the SS7 protocol.

1. The ability to do handset discovery: when a cell phone user dials the code, the marketer can determine what kind of phone he is using so that the capabilities of the phone are understood and the appropriate text or graphic form can be transmitted back to it.
2. Display text: the ability to send a text message that barges into the screen to get information to the user.
3. Location-based services are enabled out of the box: Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Short Messaging Service (SMS) short codes can not be used to determine location. However, upon invoking the star-star message, and because the number sequence looks like a regular cellular phone call, all of the information associated with that call is transmitted to the marketer or carrier. The physical location is never revealed and the consumer receives only information relevant to him.

Jemison believes that if you are going to do anything LBS-related, make sure the consumer is in control. According to a study conducted for Zoove by Mediamark Research, ” 91% of respondents successfully responded to the ads when instructed to use the star-star call service - nearly double the incidence of SMS short code completion.” Zoove’s target market is the brand marketer or his advertising agency. It could also be a ringtone or other content provider. Zoove’s technology will work with either CDMA or GSM phones, but its focus is on the U.S. for now with trials to get underway in the fourth quarter.

The company’srevenue model can be described as “cost per click” or “cost per call” and they will participate in revenue sharing partnerships. Buying the star-star keyword, however, looks like a battle similar to that of Internet URLs.

Do you have some great fantastic articles that put like everthing in perspective in regards to how fast we are moving down the technology-road?

I believe that Rothenberg has something here what do you think?

The iPad’s Threat to Advertising

By Randall Rothenberg on January 29, 2010 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The iPad’s Threat to Advertising

I’m less interested in the Apple iPad and the spate of other interactive tablet devicesabout to flood into the consumer marketplace than in what they represent: another in a long line of attempts to semi-privatize the Internet.

Most “device revolutions” fail. For every iPod there are scores of Nomad Jukeboxes (of which I was a proud and happy early adopter). But this new revolution just might succeed, because it’s not about the devices; it’s about the consumer behavior impelling their invention. And it’s that real - or presumed - consumer behavior that’s generating a proliferation of not-so-secret gardens on the Web, many of them device-based - a phenomenon Forrester’s Josh Bernoff calls the “Splinternet.” Don’t look now, but your television, telephone, radio, TiVo, cable box, and even your desktop PC are or are about to become gated intranets - with significant implications for marketers, media and agencies.

The biggest issue is complexity - the bogeyman that has haunted marketing and advertising from the dawn of the ad-supported Web. Publishers are waxing hopeful that the iPad will resolve the challenges that have seen their businesses sundered; weeks before its launch, The New York Times’s David Carr even labeled Apple’s device a “savior,” arguing that it “represents an opportunity to renew the romance between printed material and consumer.” Yet it’s that very romantic impulse that should serve as warning that a pre-nup is needed, for without continuing, concerted, cross-industry commitment to managing transactional complexity in the marketing-media supply chain, the iPad and its ilk might only make publishers’ problems worse.

Portal Period

The semi-privatization of the Internet has been creeping up on us for a long time - almost as long as the Web has existed, in fact, and so-called portals attempted to become the controlling influence over consumers’ surfing habits. The portal period is generally considered a failure — sort of the Paleozoic Era of the Internet — but that’s unfair. Rather, the first decade-and-a-half of the Web’s gestation were largely about its proliferation and diversity, with consumers seeking navigation through an unfamiliar maze. That made search engines more valuable than portals.

But the walled gardens have always been there, and they’ve been growing in influence. What are Facebook and Twitter, after all, if not gated communities, built on Internet Protocol (IP), that live within the confines of the larger Web? While they’re generously forgiving fenced neighborhoods (anyone can move in, regardless of race, creed, color, or brand preference), they are walled gardens nonetheless. They have their own rules and regulations, codes of conduct, behaviors, mannerisms and lingo. To identify them with the vague techie term “platforms” obscures what they really are: private communities, like cooperative apartment buildings in the big city. They allow you access to the larger, opportunity-laden and riskier world outside, but you’ll always have your safe haven to return to.

Changing metaphors, if the Web is a “cesspool,” as Google CEO Eric Schmidt has famously put it, maybe these are country club swimming pools - bacteria-free places to swim with your own kind. But - and this is important - however removed these country clubs were from the cesspools, they were still part of the larger town. The waste water still flowed to the same place. The kids may have been richer and snootier than you, but they went to the local public school. The same has been true with the Web’s country club pools - until now.


Although the new IP-fueled devices promise to infuse interactivity into the last remaining analog nooks and crannies of our daily lives, the communities guarded by them threaten to upend that earlier, comfortable symbiosis. These devices and their proprietors have the ability to lock the community gates much tighter - or, at least, make the community so self-contained that any impulse to leave is restrained. They take the dogma that still guides so many digerati - “information wants to be free” - and reveal it as little more than a silly, thoughtless mantra.

Amazon’s World

While the iPhone, with its “apps economy,”, is the readiest example of these device-based walled gardens, Amazon’s Kindle may be a better one. The iPhone, after all, still hints at the larger world - and the larger World Wide Web; the iPad, which some first-day critics labeled “just a big iPod Touch,” is even more directly a creature of the Web. The Kindle, although IP-based, is utterly removed from it. Indeed, Amazon’s walled garden for literati is more akin to a company town, with everything from access to product offerings to pricing tightly managed. Even the famously controlling Apple was moved to promote its relative benevolence to the media industry, noting that the iPad will offer book publishers and readers a choice of two price points, in contrast to the (lower) one required in Kindletown.

In fact, Apple has been a paragon of openness, compared with such other walled gardens as Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s xBox. True, the music industry has complained bitterly about how Apple’s pricing policy for music and forced unbundling upset the financial requirements of the major recording companies. But at the same time, I can get virtually any type of music - regardless of codec, seller, or price - onto my iPod. (To this day, I have vastly more tunes there acquired from eMusic than from the Apple Store.)

More and more, “degree of openness” is looking to be a - perhaps the - central strategic differentiator among the different walled gardens of the Web. My favorite new gated community - Netflix Streaming - is fairly closed. Although it’s accessible through numerous network devices (it comes through brilliantly on my TiVo HD), its offerings are solely those Netflix makes available - one reason I believe Netflix will become a financing powerhouse in Hollywood and among independent producers before too long.

Another favorite of mine, Boxee (which I access on my 46”-inch Samsung through the ATVFlash package of Apple TV hacks), is reasonably open. It offers widgets for scores of online video purveyors, and looks like it wants to be a remote control and organizing tool for as much digital video content as exists. (Boxee’s ongoing tussle with Hulu is evidence of the “openness” contests beginning to shake up the digital video marketplace.)

Open TV

Boxee, which has announced imminent plans to release a proprietary set-top box, may even be setting itself up in direct opposition to the television set manufacturers that are bringing to market network-connected HDTV’s with apps built directly into the screens, in what look to be totally closed systems. This is an issue I expect Boxee CEO Avner Ronen will address in his keynote presentation next month at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.

“Degree of openness” is, as I suggested, a strategic decision companies will have to make. There’s no morality attached to it, the information-wants-to-be-free crowd notwithstanding. Some companies will thrive by remaining as porous as possible, while others will succeed by locking their gates. Consider Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney’s recent research note on Netflix:

We believe that NFLX is benefiting from a materially improved all-in product offering with a) improved DVD-By-Mail delivery service, b) expanded Streaming selection (17,000+ titles), and c) materially improved user interfaces via gaming devices (xBox, PS3) and Web-integrated CE devices and TVs. The ongoing shuttering of DVD rental stores is also helping. And the end result is higher customer satisfaction (reduced churn) and deeper competitive moats. Add all this to a increasingly efficient biz model (rising Gross Margins), and you’ve got an Internet Core Holding.

“Deeper competitive moats” are something that, inevitably, marketers, advertisers and media will need to learn to cross. The iPad won’t necessarily get them to the other side. Far from being their savior, it could turn out to be a version of Charon, ferrying them across the River Styx to Hades.

Seamless Scale

I’m not even thinking about the obvious calculations - such as, how strictly will Apple set the terms and conditions, including pricing and customer-data control, for publishers seeking to sell their goods onto the iPad? A much more serious question is this: How fragmented will the advertising supply chain become? In deeply practical terms, if you work in advertising,your future depends on how companies like Apple intend to answer that question.

Put simply, a company’s opportunity to create, sell and use advertising effectively and profitably will depend on its ability to deliver it seamlessly across multiple devices. Fostering seamless delivery across multiple sites has been the rationale underlying the IAB since our founding 15 years ago. Yet as successful as we’ve been in standardizing advertising unit formats, measurement guidelines, work-flow processes, and the like, other central standards have proved elusive. For example, the creative agencies on the IAB Agency Advisory Board have said categorically that their single greatest obstacle to advertising effectiveness and growth is their inability to deliver the same rich-media ads to tens of millions of households across multiple sites because, as they put it, “the rich media toolkit differs too much from site to site.”

The proliferation of device-based walled gardens risks making our complex supply chain even more fragmented and complicated than it’s been. As Forrester’s Bernoff wrote, “Web marketing has grown since 1995, based on the idea that everything is connected. Click-throughs, ad networks, analytics, search-engine optimization — it all works because the Web is standardized. Google works because the Web is standardized. Not any more. Each new device has its own ad networks, format, and technology.” The Apple iPad’s lack of Adobe Flash - a core component of much interactive display advertising - only serves to underscore how splintered the advertising economy could become.

But I disagree with Bernoff’s conclusion about the Splinternet. Don’t “try to unify things again,” he says. “The shattering cannot be undone.”

Supply Chain Detente

It must be, though, if ad-supported media are to survive. This prompts two suggestions:

• Device manufacturers and the proprietors of other walled gardens should work collaboratively to adopt consistent standards to allow the advertising and marketing economies to flourish. Beat your brains out competitively, but don’t subvert the advertising economy. Join the IAB and contribute to supply chain detente.
• To the degree that the walled gardens create impediments to scale, publishers need to find other sources of revenue. Media companies must redouble their efforts to add marketing services to their sets of offerings.

Mobile Industry Still Trying To Figure Out SMS Spam

The problem has been around forever, yet the mobile industry is still fighting for a solution to SMS spam.  As such a quickly growing problem, the FCC and several mobile-specific organizations are still trying to define what is and what isn’t considered mobile SPAM- a process that’s easier said than done.

Mobile spam can be sub-divided into two general categories: legitimate marketers not following best practices and sending unsolicited messages, and the more devious malware attacks, in which malicious messages are sent through text or e-mail to attack a phone’s operating system.  Either way, this spam is annoying to consumers, and is giving legitimate rule-following mobile marketers a bad name.

The MMA and other mobile communities have been busy creating industry best practices, rules and regulations to help legitimate marketers stay a step ahead of spammers and to remain transparent in their efforts, but the entire landscape changes so quickly that staying ahead of the curve is getting increasingly difficult.

Contributing to the intolerance of SMS spam is the fact that consumers often will stop what they are doing to read a new mobile message, and will likely have to pay a fee for receiving it.  Getting more and more spam messages makes consumers that much more weary of opening any marketing-based SMS message, legitimate or not.

Wireless carriers are doing their part in trying to curb SMS spam, such as AT&T allowing customers to restrict the sources of email that can reach their devices, or replying BLOCK to any email or SMS message deemed unsolicited, but as it does via traditional spam, carriers are usually a step behind the spammers.

“Marketers should enable the end user to control the communications that are received at the device, and enable them as a user, not through the carrier or customer service, to say, ‘I don’t want any messages from short codes’ and also to create lists of who can get through,” says Daniel Hoffman, SVP of communications at SMobile Systems.  ”As you eliminate the ability to do targeting what you are doing is making it closer to spam,” Wehrs adds. “So, there is a delicate balance to being targeted and relevant without going too far and making the user feel that their privacy is being invaded.”

It’s a delicate balance, and a problem that won’t be going away any time soon, but the carriers, the FCC and most mobile-based organizations are busy trying to distinguish, fight and regulate spam the best they can.  It just reiterates the fact that if you’re a mobile marketer, industry best practices should be your number one concern at all times.

Comment: We are smiling all the way to the bank! Why? You will know soon ;)

IKEA mobile campaigns average 5-10 percent response rates -

source: Mobile Marketer-Database/CRM

June 16, 2009

IKEA gets idea

When IKEA Seattle launched a mobile loyalty program in June to build a database of people interested in receiving discounts, the home furnishing retailer never even imagined that 23,000 consumers would sign-up.

The text-to-enter loyalty program is a means for IKEA to start a dialogue with interested consumers. BCode is powering the text discounts and has found that there have been more than 15,000 offer redemptions to date.

“The greatest thing about mobile and retail is the fact that consumers cannot bring their PCs with them everywhere, but they do bring their mobile phones everywhere,” said Michael Mak, CEO/founder of BCode, San Francisco.

IKEA is one of the largest home furnishings retailers worldwide, with more than 275 stores in 36 countries, including 35 in the United States.

The key demographic of users is female ages 18-49, with a secondary demographic of families.

Consumers love the BCode “iPhone-like” user experience and BCode claims that usability and user experience is key to consumer adoption and response rates.

Mr. Mak claims that IKEA campaigns average 5-10 percent response rates.

Specifically, the campaigns are sent out at times when the recipients are not in the store. This percentage shows the percentage of consumers that have been driven to visit the store as a result of the attractive mobile coupon offers.

The calls to action for the mobile loyalty program are posted online and promoted via email campaigns. 
In-store signage asks consumers to text IKEA1 to short code 30364.

Texters get a message back letting them know that they will be receiving at least one IKEA message per week with deals, games and alerts.

Examples include 20 percent off special products, or class of products, restaurant food offers or dollars off certain purchase size.

During Q4 2008, the BCode mobile coupon platform generated six figures in sales that were directly tied to IKEA Mobile members shopping in the Seattle store.

This figure is growing on an average of 10 percent every month. The “Closed-Loop” nature of BCode’s scanning service allows this type of sales statistics to be tracked down to per-customer and per-offer level.

IKEA traditionally sends out catalogs with special promotions and discounts.

The Swedish-owned company first began using mobile eight months ago, asking consumers to text-to-play IKEA trivia. All the answers could be found in the catalog.

Valassis aided in the development of the text-to-play. This was a push for the IKEA catalog, with players having to look through, interact with, and involve themselves with the catalog.

Sending potential customers coupons via their mobile phone as opposed to printed coupons is eco-friendly because the consumer only prints the coupon(s) if he or she is interested in the offer.

“BCode can track offers down to the actual transaction,” Mr. Mak said. “Consumers really love it as the results show. We have aided IKEA in increasing its revenue and have been helping drive people in-store.”

Associate Editor Giselle Tsirulnik covers ad networks, advertising, content, email, media, messaging, legal/privacy, search, social networks, television and video. Reach her at giselle@mobilemarketer.com.

BizReport : Mobile Marketing : June 04, 2009

by Kristina Knight

This week Technocom has launched SpotOn GPS, a first of its kind ad solution for US marketers. SpotOn GPS gives marketers access to the first navigation and search app integrated with mobile marketing.

New platform offers GPS location-based ads

The platform gives marketers the ability to customize ads, offers, coupons and loyalty-based offerings based on location to local consumers. For local marketers, the platform could be an interesting addition to other location-based ad offerings because it potentially places consumers closer to the point of sale.

“Early evidence suggests location-based advertising (LBA) yields significantly higher conversion rates with direct response modes, such as click-to-locate and click-to-navigate, compared to non-location-based advertising,” said ABI Research practice director Dominique Bonte. “LBA and navigation are a winning combination, mutually reinforcing each other. For the end-user ad-funded navigation represents a highly valued balance between exposure to advertising and access to reduced-cost, or potentially free, navigation, thus driving adoption of both.”

Here are two examples of how the platform could work: An airline could offer mileage program members hotel listings which give extra mileage incentives when the listed hotel or restaurant is frequented. Or, an etailer could offer special savings coupons to members of its shopping club who visit a partner restaurant.

Mobile Marketing to Leap 26% this Year: MMA - MediaBuyerPlanner

(via addthis)

The Mobile Marketing Association claims that mobile marketing budgets will jump 26% this year, despite the fact that overall marketing spend will fall 7%.

While the medium will still snare just 1.8% of total marketing budgets, total spend will grow from $1.7 billion this year to $2.16 billion in 2010, according to new research from the MMA, writesMediaPost. Half of brands and agencies polled by the group said they were experimenting with some type of mobile marketing; SMS text campaigns are the most common, followed by mobile websites and mobile email marketing.

The internet is the medium with which marketers are most often integrating their mobile efforts. Mobile internet access increased 36% in the U.S. last year, and the number of Americans (ages 13+) with mobile internet access is 18 million, according to Netpop. Globally, that number is 54 million.

Despite the growing use of the mobile web, Netpop found that slow connections and extra fees are still the primary barriers to both increased use (among current users) and adoption (among non-users).

Mobile advertising is believed to be effective in part because it reaches consumers on-the-go, shopping or engaging in other activities outside of their homes. A Universal McCann research study on smartphone usage patternsfound that more than a third of high-use smartphone users respond to mobile advertisements. The study found that smartphone users are clicking on ads (53%), requesting more information or a coupon (35%) and making purchases via their handsets (24%). Some 82% of respondents report they use mobile devices at work. 81% use them while shopping.

Local mobile advertising will be the next hot trend, particularly in terms of local mobile search, BIA’s The Kelsey Group predicts. Local mobile ad revenue will hit more than $3.1 billion in 2013, up from $160 million last year. Mobile search will reach $2.3 billion. Local searches made up 27.8% of all searches in 2008, but are expected to hit 35.1% in 2013.

Local search will make up more than half of mobile advertising (56%) though local search will only make up just over 35% of all searches.

Employees at JitterGram in Bedford include, clockwise from top left, Ric Pratte, Katie York, Chris Sosa, Ed Mitchell, Matt Pierson and his wife, Michelle, and Karen Grimmett.

: Sunday, April 5, 2009

Businesses use Bedford firm to promote deals by text

By MELANIE PLENDA, Correspondent

BEDFORD – Since e-mail is so 2008, a local company is capitalizing on the public’s new love for all things short, tweet and text with a venture linking businesses directly into customers’ pockets.

Jittergram Inc., a new Bedford-based business, has built a system that allows businesses access to the cell numbers of interested customers. With a list of opt-in customers and number in hand, business owners can send out mass text messages to their customers alerting them to upcoming or last minute, specials and deals.

“Say a restaurant is having a slow night,” said Katie York, Marketing Communications Manager for Just-In-Time Promotions & Notifications. “They can instantly send out a text message to all their customers around dinner time saying, ‘Hey we have a great promotion going tonight’ or a great special.”

The reach their customer base immediately, York said. 

“There’s so much spam out there, no one even checks their e-mail anymore,” she said. “But everyone checks every text, so customers are getting these messages and actually reading them.” 

The company was founded in September 2008 by New Hampshire entrepreneurs Ric Pratte, Ed Mitchell and Matt Pierson. Since the company officially launched the service in January, York said they have already registered about 25 companies with the service including restaurants, ski resorts and salons.

There are a couple of different ways to access the service, York said.

For customers, they can go to the Jittergram Web site, see which businesses they want sending them updates and sign up for free. They can also go to the participating businesses and sign up through the business.

As for business owners, they sign up through the Web site and pay a fee each time they send out a text to customers.

“The businesses do have to do some promotion themselves,” York said. “They have to make sure they are getting the word out to customers and getting their wait staff to tell people about it.”

But what the owner gets out of it is worth the price of admission, said John Bowen, owner of Foodees in Milford.

“The amount of customers we’ll be reaching is just unbelievable,” Bowen said. “… In these economic times, business could definitely be better. And this is a way to let people know they should come take a look at us, that we might have what they are looking for.”

Bowen, who only recently joined up with Jittergram, said he plans to use the service to recruit new customers, reward existing customers with a free cheese pizza just for signing up for the service and offer promotions such as free tickets to events.

Greg Stevens, owner of Stella Blu in Nashua, said he started using the system about a week ago as well. And while he hasn’t yet taken it for a test run, he too said he’s hopeful about the results.

“The technology to do this has been out there, and we’ve done some things with e-mail lists,” he said. “But with this, we can go about it in a more formal way and show that we are serious about getting this information out to people.”

York said that though Jittergram is not the first texting service, they hope to be the biggest. The company is already looking at branching out beyond the service and entertainment industries. For instance York said the service could be used by nonprofits to alert people of events, school districts to tell parents of a snow day or event at school and even public safety officials to tell people what to do in a weather emergency.

Per-message fees may kill the business model for SMS and MMS-based marketing, concluded a panel at the CTIA Wireless 2009 Mobile Life conference.

24% of consumers who have received an mobile-based offer respond to such messages,  according to a July survey by the Direct Marketing Association.

Given that more than 2.6 billion text messages are sent every day in the US, mobile boasts the broadest reach of any mobile channel.

Text messages are also the most effective: 70% of consumers that responded to a mobile marketing offer responded to a text message, compared with 41% who responded to a survey and 30% to email offers, the survey found.

Still, many consumers are held back by price (see chart). Marketers, too, have to consider the potentially high cost of sending text messages. Advertisers and aggregators don’t find the messaging business model viable, panelists said - and they are hesitating mostly because of the per-message fees.

“The net revenue per message for advertising-supported SMS is $0.004,” explained David Oberholzer, vice president of Limbo. “The model isn’t completely solid, and it’s unrealistic to think the CPMs we’ll be able to charge will go up dramatically.”

Carriers have not done much to support the growth of the mobile marketing channel, the panelists said. One of the only breaks they’ve received has been from Verizon Wireless, which told SMS aggregators it will not impose an additional 3-cent transaction fee for every outbound SMS message sent to its subscriber base, preventing the cost from doubling or even tripling.

Among all of the messaging types - SMS, XHTML, optimized XHTML, iPhone-specific messaging and XMPP - companies are still struggling to make sending messages profitable and scalable, reports Mobile Marketer.

“We don’t want to drive billions of messages and get a billion dollar invoice and $100 in revenue,” said Chip Canter, vice president of wireless platform development for NBC Universal. “That’s a fundamental issue in terms of investment, because we cannot make that investment if there’s uncapped liability on wholesale pricing.”

It is also difficult to sell SMS advertising because messaging is not plugged into its ad infrastructure (DART), and it has to be able to integrate into other media.

Other panelists agreed. “SMS is great when you weave it in as part of your overall mix, but it’s not incredibly exciting as a stand-alone,” said Eric Harber, president/COO of HipCricket, which said some of their larger brands, Jameson and Nestle, are increasing their investment in mobile this year.

If you think of a pyramid - the bottom foundation layer is SMS, because it has the broadest possible reach and you don’t have to change behavior because they’re already doing it, he added. Then layer the mobile Web or WAP on top, for richer engagement, then on the very top rich customized apps.

Brands still have to figure out how to purchase advertisements within messaging - it’s still too hard to buy today. To be most effective, brands also have to be able to quickly provision short codes, which today takes months.

But in the long run, mobile marketing will progress faster than the internet, some panelists noted. Mobile analytics are able to show and demonstrate ROI, which is super important, Harber said.

http://www.marketingvox.com/mobile-marketing-growth-stunted-by-per-message-fees-043693/

International spending could change more than domestic, one expert says

By Bob Berwyn
Sun News Service
KEYSTONE, Colo. — New consumer behavior emerging from the ashes of the worst recession in a century will require mountain resorts to change the way they reach out to customers, said Dr. Lalia Rach, speaking Wednesday morning during the Mountain Travel Symposium in Colorado. 

Rach, an expert on future trends, branding and marketing strategies, said consumer behavior has changed fundamentally in the past few months and that businesses need to recognize the changes and learn how to respond. Framing her discussion in a global context, Rach said Western Europe is going to experience a worse recession than the U.S. 

“They loaned all the money to Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe is now in the bottom of the barrel,” she said, explaining that it matters because it’s a global economy. “It’s going to impact our return,” she said. “Let’s turn to the U.S. Economy … This is the broadest recession we have seen since before the ‘70s. No states are continuing to grow. The only bright spot is D.C. because the only bright spot is government spending,” Rach said. 

And things may get worse before they get better. Unemployment is forecast to climb above 10 percent next year, she said. 

“Even if we have jobs we are worried. We know someone who is affected, our wages frozen and we’ve been asked to cut back and furlough … Collectively in the U.S. we lost $11 trillion in economic value. That exceeds the combined output of Germany, the U.K and Japan. It should tell you what a rich country we are, and we are still standing. That’s what I wish all consumers would recognize,” Rach said. 

She said business that don’t lose money this year can be considered big winners. If you are somewhere between zero and 15 percent negative, you are ahead of the game, she said. Rach pointed out that there are people with money and that they are spending. But the balance of the equation has shifted. 

“People are demanding value and quality, and everything is negotiable,” she said. Consumers are looking to find bargains on luxury items. More importantly for the mountain travel industry, they also want bargain prices on their vacations, she said.

Changing aspirations “What happened in the ‘80 and ‘90s is, we changed our aspirations. Ninety-five percent of the people who bought a flat-screen TVs bought it because they wanted it, not because they needed it. 

“We are now repairing, not replacing. We are, for the first time, telling our kids, you don’t need 10 pairs of sneakers. We are cutting back,” Rach said, trying to pinpoint how consumer behavior will affect the travel industry. Consumer surveys show that people are choosing Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart. “People are still buying, but they are much more selective,” she said. Rach went on to suggest a few ways that businesses can respond. 

“Are you offering a coupon? Don’t make them clip it, send it to them. Don’t make them suffer, make it easy for them. Consumers are saying, show me your loyalty before I give you mine,” Rach said. According to Rach, establishing intimate, direct communication with customers could be one key to success. 

To do that, businesses must buy into the concept of tech-mobility, which means offering customers customized information in bite-size chunks. Rach said version 2.0 of the web is all about mobility and blending social and professional communication a portable communication product. 

She said consumers increasingly want their information delivered to handheld devices, and businesses need to be on-board with a portable web site that’s “visually dynamic, uncluttered and useful, with prominently placed contact information.” 

“You have to have a mobile web site within 18 months, because of Web 2.0,” she said, referring to networking tools like Facebook and Twitter as electronic word-of-mouth. To illustrate the importance of the new technology, she described the success of a Korean-Mexican taco van in Los Angeles that communicates with its customers solely via Twitter. 

“That’s the only way people know where they are,” she said. 

The business is apparently growing rapidly and recently set up two new vans to meet demand, she added. To wrap up her presentation, she re-assured the audience as to the prospects of the mountain resort industry. 

“This will end. Not as fast as you want, and not with a bang,” she said. Rather than seeing an explosion of pent-up demand, it will be a gradual, incremental return to confidence and some growing level of spending, and that will include travel. 

“The obituary of the travel industry has been written too soon. When we realize how much we’ve lost by not traveling, we will find ways,” she concluded.

Digital Marketing Guide: Mobile

How Marketers Can Use Location-Based Devices

By Rita Chang

Published: March 30, 2009

All right, we know you’ve heard that one before, but the truth is mobile is still experimental in some quarters, and even brands that are big believers in the channel still allocate comparatively small pieces of their digital budgets to it.

In a nutshell, mobile is difficult. Even the most versed practitioner will tell you it’s a convoluted ecosystem to navigate. Some of the technology that has made the internet easier to use for marketing, such as cookies, which track users’ surfing behavior, hasn’t arrived in mobile yet. Others say the reach is still not quite there and that there haven’t been any great case studies that prove it is.

Still, mobile businesses are getting venture-funded, and it’s not a channel to write off: There are more phones in the world than personal computers, and the opportunity presented by a highly personal, one-to-one, always-on communications device can’t be ignored.

There’s been considerable buzz around location-based services. What’s the deal?

Location-based services locate people or objects using GPS, Wi-Fi or triangulation, which calculates location based on cell-tower signals. Marketers can use LBS to serve location-relevant promotions, such as latté coupons for consumers on their way to a certain coffeehouse. (You’ve probably heard that one before, too.)

Some mobile social networks, such as Loopt, Limbo and Google’s Latitude, use location-based services to let people make their location visible to their friends.

There’s also the concept of “proximity marketing” — when advertisers transmit promotional content wirelessly within a particular place or venue (e.g., a concert taking place at a stadium) to the cellphones of nearby consumers. This is also opt-in and widely used in parts of Europe. It’s often based on Bluetooth technology, which has just started to gain distribution in the U.S., hence its slower takeoff on this side of the pond.

Being privy to someone’s location — isn’t that a privacy invasion?

Getting users to opt in is rule No. 1 for anything LBS-related. There’s a fine line between using location-based data to be helpful and scaring the bejesus out of people — and global mobile-industry body CTIA has set guidelines for such situations.

A Jupiter Research study last year found that nearly one in five marketers bemoans a lack of inventory and worries about how intrusive location-specific messages might come across. Twenty-three percent say there aren’t enough eyeballs to make it worth their while.

What about mobile apps? Clients, my boss, everybody’s asking about them. Should I be doing one or is this a case of GMOOT, or Get Me One of Those, Syndrome?

Yes, it does seem like everyone’s rushing to apps — those services and utilities that consumers can download on their carrier networks or via some sort of handset storefront. And for that you can thank Apple, which introduced the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch over the summer. Apple announced in March that the App Store has more than 25,000 applications and has logged more than 800 million downloads.

A branded application, the thinking goes, facilitates an ongoing dialogue between a consumer and the brand. Marketers also say apps are a useful way to keep the consumer engaged with the brand even after a campaign has ended.

OK, so I’m sold … right?

Hold up. Before you go out and start signing up developers, you should know that it’s a really crowded marketplace. Mark Lowenstein, an analyst with Wireless Ecosystem, recently told a conference that the most downloaded apps in the iPhone App Store reach 20% of iPhone users, which he equates to 1% of the market where the iPhone is available.

Moreover, if you really want to reach a broad base of mobile users, you need to develop for more than just the iPhone platform. It’s one of eight major mobile operating systems out there, and once an app is developed, it is not merely a simple matter of tweaking it to run on these platforms. So ask yourself: Why do I want an application? Would a mobile website work just as well? Is it worth the time and development to create a downloadable tool? You might find you’re warding off the GMOOT symptoms already.

The creative challenge

The screens are too small, some online creatives say. And offline creatives don’t want to sully up their beautiful outdoor or magazine ads with text-messaging short codes or other mobile calls to action.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that users engage more deeply with the brand when the ad unit is rich and interactive. And even though marketers may be limited in what they can do creatively, they have been resourceful in crafting work-arounds.

For instance, though the iPhone does not fully support Adobe Flash, the software that enables many rich, interactive websites, advertisers have found other ways to simulate the Flash experience. (Adobe said it’s working with Apple to bring Flash to the iPhone. Flash versions for Google’s Android, Nokia’s Symbian and Windows Mobile are also in the works.)

“The biggest challenge from the creative standpoint is in showing advertisers there’s a valuable creative environment,” said Jon Kaiser, a former ad executive turned independent consultant. He said automakers and entertainment marketers need to reach audiences that are hard to find in other media. “They’re going to push it because they need to … and they’ll figure out their creative from that standpoint.”

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to the danish reeaders; DR Update bringer en rapport omkring SPAM i den værst tænkelige form, nemlig FUP og FAKTA kategorien og man må håbe på at Telestyrelsen griber ind øjeblikkeligt. Men husk nu på at dette er KUN toppen af isbjerget, du vil som forbruger skulle tænke meget over hvad du tilmelder dig i fremtiden og kun gøre det med de udbydere som du har tillid til -ellers kan en dejlig service blive et “nightmare” for dig - prøv at forestille dig at den næste sms du modtager der tænker du “jeg gider simplehen ikke at kigge” simplehen fordi at det pluselig kun er f.eks. hver 3. sms som er fra dine venner og alle de andre er “SPAM” - be careful outthere ;)
ps: CNN Breaking News havde en rigtig god version af ovenstående check den ud her: http://bit.ly/mRGoY

Marketing Profs

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the Consumer Electronics Association announced it expects mobile phone unit sales in 2009 to grow some 31 percent in North America, with global unit sales reaching approximately 1.2 billion.

The announcement validates the mobile market as a wellspring of untapped potential, but it also poses the challenge of how to effectively engage audiences increasingly selective about how, when, and where they buy.

Consider this: It’s all but impossible to watch television, surf the Internet, or use your mobile phone without experiencing some sort of brand interaction. Brands are everywhere, from the shows we watch to the clothes we wear to the Web sites we visit.

Consumers are more accessible now than at any other time in history: From broadcast to email to mobile phones, there are ever-increasing numbers of channels for brands to reach customers through, but to what effect?

Brand saturation doesn’t equate to brand affinity. “Information overload” is no longer just a catchy phrase—it is a reality in today’s world of mass communications.

Making the Most of Mobile

So how do brands differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace without alienating consumers and blowing their marketing budget?

In this down economy, marketing spends are under intense scrutiny—marketers are expected to produce tangible results and maximized ROI for every dollar spent. The challenge of doing more with less has brands searching for innovative avenues for customer engagement.

With explosive growth projected in smartphone adoption, smart marketers will look to the burgeoning mobile market and address the wealth of opportunity it offers for meaningful brand-to-consumer interaction.

Engaging mobile consumers is about more than just sending out branded text messages or buying search advertising; it’s a process that requires substantial forethought and skillful execution.

One area showing significant potential for meaningful brand interaction is mobile 2D barcoding: URLs are embedded directly into barcodes, which are then applied to print materials, signage, or product packaging; when customers capture 2D bar codes with their camera phones, those images become gateways to additional branded data such as product coupons, mobile e-commerce sites, and more.

As a customer-engagement tool, mobile 2D barcoding opens the door to instant one-to-one brand experiences that cannot be replicated by non-mobile mediums (such as print or direct mail) but can be easily incorporated into existing campaigns.

Supercharge Your Mobile Marketing

With this in mind, here are five ways brands can supercharge their mobile marketing, turning choosy consumers into loyal customers.

1. Embrace the medium

Mobile devices are the most widely available in the world—and an “always-on” communications channel. Like that old tagline, consumers “never leave home without it.”

Moreover, mobile functionality is increasing: Users today can call a friend, send email, surf the Web, listen to their favorite song, get driving directions, watch a video, and snap a photo all from a single device.

Disregarding the unrivaled potential of the mobile market means missing critical opportunities to provide customers with truly meaningful brand interactions.

2. Be an early adopter

Innovative, easy-to-use technology tools are being introduced on a daily basis. There is unparalleled market potential for brands willing to embrace and adopt these rapidly evolving frontier technologies.

For example, a Web-enabled mobile device with the ability to read simple mobile 2D barcodes can turn a static, one-way conversation into an interactive, dynamic two-way dialogue. Providing such instant access to information that is relevant and timely to users increases market reach and penetration, improves awareness, and strengthens brand loyalty.

Finally, adopting these pioneering technologies ensures brands remain ahead of a rapidly evolving technology curve, and establish themselves as technology-savvy leaders.

3. Leverage touchpoints intuitively, not intrusively

Mobile functionality offers greater opportunity for brands to interact directly with consumers across a variety of touchpoints—such as voice, text, images, and video—but it also increases the possibility that these interactions will be perceived as intrusive and unwelcome.

Using push marketing to blanket entire customer databases with generic text messages is far likelier to generate negative perceptions, whereas a softer pull approach invites consumers to initiate a brand experience on their own terms and timeline—a print flyer, for example, that contains a barcode linked to a brand Web site with meaningful information, or a coupon.

Mobile marketing efforts should always be an intuitive, natural extension of current brand strategies, strengthening brand identity and driving customer affinity.

4. Drill down into the data

Mobile brand interaction generates truly useful, highly detailed customer demographics that can be captured in real time. Emerging mobile technologies like mobile 2D barcoding are a marketer’s dream—they allow user response and behavior to be tracked in ways that non-mobile mediums can only envy from afar.

By generating richly detailed data such as geographic location, likely age, and Internet usage, mobile 2D barcoding provides a measurable direct response tool, lending a robust ROI analysis to traditional print campaigns. This added dimension allows brands to measure and analyze customer demographics and behavior, and in turn, deliver more valuable, customized interactions like personalized ads and promotions.

5. Use mobile communications to strengthen customer relationships

The mobile medium facilitates more direct brand-to-consumer interaction, helping brands develop deeper relationships with their customers, enhancing awareness, and building overall brand loyalty.

Retailers and manufacturers have already realized real-word benefits like increased sales and improved brand identification. By leveraging the wide variety of mobile channels, including voice, text, mobile Web browsers, and video, brands can improve both the quality and frequency of their customer communications, elevating the consumer brand experience.

* * *

With a rapidly growing mobile market and smartphone adoption rates set to soar, brands no longer have the luxury of considering mobile marketing a footnote in their marketing and advertising plans; instead, mobile marketing is firmly establishing itself as a cornerstone in any successful, integrated marketing and advertising mix.

The time for marketers to act is now, or risk being left behind as the consumer migration to mobile continues. By following the above-listed five simple tips for supercharging their mobile marketing efforts, any brand can turn objective consumers into loyal brand enthusiasts.

Iain McCready is CEO of NeoMedia Technologies (www.neom.com), a leader in optically initiated wireless transactions.

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