Inside Mobile Marketing

I attended last year’s NYC event and must say it was worth the trip to the Big Apple. The abundant networking opportunities with the who’s who in the industry goes without saying, but I was more impressed with the slew of lil’ nuggets of “insider” information provided by most of the sessions/speakers. For example, the co-founder of Zumobi Dr. Ben Bederson talked about how his research at the University of Maryland revealed that the majority of handset users preferred operating their devices with one hand versus two. Coca-Cola Executive Mark Greatrex said Sprite sells 10 billion bottles per year. Scanbuy’s CEO Jonathan Bulkeley said 2D barcodes can trigger 26 actions on a mobile phone (e.g. SMS)

This year’s event is again filled with accomplished Mobile entrepreneurs and seasoned marketing & advertising executives from some of the Nation’s top companies. Here’s what I’ll be listening for:

• What is the MMA doing to exert more pressure on the Carriers to minimize their continued practice of creating new and ever-changing rules that ultimately supersede the MMA’s Best Practices Guidelines? (This is perhaps THE most frustrating issue within the Mobile Marketing space as the mad scramble to appease individual Carriers and their program Audit firms places costly demands on vendors and marketers alike to change systems, promotional materials, etc.)
• Will more brands step up and disclose their actual campaign results. (Look, everyone knows that the numbers will be low and in most cases disappointing, but we have to remember that we are in an experimental phase with this nascent channel. We can learn from each other’s efforts.. that’s how this is going to work for all of us.)
• Will the vendors, publishers, marketers dealing in the mobile advertising space talk about things OTHER than banner ads this year. It was a bit ad nauseam last year and according to eMarketer messaging advertising is expected to account for 88% of all mobile ad spend in 2008. I do see that 4INFO and Quattro Wireless have some executives on the docket discussing SMS advertising and “other” opportunities.