Inside Mobile Marketing

DEJA VU:

I swear at times I thought I was actually sitting in the 2007 MMF event as the same overarching themes and comments emanated from the various presenters. Here’s a few popular ones:

1. “We really thought it was going to be the year of Mobile”. No doubt this will continue to be said during the next couple of years as well.
2. Multiple sessions were dedicated to Mobile Banner Ads and Mobile Internet sites and how to drive traffic to them whereas SMS/MMS Advertising/Marketing was ONLY given a 15 minute slot with 4Info’s CEO Zaw Thet. This strikes me as a bit out of whack as Mobile web browsing doesn’t even come close to the reach and consumption numbers that SMS possesses currently. (M:Metrics pegs mobile web consumption in the U.S. around 13.7% and SMS usage around 48.6%)
3. Mobile education still is required at the Agency and Brand level – Admob’s Tony Northcutt did make the important point that education is especially important at the junior planner and strategist levels as many top marketing executives have already bought into the idea that Mobile will be around for the long haul.
4. Mobile metrics still need to be improved – “we still don’t know who our visitors are,” said WWE’s Rene Rodriguez referring to this company’s Mobile internet destination pages.
5. The U.S. Carriers need to share more demographic information with advertisers. Fair point, but the Mobile Social Networking panelists said they are finding consumers are proving to be very willing to share personal information when asked. It’s worth a try.
6. The Mobile Ecosystem is still too complex to navigate. Lots of players, each with a niche and each wanting a piece of the dollar bill spent on a campaign. Don’t worry, consolidation will continue to occur and processes will get straightened out over time.
7. Success with Mobile comes in the form of an integrated campaign. Standalone mobile programs will struggle due to lack of reach, consumer awareness and budget.

QUESTIONS:

1. Where were the M:Metrics and Nielsen Mobile analysts to place the mobile marketing efforts into some overall context as to what mobile users are actually doing – what the trends are, actual reach of technologies such as xHTML browsers?
2. How come the MMA did not have a representative discussing the highlights of their 2007 Mobile usage study? There is some good data in that thing.
3. For a mobile marketing forum – there was VERY LITTLE use of mobile as a direct response mechanism to poll the audience during and after sessions or allow participants to trail demo programs
4. How does T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless get away with NOT having representatives on the main Carrier discussion panels?? These guys claim they want to build better relationships with the MMA and the various industry players and yet they skip the largest North American gathering. I don’t get it.

PLEASANT SURPRISES:

1. Sprint announced via a representative during an LBS roundtable that they would begin selling access to some of their demographic information for location-based services. I am still however in the dark as to what this data may entail (e.g. sex, area of country versus city, income levels, etc..) and how it may be priced. Nevertheless it’s a good sign though from a major Carrier.
2. AT&T’s Jordan Berman stated in his slotted panel discussion that his company would be launching its self-service ad-serving solution for its MediaNet properties. Stay tuned.

NEED CLARIFICATION:

1. Verizon Wireless’ Stephanie Bauer had a slide deck that stated that VZW had 8 million mobile internet subscribers. I’m curious to find out exactly what that means…i.e. are there only 8 million VZW subs paying for a mobile internet data plan? If so, that would represent a small percentage of their overall subscriber base AND I would venture to guess a large proportion of the total are business users with smartphones subsidized by their employers.