Written on Thursday, April 29, 2010
I just found time to go through my RSS feeds and came across this very interesting post in Mobile Marketing Watch, about Twitter's acquisition of a small SMS / MMS startup called Cloudhopper, an acquisition signalling their intent to bring SMS dynamically back into play. SMS is after all perfect for tweets, having a similar limit on length (160 chars compared to 140 for tweets).
Here's more from the article:
Though Twitter has always used its 40404 short code for mobile tweeting, the company has taken a lot of emphasis off SMS recently due to the sheer number of messages that pass through its system, and the cost of doing so.
To bolster its SMS capabilities and help scale the massive amount of texts coming in and out of its systems, the company today
announced that its acquired
Cloudhopper, a startup specializing in SMS and MMS technology.
Twitter had already been working with the startup for the past eight months to try and help manage the billions of text messages it sends worldwide, and has finally decided it was a perfect fit for the future of Twitter’s SMS capabilities.
In the announcement of the acquisition
via a blog post, Twitter revealed that it processes close to a billion text messages a month worldwide. While Twitter was originally designed to be mobile (hence its 140 character limit), the company underestimated its popularity and cost. You may remember back in 2008 when Twitter decided to stop sending messages in the UK, claiming that it could cost as much as $1000 per user per year to do so.
Though details as to how Cloudhopper’s technology will be put to use going forward are still unclear, Twitter said the acquisition would enable them to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the planet.
Through Twitter’s past and present evolution, SMS has always and will always be an integral part of its growth. Digging a little deeper to try and bolster the way it handles SMS was becoming inherently necessary, and Cloudhopper will hopefully fill the gap that was growing larger and larger.
It'll be interesting to see how Twitter choose to further utilise SMS to strengthen their mobile profile, because they need to stay ahead, with Facebook and Foursquare (slowly) gaining up on them.
Posted in
sms marketing,
social networking
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Written on Wednesday, April 28, 2010
I got this press release yesterday from Juniper Research, a company that's been doing a lot of market research in Mobile Advertising and Mobile Retail. Here it is:
HAMPSHIRE, UK: 27th April 2010 -- A new report from Juniper Research has found that the mobile marketing and retail sector (comprising mobile advertising, coupons and smart posters) will exceed $8 billion by 2012 globally.
The ‘
Mobile Marketing and Retail Strategies’ report found that Retailers were already starting to exploit the mobile channel through advertising campaigns on the handset and by issuing money-off coupons. The market for these two activities alone is forecast grow by half in the next two years.
According to report co-author Howard Wilcox, "Our research and interviews showed that location aware technologies will play a key part. Companies like Google and IBM are seeking to exploit the knowledge of where users are located to enable retailers to offer in store shoppers a rich set of capabilities such as personalised special offers. As a result we’re forecasting the mobile coupons market to double to exceed $4 billion in 2012. ”
Retailers Migrating to Mobile
At a recent mobile industry event, CTIA Wireless 2010, more than 20 percent of the show’s attendees were said to come from the retail space, showing that retailers were beginning to latch on to the potential of the mobile channel.
Whilst the mobile advertising and mobile coupons markets will reach similar sizes, Juniper believes that smart posters (which users can tap to obtain product information) will remain a niche sector within the overall market until NFC (Near Field Communications) capable devices are more widely used.
The report also warns however that failure to use targeted, location based advertising, particularly SMS advertising, may cause mobile users to regard such advertising as little better than spam. The report recommends that brands and retailers should consider geotagging their products and locations.
Further findings include:
· Western Europe forecast to nearly treble in size between 2010 and 2014
· Brands, retailers and merchants should use clever, engaging apps, which can be far more effective
Juniper Research ssesses the current and future status of mobile retail based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in this bleeding edge industry.
Mobile Retail whitepaper and further details of the study 'Mobile Marketing & Retail Strategies: Advertising, Coupons & Smart Posters 2009-2014' can be freely downloaded from www.juniperresearch.com or contact john.levett@juniperresearch.com.
Posted in
mobile payments,
mobile services
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Written on Wednesday, April 28, 2010
I recently came across (via an e-mail from one of you who gave me the heads up) Xtify, a platform for automatic push notifications on the Android platform, based on a set of different triggers. You can basically set up their platform so that automatic notifications come up on subscribers' Android phones when specific events occur. These can be, for example, geo-location related (e.g. when you reach the airport, you get a welcome message), or time-related (e.g. an alarm).
Pretty useful, as long as you pick relevant messages to send to consumers. Otherwise it's just a more evolved spam mechanism, but I guess this is the same with every messaging platform out there -- and the burden is on the marketer (and their client, of course) to be responsible enough to handle this.
Xtify: "Geo-Relevant" Messaging for Android
With Xtify-enabled applications, messages can be customized and sent to users based on their exact location. For example, local search and discovery applications could send you messages about businesses close by. Shoppers could be sent mobile coupons as they walked through the mall. Restaurant guide applications could ping you with recommendations about top-rated nearby establishments. Travel apps could pop up interesting facts about landmarks, historical sites and other points of interest as you went sightseeing.
While obviously marketers are going to glom onto the opportunities a local-aware messaging platform like this offers, Xtify's SDK, as you can see in the examples above, could be used for more engaging mobile messages than just coupons, ads and geo-spam.
Why on Android First?
It's not surprising that Xtify launched first on Android instead of iPhone. Just prior to the platform's debut, Apple announced that location-aware ads would not be allowed in all of its mobile applications. Likely concerned with the potential for abuse, Apple posted a notice to their developer center reading:
"If you build your application with features based on a user's location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store."
Android has no such restrictions due to its nature as a more open platform where apps don't have to go through a review process prior to arriving in the app marketplace. That should help Xtify get a head start since developers can simply take the SDK and run with their ideas without fear that their app will be rejected.
Lots of potential with these types of platforms albeit somewhat limiting the fact that it only supports Android devices. Android is gaining momentum, and gaining momentum fast, so it will be interesting to see how Xtify evolves. For a quick demo of the Xtify platform, check out the YouTube Video below:
Posted in
location-based services,
mobile marketing
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Written on Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Google's actions have long stated how keen they are to take over the mobile (internet) world. Mobile is the next desktop and Google are very intent to be part of this switch.
More and more services that started off as desktop apps are now web applications. The next step for them is going mobile, whether that means through mobile applications - and already many of them have iPhone apps - or mobile websites. And I'm sure mobile apps (be it Java, iPhone, Android ) and websites are the natural way we will see things evolve.
Google's latest announcement is about a location-based service, through a Google Maps-type service: Google Places. This is available from your desktop as a web-app, but seeing as you might be looking for some 'place' when you're out and about, Google are giving you ways to access the service through your mobile too.
One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We’re excited to announce Google Places today, as it’s just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local.
And Google are giving some real incentive for businesses to input their info:
We're also introducing several new features:
- Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can now show which geographic areas you serve. And if you run a business without a storefront or office location, you can now make your address private.
- A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities — Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we'll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
- Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating.
- Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, businesses in the U.S. can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.
- Favorite Places: We're doing a second round of our Favorite Places program, and are mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the U.S. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.
Over the past few months we've also added the ability for business owners to post real-time updates to their Place Page. You might want to promote a sale, a special event or anything else that you want customers to know right now, and this feature lets you communicate that directly to your customers. You can also provide extra incentive by adding coupons, including ones specially formatted for mobile phones.
I think Google Places are going to be making a lot more headlines as soon as more and more businesses realise the potential and start participating. Let's just see...
Posted in
location-based services,
mobile coupons
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Written on Monday, April 26, 2010
Here's more from their brief press release:
Cytech Ltd., after the successful new version of its
Bulk SMS service for professionals, announces the release of its newest
Free SMS service, for mobiles in Greece. Our
Free SMS Tree allows everyone to send
free SMS messages to mobile numbers in Greece, and comes with the following features:
- Free, Unlimited SMS messages to individual recipients
- Free, Unlimited SMS messages to multiple recipients (limited) *
- Insert & Store your most frequently used numbers, for quick SMS (limited) *
- Recently Sent SMS History (limited) *
* registered users only - registration is free.
Free Sms Tree is made free by ProSMS.gr, the sponsor of all the free SMS on FreeSmsTree. com. Come today to send free messages to all your greek friends! We built FreeSmsTree to show you what you can do with bulk SMS, so that those of you who need it professionally, and need the extra functionality missing from it, will sign up at ProSms.gr to benefit from all its extra features.
I've tried it and it works! And everyone likes free, so if you're in Greece you might want to give it a try!
Posted in
sms,
sms marketing
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Written on Thursday, April 22, 2010
CAMBRIDGE, MA — April 21, 2010 — Jumptap, the leading mobile advertising solutions provider and largest independent mobile ad network, today partnered with Medialets and Crisp Wireless to create the industry’s first Unified Rich Media Ad Platform that delivers the broadest array of highly-engaging, rich media ad units for mobile apps and the mobile Web. The combination of these leading mobile ad providers increases the value of mobile apps and sites while providing advertisers with the most engaging mobile campaigns. This advancement gives advertisers and publishers a single point from which to run diverse rich media ad units across multiple devices, technology platforms, browsers and publishers – all from one ad network. In addition, Jumptap’s published open standards allow any rich media provider to plug into its ad network.
“Advertisers have an opportunity to capitalize on the personal, always-on nature of mobile devices with rich media ad units designed to interact and capture the minds and hearts of its users, “ stated Adam Soroca, Chief Product Officer and General Manager of Jumptap. “Rich media campaigns are proven to drive higher levels of user engagement, more than any other media, with demonstrated increases in message lift association and higher CTRs.”
Broadest Array of Rich Media Choices
The Unified Rich Media Platform offers various new and creative formats to capture attention such as: banners, video and Web interstitials, configurable click through actions, tap-to-video, tap-to-audio, scrolling shakable, take-over-branding, location-aware, and more. The ad units are designed to retain the experience within the app or on the mobile site. Publishers and advertisers will now have simple and easy access to Jumptap’s premium mobile ad network, greatly expanding an advertiser’s campaign reach and increasing a publisher’s fill rates and eCPMs. Jumptap will initially be offering its unified rich media support on mobile Web sites and with an iPhone SDK. Android and iPad rich media support will be coming soon. To view the gallery of ads please visit: www.jumptap.com/mobile-ad-units.
“Brands are willing to make a deeper financial investment for the highest engagement opportunities, rapidly accelerating demand for these interactive innovative units,” said John Swafford, President, Swafford & Company Advertising. “We’ve seen rich media campaigns generate a 10% – 30 percent increase in engagement. Jumptap's new platform should make it easy to implement rich media into our mobile campaigns.”
“Being able to offer the broadest array of high performing rich media makes us more attractive to advertisers and increases the value of our ad inventory, ” said Micah Adler, CEO and Founder of Fluent Mobile, Inc. “Relevant and engaging interactive ads are what drive successful mobile campaigns and what keeps advertisers coming back again and again.”
###
About Jumptap
Jumptap operates the largest independent premium mobile advertising network in North America, offering the largest unique user footprint with a penetration of approximately 55 million unique visits a month in the U.S. alone. Jumptap leverages its highly advanced algorithmic engine and unique IP to deliver the best ROI for advertisers and the highest monetization for publishers. The result is a network of mobile websites and applications that combine best-in-class content and services together with highly relevant advertising to create an experience that appeals to the mobile consumer. Flexible solutions offer both fixed CPM and bidded CPC campaigns. For more information, visit www.jumptap.com or follow us on twitter.com/jumptap.
About Crisp Wireless
Crisp Wireless is a mobile advertising company that offers a rich media mobile ad platform and a full catalog of beyond-the-banner ad units to enable premium brands to interact with consumers on mobile devices. The company makes it easier for advertising agencies to buy, create, and manage mobile rich media campaigns. Crisp also empowers publishers to take control of their valuable mobile inventory and maximize their mobile ad revenue. Leading brands including Lexus, Infiniti, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Intel, IBM and Estee Lauder have utilized Crisp Rich Media ads. Crisp Publisher Partners include Discovery Communications, A&E Television Networks, Fast Company, Inc., Hearst Corporation, Cars.com and others. For more information visit: www.crispwireless.com.
About Medialets
Medialets, the most widely-deployed rich media advertising and analytics platform for mobile, enables publishers, developers and advertisers to deliver highly engaging and exceptionally measurable ads into iPhone, iPad and Android applications. Medialets’ one-of-a-kind ‘asynchronous’ ad delivery technology enables delivery of the most compelling, measurable rich media even when the user is offline, while its Universal SDK offers the most flexible ad monetization platform for publishers. Clients include The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Variety, Pandora, and more. Based in New York City, Medialets is a privately held company with marquee investors and a world-class team. Visit www.medialets.com, email connect@medialets.com, and follow Medialets on Twitter @medialets.
Media Contact for Jumptap
Eric Doyle
The Conversation Group
eric@theconversationgroup.com
+1-415-531-0212
Crisp Wireless
Alexis Wilson or Miko Mercer
LaunchSquad
crisp@launchsquad.com
+1-212- 564-3665
Medialets
David Barkoe
Medialets
david.barkoe@medialets.com
+1-917- 359-7222
Posted in
mobile advertising,
press releases
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Written on Thursday, April 22, 2010
CAMBRIDGE, MA–April 20, 2010 – Jumptap, the leading mobile advertising provider and the largest independent mobile ad network, today announced that it was awarded Patent No. 7,702,318 by the United States Patent Office on April 20, 2010.
The patent relates to a computer-implemented method for positioning targeted sponsored content on a mobile communication facility, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving data corresponding to a transaction event having occurred via the interaction of a user with the mobile communication facility, wherein the transaction event includes transmission of data representative of a first product or a first service being purchased by the user;
selecting advertising content based at least upon a relevance between a second product or a second service offered in the advertising content and the purchased first product or first service in the transaction event, wherein the relevance is further based on information relating to compatibility of the advertising content, second product, or second service with the mobile communication facility; and
presenting the selected advertising content on a display of the mobile communication facility.
The patent is the sixth issued to Jumptap in less than eleven months. Starting on June 16, 2009, Jumptap has been issued five other patents, Numbers 7548915, 7577665, 7603360, 7660581, and 7676394. The company currently has over 70 published patent applications and anticipates receiving additional patents over the coming quarters. Jumptap works with the GTC Law Group, Webb Law Firm, and Strategic Patents, P.C. on its patent applications.
“From the onset, Jumptap made an unwavering commitment to mobile advertising innovation, which is strongly evidenced by our growing IP portfolio,” stated Dan Olschwang, President and CEO of Jumptap. “With drive and ambition second to none, we set our sights on being the market leader. Our technology differentiation has helped secure that spot - a sustainable position which we intend to hold for the long term.”
ABI Research¹ recently reported that mobile online shopping is quickly approaching critical mass. These purchases can be defined as both online and physical world purchases. In the United States alone, mobile online shopping increased three-fold in one year, from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009. European markets are experiencing similar growth. Noteworthy is Japan’s mobile commerce total in excess of $10 billion in 2009 alone and with exponential growth anticipated. By 2015, shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased via mobile phones.
“Mobile advertising will be the largest influencer of consumer purchases made from mobile devices both online and in physical stores,” added Jorey Ramer, Jumptap Founder, Vice President of Corporate Development and a named inventor on the patent. “Mobile is the most effective channel for reaching and engaging consumers, requiring advertisers to demand sophisticated mobile advertising solutions in order to realize the highest returns on their marketing investments. Jumptap invests heavily in developing the technology that delivers the superior capabilities necessary to optimize the entire advertising experience – from reaching the right audience through to purchase.”
Posted in
mobile advertising,
press releases
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Written on Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I came across this very interesting article over on
clickz.com reporting on the
mobile marketing campaigns of the NBA team Cleveland Cavaliers. Well, apparently the team's managed to sell out its last 74 matches, sending only 4 ticket offers through
bulk sms.
So, if you've already got a top-selling product, why turn to mobile marketing for help? Who needs mobile when you're already selling out, right?
...Wrong, and fortunately the marketing team behind the Cavs are doing a really good job exploiting the diverse possibilities of mobile marketing in order to engage and build a stronger relationship with fans, and promote 3rd party brands. Here's more from the
article:
So as customers have flocked to watch "King James" play, the organization has turned its attention to creating a mobile platform that gives big brands in-game interaction with fans. DiGiorno Pizza, Verizon, Arby's, and Kia Sorento are among the names that have bought into the program, which the Cavaliers project will mean more than $200,000 in added 2010 revenue. Perhaps more importantly, the initiative has helped the team more than double its mobile opt-in list.
The program centers on Quicken Loans Arena's digital scoreboards. During timeouts and other breaks in game action, the scoreboards invite the 20,000-odd fans in attendance to answer a trivia question, vote in a poll, enter a contest, etc. Each of the activities comes with a brand sponsor and requires the crowd members to use their cell phone to participate.
For instance, DiGiorno has run a "get free pizza for a year" trivia-based campaign during numerous games. The scoreboards have encouraged fans to text in their trivia answers. If fans answered correctly, they were entered into the free-pizza sweepstakes.
As another example, Arby's has sections of the crowd compete against each other for one of the quick-serve brand's classic loss leaders - a free roast beef sandwich. Fans are grouped into three sections based on where they are sitting (upper-seating level vs. suites vs. lower-level seats), Ryznar said, each with unique codes to text in. The winning section is determined by which one first "finishes" a virtual Arby's roast beef sandwich - appearing on the scoreboards - by submitting the most texts. "The fans can see a [scoreboard] graphic with bites being taken out of the sandwich as the texts roll in," he said.
And they're not new to the whole mobile marketing game, either:
The idea of building a mobile platform that's attractive to brand partners began to truly evolve two years ago when the team ran a campaign for telecommunications provider Alltel. The campaign involved SMS and the "Cavalier Insider" e-mail newsletter, and the results were eye-opening, Ryznar explained.
"The mobile database that we provided did more in terms of creating Alltel customers than what our 'Insider' newsletter did - even though the newsletter list had 10 times as many people as the mobile database had [at that time]," he said.
With the aid of mobile marketing firm Phizzle, Ryznar said, the Cavaliers have significantly cut the gap between the sizes of the e-mail list and the mobile database. When the season began in October, the team established the goal of increasing its mobile subscribers from 15,000 to 25,000.
"We've already surpassed the goal by almost 60 percent," Ryznar said, while stating that the list is closing in on 32,300 subscribers with a week left in the regular season.
Part of the growth can be credited to the digital scoreboard promotions. When attendees text in their short code, the bounce-back message offers them the chance to opt in - and 37 percent do, according to Ryznar.
The list was also built through an online opt-in form created by Phizzle at Cavs.com/mobile. Additionally, Ryznar gave kudos to the team's broadcast partner, Fox Sports Ohio, which regularly scrolls copy at the bottom of the TV screen that encourages viewers to text in.
Even after the NBA playoffs conclude in June, the Cavaliers will be using mobile in the Cleveland area to keep the brand on consumers' minds while continuing to grow the list. In-store customers for the pharmacy chain Walgreens will randomly receive purchase receipts that prompt them to text in to win one of 400 Cavaliers items. "Those will be given away throughout the duration of the off-season to keep momentum going," Ryznar explained.
Walgreens' patrons who enter the contest will be encouraged to opt in for future mobile messages. In general, the team sends its mobile subscribers the following types of SMS communications: breaking team news, TV/radio information for games, halftime and final scores, new contest opportunities, and the occasional ticket offers.
Great work, and some very interesting thoughts & insights!
Posted in
mobile advertising,
sms marketing
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Written on Monday, April 19, 2010
When I read about the latest Nike Campaign,
Nike GRID, and given their
past history of mobile marketing campaigns, I was really expecting to see an iPhone app that goes along with it -- because the profile of this campaign fits very well with that of a
mobile marketing campaign.
But this time
Nike have gone out and done what's essentially a mobile marketing campaign, without using a single mobile phone. In fact, they've done it using the traditional red UK phone boxes. How?
Well, they're using the legendary London telephone box to track runners at designated Nike-branded locations. Runners register online, and then go out and run between any two of the 'active' phoneboxes and dial their unique user id number at the start and end, in order for their run to be recorded, so that they can earn points online.
As you'd expect, the more runs, the more points you can earn, but points are only accumulated for runs in a single postcode. The person with the most points in each area claims the crown, but you can also earn badges for speed, stamina and insider knowledge of the streets. There are 40 postcodes in play, with four phoneboxes in each. Any possible route is permitted, as long as it doesn't involve cheating, e.g. by taking the bus. You can find maps online, but also in various outdoor locations.
Nike GRID launches officially 8pm,
Friday 23rd April and players have 24 hours to race and conquer their streets.
Pretty cool stuff, especially if you like your runs, like I do -- just a shame I'm not in London anymore to give this a go. I love their approach too! Following their last campaigns that all required smartphones, an iPhone, or high-tech trainers, it's very nice to be seeing a campaign for people on the run, that goes back to the basics and requires no mobile phone at all... Well, that's if you don't use your iPhone to make sure you don't get lost running between phoneboxes.. ;)
Posted in
location-based services,
mobile entertainment
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Written on Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The
Mobile Marketing Association recently published a series of case studies for successful
proximity & mobile marketing campaigns. They highlight, for the specific campaigns what was done right, and they describe the marketing concept and the approach taken, and also report on the results as number of downloads/participation rates. Obviously, the ones with the best results are worth a closer look, and Mobile Marketing Watch recently did an article on three successful
bluetooth proximity marketing campaigns.
The first was
a campaign for Krispy Kreme, which interestingly enough, was the company’s first advertising campaign in the newly entered U.K. market. Large billboard calls-to-action were used to drive brand awareness and customer loyalty via bluetooth downloads, and was a huge success in the end. During the 15-day campaign, Krispy Kreme generated 48,154 downloads total.
The
second involved a branded mobile app campaign centered around
Pot Noodle, which included placing large calls-to-action on various commuter trains throughout London to “refresh a saturated strong brand.” The campaign pushed downloads of a free branded game and created a viral effect in the process. During the four week campaign, Pot Noodle received just over 95,000 downloads total, far exceeding most expectations, all from encouraging commuters to turn on their bluetooth to download a game.
The third was
an interesting one. The client was Lynx, makers of various body spray known for their marketing campaigns, who enlisted Blismobile to promote its new pocket-size spray on University campuses using proximity marketing. The campaign ran in university student unions across the UK, where Blismobile installed highly visible floor vinyls in the “download zones” to increase awareness of the campaign. User’s were encouraged to download a simple branded dating application and was another huge success- an average of 500+ downloads per day per university were recorded around “fresher’s week.”
I agree with Justin over at Mobile Marketing Watch, who wrote their article that perhaps these are the
most interesting out of the 6 case studies released by the MMA on April 6th. Each brings something new to the table, and sounds like it was pretty well-planned. However, I'm not so sure they were the most successful! Even just looking at the popularity of each, in terms of numbers of downloads, the
two most successful campaigns are not included in the
MMW article.
Let me re-iterate that. They've left out the most popular proximity marketing campaign case studies.
The first one is a
campaign for
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a Lionsgate film, that actually ran in part of the UK mass-transport network, the UK transvision network (Kings Cross, Charing Cross, Euston, Victoria, Waterloo, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds and Liverpool) and the Gatwick Express network (Victoria, Gatwick Airport, Brighton and East Croydon).
I'm only mentioning the total number of downloads here - for the rest check out the MMA site - but at
109, 554 total downloads I'd say this was pretty big!! Check out the
MMA case study for more info.
The second (and even bigger one) is
a campaign by the Nokia Ovi Store, alerting people travelling across the UK rail network of the Ovi Store service, that allows them to download content on their mobile phones.
At a total of
266K downloads, this is definitely one to note. Ok, with a name like Nokia behind it you wouldn't really expect less, but still. Worth checking out the case study for
more info and pics.
Consumers are just so open to marketing on the train/tube/bus because they're sat idle, usually with little to do -- and turn to their phone for entertainment anyway. So why not interact with them through it there and then!?
All of the above are excellent examples of proximity marketing campaigns, and we can all learn from them. A quick thanks to the MMA for bringing them out and using them as reference.
Posted in
bluetooth marketing,
proximity marketing
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Written on Monday, April 12, 2010
This weekend was all about work work work, but one good thing that came out of it was that I came across a few mobile marketing campaigns well worth noting, which I intend to write about this week, and today's post is exactly about one of these.
Starbucks, the world-known coffee shop brand, is realising more and more what they can gain out of
mobile marketing, and is constantly bringing out new
mobile marketing campaigns. Following their
mobile coupons campaign I'd posted about last year, they're now in the process of adopting a
mobile payments system, in order to speed up the whole coffee buying process, especially for those of its customers who are on the go -- and in a hurry!
Commuters are a typical example of this type of customer, as their coffee is vital but so is their time. Those who have done any real commuting (approximating near-hour-long travels each way every day) will have felt this in their skin.. You get out of the house two minutes late and suddenly you're in a danger of missing your morning dose of caffeine. And that's not a good start to anyone's day!
Here's more from the Mobile Marketing Watch article:
This week Starbucks has begun letting customers know that the Starbucks Card Mobile App now enables patrons to pay for purchases at more than 1,000 of their beloved coffee shops located within a Target retail outlet.
Using their iPhone or iPod touch device, this new mobile payment option aims to increase the ease and expedience with which customers enjoy their Starbucks experience. The Starbucks Card Mobile and myStarbucks Apps launched last fall to much fanfare and it’s likely the mobile payment capability will be widely embraced by coffee lovers on the go.
Building further on their mobile platform, Starbucks has also revamped Starbucks Card Mobile to enable customers to register a Starbucks Card and even check or reload a card balance.
Starbucks obviously stands to make more money if they attract more customers who are running low on time -- and they've obviously identified the need to attract these customers by speeding up queue times, and mobile payments is a way of doing just that!
It's a shame only iPhone & iPod Touch are supported so far... It just feels that if Starbucks really wanted to reach out to consumers in a rush, they should go for a much wider approach, also providing a means for mobile payment for Android, Blackberry, and Smartphone users providing the appropriate mobile application for these platforms as well.
I, personally, am covered as an iPhone owner, but I do feel for those coffee-deprived people who sleep in and sprint towards the train platform to catch the train... and need their coffee on the train to wake them up! I'm making a stand here -- those of you who belong to the aforementioned group come forward and join me! Get Starbucks to give all of us (you) the mobile app we (you) need!
Posted in
iPhone,
mobile marketing,
mobile payments
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Written on Wednesday, April 07, 2010
I came across this very interesting
press release from Ace Marketing and Blue Bite, who, in a joint venture, have taken it upon themselves to create - possibly - the biggest
proximity marketing network in the U.S. at least.
As part of the agreement, Ace Marketing and Blue Bite have the ability to cross-market each other's networks to their current and prospective advertising clients, giving both companies a larger sellable footprint, and providing advertisers with greater reach and scale.
In addition, Ace Marketing has been granted the exclusive right to sell Proximity Marketing products/services within the Sports & Entertainment vertical in the U.S. The goal of this agreement is to create the largest Proximity Marketing network in the U.S. with hundreds of locations in the top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs). The potential mobile downloads for this network should be in the millions. The highly-targeted medium will allow advertisers to deliver virtually any type of content directly to the mobile devices of their target demographic. This technology provides a delivery mechanism that allows users to receive information from advertisers that is free. For the mobile advertisers, this technology creates an opportunity to capitalize on delivering relevant content in the right context (i.e. delivering coupons at the point-of-purchase).
Ace Marketing are no strangers here. I've written
two posts about them before on here, with their activity in
proximity marketing in concerts.
It's good to be seeing them move forward with their proximity marketing endeavours, as I'm sure they've still got a lot to offer in the field.
Posted in
bluetooth marketing,
proximity marketing
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Written on Thursday, April 01, 2010
I got a really interesting e-mail from Tom, one of my readers, who was kind enough to give me the heads-up on some really valuable market presentations in the form of Market Maps.
Market Maps are essentially one-page diagrams that aim to give a complete picture of how a specific business or market sector is structured, by presenting some key concepts and terms, perhaps the key players, and other important factors that investors and other parties with interest in the field should know before entering it.
In our business, that of mobile marketing, I haven't come across many such examples - this is certainly the first such I am posting on this blog - so I was delighted when Tom alerted me of their presence.
On the
First Partner website, you can find a list of freely downloadable (you do have to register, but, hey, it's free) Market Maps. Their list (currently) includes a
market map for each of the following mobile, or
mobile marketing related areas:
- Wireless Broadband (2010) --also contains some Mobile Broadband terms & info.
- mCommerce (2009)
- Location-Based Services (2009)
- Mobile Media (2009)
- UK Mobile Marketing (2009)
- Mobile TV Distribution
- Mobile Enterprise (2009)
I'm sure you're bound to find at least one that interests you and contains useful information you didn't know. But even if it's stuff you already know, I found it really useful to have everything in a single 1-page document. I hope you will too..
Posted in
location-based services,
mobile advertising,
mobile broadband,
mobile marketing
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