The fact that I received a mobile coupon for Halloween candy this week was a great personal forerunner for this news item.

ComScore Inc., a leading barometer of all things digital, reports that the mobile marketing landscape in Europe is evolving as fewer consumers say they are receiving advertisements for mobile products and services while more receive adverts for consumer goods such as food, fashion, restaurants, travel and financial services.

Over the past year, the number of people receiving SMS adverts for mobile products and services fell nine percent in Europe, while the number receiving offers for non-mobile consumer goods and services climbed 15 percent. Overall, slightly fewer Europeans report receiving an SMS ad, with a decline from 112 million in August 2007 to 110 million in August 2008.

The fastest-growing category of SMS advertising since August 2007 is food, at a rate of 53 percent, followed by clothing/fashion at 38 percent and restaurants at 37 percent. Advertisements for restaurants and food also boast the highest level of response, with 16 percent of those receiving an advert for a restaurant responding and 13 percent of those receiving an offer for food, such as grocery coupons, responding. Meanwhile, the number of consumers responding to an offer for a mobile product or service remained flat, at only four percent.

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NeoMedia Technologies, Inc, a recognized leader in camera-initiated transactions for mobile devices, is planning to release a new “measurable mobile marketing platform for ICE, the leading mobile network operator in Costa Rica.”

Why is this important? Because the NeoMedia platform will enable retailers, banks and other organizations to build a mobile marketing ecosystem that will drive innovative mobile-based marketing applications that, for the first time, can track, trace and measure consumer activity.

And anyone who thinks this won’t hit the mainstream soon perhaps isn’t taking a farsighted enough look at the future of mobile marketing. Although similar applications have long been in use, the versatility and coupling of features is what most intrigues me about this development at NeoMedia.

Consumers can use the phones to scan 2D barcodes on product packaging, advertisements, retail displays and publications. The codes open up a vast range of potential for product marketing, incentive-driven promotions, and value-added benefits to be offered to the consumer.

Each scan that triggers a visit to a promotional site can be traced and tracked, enabling 100 percent measurable activity and feedback on the performance of the promotion, and therefore 100 percent measurable ROI on the mobile marketing spend.

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A Philadelphia-based mobile technology company today launched its direct-to-business brand, Everywhereigo, a suite of “easy-to-use mobile marketing tools aimed directly at businesses and groups of all sizes.”

What caught my attention was the basic no-cost version available at www.everywhereigo.com to organizations of any size interested in learning through experience why mobile marketing is the evolution of e-mail marketing, Web publishing and blogging in this new era of information on the go.

Everywhereigo allows any business or group to create “Everywhere Pages,” mobile Web pages designed to be displayed on any mobile device and to be updated easily. Everywhere Pages allow businesses and groups to improve response from traditional advertising, search engine marketing and e-mail newsletters, and to create immediate and loyal connections to customers and members who are increasingly accessing e-mail, Web pages and text messages from cell phones.

As one who has been playing with this all day, I highly recommend checking it out for yourself and getting inspired by the power of mobile marketing.

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Prepare for the latest out of Atlanta to become the latest in America before long.

In an increasingly “auto-centric” market, hundreds of drivers have already signed-up to help advertisers “own the road” through the latest offering from Fueling Media.

Atlantans who curse their tedious daily commute can now profit from one of the nation’s acknowledged “worst drives to and from work.” Fueling Media has just introduced a new mobile marketing platform in Atlanta to reach millions of captive prospects and customers who spend hours in traffic on some of the most congested and heavily traveled highways in the nation. Read the rest

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Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s largest wireless company, is close to an agreement with Russia’s OAO Mobile TeleSystems to jointly promote products and services.

The partnership, which won’t include equity stakes, would allow Mobile TeleSystems to offer Vodafone-brand services, handsets and modems in Russia. In May, Newbury, England-based Vodafone announced a similar agreement with Chile’s Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones SA.

The collaboration would allow Vodafone to tap growth in Russia, where Mobile TeleSystems is the largest mobile-phone company. Vodafone has expanded in emerging markets with acquisitions in Turkey, India and Ghana to make up for slower growth in Western Europe. The company scaled back its sales forecast in July, saying it faced a “more challenging” environment as Spain’s economy cooled and call prices dropped.

The Mobile TeleSystems deal would come after Vodafone revamped its organization structure to work in emerging markets more efficiently. Management of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia will be split in two beginning Jan. 1, the company said in September.

Russia, with a population of 142 million people, had almost 180 million wireless subscribers at the end of September, according to Moscow-based researcher Advanced Communications & Media. That will rise to 193.5 million by 2010, according to IE Market Research Corp. of Vancouver, Canada. The nation is in its 10th straight year of economic growth.

Mobile TeleSystems had more than 61 million subscribers in Russia at the end of September.

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This year’s the McDonald’s® Monopoly game included a mobile component for the first time in the history of the popular game. It was such a success that Telescope, the same company who handles the infamous American Idol text message voting and who partnered with The Marketing Store to build the McDonald’s SMS campaign, disclosed that it was the largest SMS promotional game by far ever run in the U.S.

Taylor Hunt, Director of the 2008 McDonald’s Monopoly Online/Mobile Game and Head of Digital Promotion Development at The Marketing Store says, “Even though the McDonald’s Monopoly game was the world’s largest annual online promotion (no other promotion has even come close to the number of codes entered or interactions), this year’s game was sent to a new level altogether with the addition of mobile.”

This is really quite an accomplishment because mobile was added into the game fairly quietly. They did not do any advertising of the SMS part of the game and they didn’t put the short code on the game pieces – they only put the SMS instructions on promotional game bags and cups, and mentioned it in 3 out of 5 of the marketing emails sent out to the opt-in database during the game. Still, adding the ability for people to play the game by texting in their game pieces sent the participant numbers soaring.

Even more remarkable is that the customer complaints were lower this year than they have been in the history of the online game. A completely new technology was added into the mix and complaints were lower. That’s impressive.

When I asked Hunt to what she attributed the success of the campaign, she said, “It really came off without a hitch because we did so much planning up front. Detailed planning up front and weekly status meetings during the build of the promotion were keys to have such a smooth launch.”

It should come as no surprise that they are already planning for ’09 now and the ’08 game is not even finished! According to Hunt, “Mobile is in the proposal for ’09 again, and we’re looking to take it to a whole new level.”

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In order to promote its ‘White Gold’ campaign, the California Milk Processor Board - the creators of GOT MILK? - has leveraged the mobile expertise of HipCricket to include a” first-ever mobile element into the celebrated milk campaign.”

HipCricket was selected to design the mobile elements of the integrated campaign, which invited users to interact with a fictitious guitar rock god named - you guessed it - “White Gold.”

The brainchild of advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, ‘White Gold and the Calcium Twins’ is a rock band that stars in TV, out of home print and online ads touting the health benefits of drinking milk. The ads, coupled with the band’s interactive website, WhiteGoldisWhiteGold.com, show music lovers, especially teens, how cool and beneficial drinking milk can be.

HipCricket designed the campaign’s mobile WAP/website, which invited milk drinkers to visit White Gold’s online site right from their mobile phones. The website contained a lot of interactive content, like full track downloads from the band. Mobile keywords that reinforced the brand were promoted on posters throughout California shopping malls and outdoor advertisements encouraged consumers to download free White Gold ringtones simply by texting in keywords to a common short code.

“The White Gold campaign is all about reaching teens where they already are, such as social networking communities like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. It was only natural to make White Gold accessible on their most personal device,” said CMPB Executive Director Steve James. “Now as teens reach for their mobile phones, they’ll think about reaching for a glass of milk too.”

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