The Mobile Marketing Association announced Wednesday an august panel of speakers lined up for the group’s 2010 MMA Forum in New York. The event is scheduled to be held at the Waldorf Astoria on June 8th and 9th.

According to the MMA, the two-day forum serves up the “largest and most comprehensive” networking conference focused on mobile marketing. This year, the MMA will introduce …

As MWC heads into full swing the announcements are coming in hot and heavy, starting with Orange debuting its mobile advertising plans for 2010.

You may remember Orange announcing a pilot program about a month ago related to its integration with Blyk, dubbed “Orange shots,” which serves SMS/MMS ads based on user preference and other user data obtained through the carrier.  With the pilot proving very successful, Orange is furthering its plans to cover its entire European footprint by the end of 2010.

Orange is taking things a step further by bringing interactive SMS and MMS advertising into new markets and tailoring offers locally to give advertisers new and targeted ways to engage with customers, no matter where they might be located across Europe.  Depending on which market, each offer is tailored to incentivize customers with localized, relevant rewards such as exclusive content, film and games reviews, celebrity gossip, free texts, prizes and other benefits like up-to-date sports information.

The key to Orange’s strategy is its emphasis on tailored localized services for each geographic region in its footprint.  For example, Orange will debut a new interactive ad-supported service called “Mio” in Spain this month, which provides all mobile customers in Spain the chance to opt-in, reaching beyond youth audiences, and serving highly relevant and location-based ads tailored to Spanish mobile customers.

Other mobile advertising trials are also taking place in Egypt and Jordan in the first half of this year, allowing for expansion into emerging markets, as well as mature markets overtime.  This localized approach is exactly what carriers should have been doing for a long time – utilizing the data it retains to provide unparalleled targeting and relevancy possibilities for mobile advertisers.

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I wrote recently about wireless carriers’ continued resistance to mobile marketing and advertising, and while I understand certain prohibiting factors, my faith was somewhat renewed with the news of Orange launching a new mobile marketing platform based on the technology acquired with its partnership with Blyk Media.

You may remember Blyk and the hype surrounding the service when it first launched.  The service was based largely on so-called “preference-based” mobile marketing where users would consent to receive a pre-determined number of SMS/MMS-based advertisements in exchange for free airtime and text messages.  While that model didn’t quite work out as they’d hoped, Blyk’s technology lives on with the launch of “Orange Shots,” a new mobile marketing platform from Orange Wireless.

Orange Shots is an SMS/MMS-based platform that allows advertisers to target and engage mobile users based heavily on their individual preferences and user-data derived from Orange itself.  It allows brands to engage with an extremely targeted segment of Orange subscribers if they choose, to tailor individual messages to be as effective and relevant as possible.  Two-way communication is encouraged as well, with every users asked to respond to marketing messages with views and opinions, and in return is offered a “variety of benefits,” including exclusive news and gossip, amusing and entertaining content, film and games previews, and up to date sports information.  Instead of being rewarded with free wireless airtime as Blyk introduced, Orange offers free “premium content” instead.

Orange claims that while working with brands directly relevant to the customer audience, it will allow companies to benefit from real time conversation with customers “happy to hear from them” and an opportunity to build an engaging and enduring relationship with customers as they get to know more about their profiles and interests.  Relevance is the cornerstone to Orange Shot’s strategy, and seems to be paying off.

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For marketers, there’s nothing better than a marketing campaign that’s a cliche “win-win” situation. But despite the cliche, building a campaign that has enough winning on both sides to be a success is not as easy as it seems.

Enter Miami-based MyScreen Mobile, a company seeking to target customers with perks like free airtime in exchange for viewing mobile ads, coupons, and other deals. MyScreen is first rolling out the tech in Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, but plans to release in the U.S. and Europe in 2010. The company’s idea is not new — in 2007, Blyk, a U.K-based company, ran a mobile virtual network operation that rewarded free cell phone minutes and text messages in return for viewing their ads.

MyScreen thinks it has the secret win-win sauce, but we’ll have to wait and see just how much the customers think they’re winning in exchange for having an ad pop up at the end of their every call. For marketers, having an ad pop up at the end of a call likely will mean higher engagement and larger click-through rates. For frutalistas seeking to get free minutes on their phones, targeted coupon deals may do well. But how big is that market, really?

Forrester Research’s Julie Ask told Brand Week that MyScreen’s idea is  not new, and that “there has to be some value proposition” with U.S. wireless carriers already offering unlimited monthly cell phone plans, or pre-paid programs. She adds that younger age groups (under 35) are more inclined to trade advertising for free minutes, but not everyone is ready to exchange their eyeballs for more talk time.

I came across a rather interesting article out of the Philippines that talked about the concept of wireless carriers using digital marketing to help lower the costs of subscription rates for its customers- much like magazines use the revenue generated from print advertising to make the magazine itself inexpensive for consumers.

It’s a concept I’m surprised I never thought of before, most likely because I always thought wireless carriers would always charge what they charge no matter the revenue they’re generating elsewhere.  ”If telcos will get revenue from mobile marketing ads, the more they can lower subscription rates to customers,” said Emmanuel Allix, managing director of mobile advertising firm Pudding Media (Asia Pacific), during an interview with Computerworld Philippines.

To be fair, the interview was conducted with someone that obviously has an interest in mobile marketing, and therefore would love to see wireless carriers utilize the medium in large quantities, but the idea still makes sense.  ”Through simple mobile phone functions like ring tones when someone is calling or when you’re receiving text messages, we can insert ads of businesses.  And ours is even non-intrusive, permission-based. It is both opt-in and opt-out,” Allix continued.

Wireless carriers are already using the practice to some degree, but as revenue from digital marketing goes up, prices will undoubtedly stay the same- at least for the foreseeable future.  We’ve already seen telcos try to offer completely free wireless service based on ad-revenues, and while it does work, it’s by no means a sustainable business model for large-scale carriers.  Finding a happy medium would be a boon to the industry, but It’s definitely a long way off.

Blyk, the UK-based MVNO that operated under an ad-funded business model, is ceasing operation.  The company couldn’t last any longer providing free SMS and airtime in exchange for relevant advertising.  While the service as we know it is no more, the company will live on.

Completely changing its business model, Blyk will now focus its attention on providing mobile applications and consulting to other wireless carriers on how to provide ad-funded service to its customers.  In other words, instead of providing a completely ad-funded service based on pushing advertisements to its users, Blyk will create specialized apps that other carriers can utilize that will offer the idea as a separate option, in addition to normal cell service.

It’s an idea that Blyk should’ve utilized in the beginning.  By providing an option to users, it makes much more sense- the users can receive advertisements when they feel like it, in exchange for free SMS and airtime, instead of being forced to all the time.  It might just be a sustainable business model in the end- that is if the mobile carriers will start including the app.

With increased pressure from the likes of Google Voice and others that also offer free telephony service, Blyk just simply couldn’t compete.  Hopefully, the service will thrive as an app instead of a full-on service-provider, but only time will tell.  As you remember, we here at MMW liked the idea of Blyk in the beginning and thought it would make it, if done properly.  We’ll definitely keep this on our radar.

Blyk, the UK-based MVNO that offers free mobile airtime in exchange for advertising, has cut back on the amount of free usage it’s giving its members these days.  Citing the recession as the reason for the cutbacks, Blyk is maintaining the notion that it’s “better to have Blyk, than no Blyk at all.”

In the UK, where it serves around 200,000 members, Blyk changed the terms of it’s service and instead introduced a new £15 allowance ($22.19)- enabling any combination of “free” voice, text and data usage at prepay rates, with data charged at £1 per MB ($1.48).  Blyk users quickly calculated that at those rates, they were around £13 per month ($19.23) worse off than before.  The complementary usage value went down to around $23 per month instead of the $41 per month it used to be, which is a substantial drop.

After an obvious outcry by its users, Blyk quickly stated that “we know that you have concerns about the new terms and we’d like to give you some background to these changes.  No one, including us, knows how the economy will fare in 2009 and beyond.”  They claim it’s a preemptive business tactic to better prepare for a prolonged recession, which may prove to be a smart move, but you have to wonder why they would make such an extreme cutback to the bread-and-butter of their service.  They know the business model will work, overall, so why mess up a good thing.  

On the other hand, the business model may not be working as well as it once did.  A cutback of this magnitude might be an indication that the free network usage its giving away for free is costing more than the advertising revenue it’s taking in.  If one thing’s for sure, it will show just how loyal Blyk users really are, and whether the idea in general can make through these tough economic times.