With Ring-Back Tones (RBT) becoming more popular everyday, especially in areas outside the U.S., the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published a new whitepaper detailing the appropriate opportunities and considerations when working with the concept.

Created with the help of MMA members 4play Digital Workshop, Comverse, Livewire Mobile, Ringco and Xipto, the whitepaper is designed to provide marketers with insight into the little-known and regulated concept of marketing via Ring-Back Tones, to ensure a positive, rewarding experience for consumers.

The concept of RBTs have been around for a while now, but only used by carriers in a very under-utilized environment.  Recently though, the possibilities have been introduced to third-party advertisers who recognize the unique opportunity and reach the concept has.

“Although ring-back tones have been repurposed by operators for almost a decade, it’s only recently that marketers are able to take advantage of this opportunity,” explained Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, APAC, Mobile Marketing Association.  ”With more than 3 billion mobile phones in use worldwide, and approximately 12 billion inbound calls each day, RBTs offer a compelling new media platform for marketers today.  In line with MMA’s efforts to educate marketers and protect consumer experience, MMA members have put together this whitepaper to provide insights into harvesting the potential of this new emerging area of focus as a marketing channel.”

Read the rest

Share This

As millions of eyes were tuned to the Oscars last night, the stage was set for one man to use the massive platform for a unique SMS call-to-action, whether the show’s producers wanted him to or not.

During the acceptance speech for winning best Documentary, the subject of which, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign that read “text DOLPHIN to 44144.”  Even though the camera cut away quickly, the message was still understood.

O’Barry, who captured and trained the first five dolphins who played Flipper in the popular 1960s TV series, dedicated the rest of his life to protecting and freeing dolphins from captivity after witnessing the ramifications of his actions — as well as the suicide of one of the Flipper dolphins in his arms.  His life’s work was chronicled in the documentary “The Cove,” which won the Oscar last night for best documentary of the year.

Following through on the campaign and texting “Dolphin” to 44144 returned a link to an Online petition and a means to send a letter to Pres. Obama.  MsgMe, the provider of the 44144 short code used in the call-to-action, said even though cameras cut away quickly when O’Barry held up the sign, the response was still significant.

“We saw steady traffic for the next five hours and have seen a huge spike in support over Twitter which we believe is generating the bulk of the traffic,” said Matt Silk of Waterfall Mobile, provider of the MsgMe SMS platform in an email today.  ”New subscribers are still coming in at a pretty healthy clip to sign the petition so we are ecstatic with the viral explosion of the campaign.”

Share This

Millennial Media has released its first S.M.A.R.T report of the new year, following its 2009 “year in review” posted last month.  Along with the usual data and insight from Millennial’s ever-growing network, this month’s report includes a special section comparing the performance of advertising on mobile devices using norms developed in online ad testing- a unique study conducted by InsightExpress.

First, a little context- the mobile Web, as measured by Nielsen, came in at a total audience of 67,004,000.  Of which, Millennial reached roughly 54,371,000 via its network, representing a network audience reach of 81% of total U.S mobile Internet users.  “Traffic to Site” remained the primary destination advertisers directed traffic to, once again, representing 45 percent of the total campaign destination mix, while custom landing pages and app downloads came in second and third at 34 percent and 16 percent respectively.

With regards to the study conducted by InsightExpress on behalf of Millennial Media, five categories were used — unaided awareness, aided awareness, mobile ad awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent — comparing campaign effectiveness by ad vertical.  Mobile campaigns in the Retail Vertical showed the largest differences in three of the five categories; Aided Awareness, Purchase Intent, and Unaided Awareness, while CPG campaigns indexed high in the Brand Favorability category.

To wrap things up for this month’s report, Millennial revealed that 10 percent of its advertisers used rich media creative during January, while average monthly pageviews per user reached 127.  Most surprising of all though, was the fact that Apple impressions experienced the largest month over month increase ever in January at 71 percent.

Share This

Google is obviously serious about mobile advertising, and is filing patents left and right with one common theme- location.  We reported a while back that Google had developed a process — and filed a patent — for “sniffing” data packets sent and received by users utilizing location-based services in an attempt to come as close as possible to having what the carriers have- true user location data at all times for its subscribers.

Last Tuesday, Google was awarded a patent filed over six years ago related to using location for “targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad,” as well.  While broad, it covers all basis for Google’s plan for mobile advertising, even though most of what they describe is already being implemented by the company.  Last week, for example, Google starting allowing users to modify their search results based on their location to show results nearby, and Google Buzz was launched using “location feeds” as well.  Here’s what the patent states as part of its abstract;

The location information used to target and/or score ads may be, include, or define an area. The area may be defined by at least one geographic reference point (e.g., defined by latitude and longitude coordinates) and perhaps additional information. Thus, the area may be a circle defined by a geographic reference point and a radius, an ellipse defined by two geographic reference points and a distance sum, or a polygon defined by three or more geographic reference points, for example.

Its just yet another pawn in the game by both Google and Apple to dominate in the mobile advertising market each want so badly.  When Google bought up AdMob, Apple fired right back with Quattro’s acquisition, and each are making move after move to help themselves compete stronger.  While one would think that Google has the undoubted upper-hand, Apple’s sheer reach with its iPhone and the lock it has on the device from hardware to software to now advertising gives it a stronger position than even Google would like to admit.

Share This

At the annual Apple shareholder’s meeting yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs reiterated again the fact that Apple is a mobile device company focused on small acquisitions to grow its businesses using the nearly $26 billion pile of cash its sitting on.  Through its acquisition history and future plans, its clear that Apple wants to own every piece of  each “mobile device” they offer, especially the iPhone.

At the shareholder’s meeting, Jobs expressed his continued interest in acquiring companies based on their talent and technology, not by their perceived market position, meaning the company will go after small startups that offer highly focused technology, or highly skilled and knowledgeable founders.  The company wants to acquire startups that can help bolster certain aspects of its products- a perfect example being the low-key acquisition of a mapping startup a while back to help Apple develop its own in-house mapping solution.

It’s clear the company wants to own every aspect of the devices they offer, and they’re already on the right track.  With the iPhone, the company directly handles the hardware,  software, the mobile commerce and music aspects via iTunes, mobile application distribution via its App store, and soon its own mapping solution, effectively locking out all third-parties and positioning itself to keep the iPhone (and all its revenue streams) all to itself.

Read the rest

Share This

r2integrated, an internet marketing and technology firm, has developed a simple and innovative tool to help brands plot the future of their mobile apps.  By comparing an app’s brand value against its usefulness, the tool predicts whether the app is doomed for failure or future success.

The quadrant is comprised of “campaign focused,” “most successful,” “least successful,” and “utility focused.”  By plotting a proposed mobile app’s brand value proposition against its usefulness, the quadrant can help predict its likely success based on one of the four aforementioned outcomes.

The first of which is obvious; if your app has low brand value proposition and low usefulness, the likelihood of success is inherently low, and it’s not worth the investment.  Low brand value compared with high usefulness, however, will place your app in the “utility focused” quadrant, meaning its success will improve, but will still face heavy competition from other utilitarian-based apps from larger software companies and providers.

If your app has high brand value but low usefulness, you’re app will be deemed “campaign focused,” meaning it will likely be successful for short-lived branding initiatives, but will lack long-term viability from a user-perspective.  Finally, if your app has high usefulness and high brand value, you’ll find yourself in the “most successful” quadrant for obvious reasons, meaning its utility will keep it “top of mind” with users, while driving brand impression and buying behavior as well.

Read the rest

Share This

The following is a guest post from Simon Vella, CEO of InvolveMobile…

If you have any doubt whether SMS spam falls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), you will be one of the remaining few in 2010. The TCPA has struck again, with the District Court of Northern Illinois recently upholding the FCC’s view of text messaging in Abbas v Selling Source. In this case, Abbas allegedly received SMS spam messages and sued Selling Source under the TCPA. Most of Selling Source’s arguments were rejected by the court, including their attempt at First Amendment defences.

There are now an increasing number of judgments extending back to 2005 that put SMS spam messages firmly into the sights of the TCPA. With the CAN-SPAM Act only regulating email to sms gateways, it now appears to be the primary vehicle for plaintiffs dealing with unsolicited text messages. Further to this, a Minnesota judge recently rejected the application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to a receipt of text message spam.

While mobile marketing has not yet enjoyed the spotlight it should do, it has also avoided heavy handed regulation which affects other marketing channels. Text message consents often seem to lack clarity for consumers, both through website registrations and mainstream media interaction. The proliferation of mobile cell phone lists in past years shows that consent for mobile direct marketing has sometimes been a murky area. The cases we have seen to date are already having some significant impact on the mobile direct marketing industry, with recent removals of mobile phone lists from circulation by major list providers concerned about massive legal payouts. It gives a welcome reprieve to an industry that will be increasingly under fire.

Read the rest

Share This