Roundtable Report: Mobile Marketing

Sponsored by: AdSmart Mobile

http://uk.adsmart.net/adsmart_mobile.php

Speaker: Paul Quarterman - Adsmart Mobile

Moderator: Davina Lines – Netimperative

Panelists:

Mile Grenville - 160Characters

Martin Bowley - Pitch.com

Richard Mostyn-jones- Mavcast

Steve Dobson - Mavcast

Melina Jacave - Propel London

Jim Hayson - Ministry of Sound Holdings Ltd

Simon Towndrow - Steak Media

Alastair Boyle - Steak Media

Simon de Pinna - Upcomm Ltd

Robert Blake - Advertising.com

Matt Brocklehurst - Latitude group

Sue Stanley - E-Coaches

Craig Massey - Glass

Simon Judges  - Immediate Future

Fiona Harrop - BLM Quantum

Gemma Barnard - Steak Media

Adrian Mulryan - DoubleClick

Lucy Robson - DoubleClick

Omaid Hiwaizi - Crayon London

Yannis Marcou - Skyron

Karyn Clarke - Unigraph Design

Ben Pollock - Unigraph Design

Lori Faye Fichler - Consultant

STREAM Worldwide

Manish Kumar - Convera

Matt Dicks - Flirtomatic

Mark Curtis - Flirtomatic

Robert Thurner- Incentivated

Robin Langford - Netimperative

A summary of the key points raised in the discussion follows below. To listen to the debate in full, download the two WAV files at the foot of this page.

Session 1

Paul Quarterman, Operations Director at AdSmart Mobile, began the discussion with an overview of the mobile market, and identified the biggest opportunities for growth.  There are estimated to be some 63 million mobile handsets in the UK, outnumbering the total population, signaling a massive market that has greater market penetration than the Internet. Mobile usage has a strong skew towards the youth audience, with 93% of 16-34 year olds currently using a mobile device.

As technology has advanced, marketing to mobile users has changed from simple text based messaging campaigns to pictures, video and links to WAP enabled web sites. To illustrate the evolution of mobile marketing, AdSmart sent the panel members eight SMS and MMS messages of increasing degrees of sophistication during the debate.

The panel discussed the potential problems of SMS-based marketing, highlighting how to be unobtrusive and build good lists of quality leads. Steve Dobson at MavCast emphasized to importance of giving customers highly visible good opt-out opportunities, and said this remained an area where there was much confusion. He added that as a ‘best practice’ guide, the opt in/out options should always appear in the same place.

Robert Thurner at Incentivated said that including opt out options with each SMS message is unappealing to brands as they are limited to 140 characters in each SMS, so to use so much text on opting out can be seen as a waste.

Matt Dicks from Flirtomatic said that a best practice method for any marketing campaign was to unsubscribe a user anytime they text STOP to the number.

Alasdair Scott asserted that successful mobile marketing should be ‘timely relevant and personal’ and used the idea of a promotion for pizza a few hours before a football match as a good example of mobile marketing. Conversely, Steve Dobson gave examples of SMS campaigns that could be harmful to brands, such as messages purportedly from Orange, that link to a rival operator.

The discussion moved on to the major barriers to the market as it stands.  The panel though that a lack of clarity on data charges was a key problem, and said networks are not doing enough to educate the consumer. This has led to fear among users who are unsure how much that are being charged for accessing WAP and Mobile Internet sites.

Steve Dobson thought that deeper relationships need to be established between brands and consumers for mobile marketing to work. He said the best way SMS messages can work is by sending trusted non-committal messages to a consumer first before making a move on a sale. He thought this results in better customers and better conversion rates.

Paul Quarterman looked at opportunities to make money through voice, and highlighted a new method being trialed that offered users free voice calls provided they accept three second audio averts breaking into the conversation. Many in the panel thought this was too intrusive to take off, but some saw the idea appealing to younger users that were more receptive to advertising in general

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Session 2

The second session began with a look at new applications for the mobile phone. Ben Pollock at Unigraph Design looked at the way mobiles are being used as vouchers, via barcode redemption schemes.

Robert Thurner said at the moment standard scanning technology is not sophisticated to cope with scanning mobile devices and would require a radical overhaul which could be costly for retailers. He said that that while this practice can work well in places with a few checkouts, such as bars or clubs, the method would not work in supermarkets and other retailers with the neeed to major investment in new scanning technology.

Mike Grenville said opportunities in customer relationship management were not being exploited within mobile, but Paul Quarterman said this was largely attributable to privacy rules in the UK.

He said mobile marketing and CRM were being used to much greater effect in countries such as India, where privacy laws are less stringent and PC penetration was relatively low- meaning the mobile device was much more important.

Alasdair Boyle at steak Digital thought a key shortfall of mobile was its lack of accountablitiy compared to Online, pointingout you can’t track a sale from its inception to its point of completion. However, Steve Dobson argued that mobile has a key advantage over the Internet, - a mobile device iis unique to one person, whereas a computer’s IP address could be used by more than one person.

Davina Lines asked the panel how they thought mobile technology was going to be utilized by markers going forwards into 2008. Paul Quarterman saw a bridge developing as the mobile and internet technology converged. He demonstrated how an Internet banner ad for a car could lead onto a WAP site. This in turn could allow the user to select a car view video add, and the location of a nearest dealer.

The discussion moved on onto the potential of mobile banners. Jim Hayson at the Ministry of Sound pointed to a recent study forecasting display will become the biggest revenue generator for mobile by 2011. He added that from his own experience that he was selling up all the display inventory for the Ministry of Sound WAP site well in advance.

Steve Dobson was skeptical that banners would really take off in the way that was being forecast, and Paul Quarterman thought that the Ministry of Sound site was an exception because it was well placed with a demographic that suited mobile. In his experience, he found many mobile sites had struggled to sell display inventory.

Robert Thurner said that current stats from the MMA showed an average click-through rate of 2-4% for WAP banners. But this could go up to as much as 10%.

To listen to the debate in full, download the two MP3 files at the foot of this page.