Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert

Coca Cola & Mobile Marketing: Reach & Refreshment

Within Arm's reach of Desire
The Coca Cola Company, aka Coke, has been a leader in mobile advertising for some time. Going back to 2005 when they launched a bottle top short code campaign in Turkey and the UK, Coke has been forward leaning into the potential of mobile. BTW, I led the carrier connectivity supporting that project while I was at Mobile 365; we delivered the SMS payload for Coke to mobile subscribers in both countries, hence I've had a long standing interest in their leadership in mobile marketing.

Coke's view of the mobile world is that every person on earth should have a Coke product "within arm's reach of desire."  Good mobile advertising looks to capitalize on a first mobile impulse and Coke is effectively executing in both areas. Coke provides 1.4 billion servings a day, and there are 3.4 billion mobile phone users in the world. Hence they are slightly behind and need to fill a 2 billion gap by driving arm's reach demand, naturally through the mobile phone.

The Language of Refreshment
Does anyone actually want to view ads on a mobile phone, let alone interact with them?  Silly question, of course they do. Coke actively recognizes the singular opportunity to interface with the world's most intimate electronic device, a mobile phone. Moving well beyond the simple messaging which I was involved in, The Coca Cola Company is into viral advertising enabling shared content via your social graph enabled via your mobile device, as well as providing idle entertainment through limited reach bluetooth zones--for more, listen below. No mobile frontier will be left unexplored for the most recognized brand on earth.

Listen to my conversation with Tom Daly of Coca Cola who heads up their global mobile marketing efforts 13 mins

Recently at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in San Diego, I had the chance to talk to Tom Daly, Group Manager--Strategy & Planning for Global Interactive Marketing at The Coca Cola Company. Tom's the key guy--globally--at the forefront of their digital marketing and mobile is a key component to their strategy--not surprising.

Refreshment is a language everyone understands. No one speaks it better than Coca Cola.

Verizon Launches Video UGC: See What I See-SWIS-Services ?

Verizon has partnered with mobile media services provider FunMobility in launching a person to person video sharing service--and implied mobile social network. The service is called "America's Best Mobile Flix" or aFlix. The service allows Verizon subs to create mobile videos and share their UGC with mobile connections across other operator networks. Essentially P2P interoperable mobile video--I think!

Much like YouTube, customers can also review, comment, rate and share every video on aFLIX from their handset directly, and the best clips will be featured in a monthly "Best Videos" category. Users are automatically presented with the highest-rated video they have not yet seen when they open the aFLIX app. aFLIX will run alongside FunMobility's existing America's Best Mobile Pix photo sharing application.

What's significant in this is the interoperable part.

Mobile video has been advancing in the mobile commentariat, but has been taking baby steps with consumers. Transmiting video sharing from person to person is defacto video interoperability. If you look at the text messaging comparable--around 1996 when full interoperability occured for SMS in the UK, or 2002 when it occured in the US, the market exploded at a 6x multiple within 12 months. Just as SMS provided "here's what I'm thinking" full video interoperability, as claimed, will provide SWIS services --'See What I See' services.

SWIS services can, if priced right, become the video equivalent of video messaging services. The fact that Verizon enables this cross carrier is quite significant. A potential poaching of subscribers could ensue if this were to really take off without the other operators offer similar services in due course. Keep your eye on this one.