Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert

Tipping Point 2SMS: Enterprise Messaging

Finding true trends in the sea of noise created by the hype-manufacturers in mobile is practically impossible. Last week’s CTIA was a clear example. The multi headed hydra of the pundit-ocracy clamors a singular vision. The PR flacks shed a thousand points of light on their next big things. The organizers spotlight the themes of “men on white horses”—keynote speakers and sponsors--which we mere peasants should naturally be following.

Meanwhile most journeyman attendees (like me) are too busy in meetings, pleading for face time, attending dinners conflicting with 10 pm receptions, all within an average stay of three days and two nights in the bull’s eye of Vegas’ adult distractions--this is a massively male industry mind you. Little gets really noticed, let alone understood. Less makes an impact. Ahh, least we not forget the “current economic conditions” either.  Trying to capture a true trend is like noticing a single sequin in a strip club. 

But as even a blind man can find a sequin if he's feeling for it, I think I found one of those true trends: Enterprise messaging.

Since its birth, SMS has been the finger tool of consumers, passing trillions of notes as a terse, powerful means of communicating. I consider text a fully developed medium on par with film, TV, radio, and print. It informs. It entertains. It connects. It has billions of users. It earns its keep in the mind of individuals. Now it is carrying multiple payloads, whether financial, advertising, entertainment, medical, even payments. Seems 160 characters can be quite effective.

My enterprise ‘tell’ is not the developing bubble of one shot wonders of apps developers focusing on calendar synching LBS widgets, but the growing number of scale-sized enablers which are now managing all the complexities of routing, delivering, securitizing, sorting and prioritizing the messaging needs and benefits of enterprise users.

These are not the massive aggregators managing traffic to the networks, but companies specifically developing targeted turn key solutions for enterprises, while using the back haul delivery network of a global messaging aggregator. It’s a sign of a developing, healthy ecosystem evolving beyond consumer messaging.

One stood out to me at CTIA : 2SMS.

2SMS is a British born firm, 8 years on. They provide a software based solution to enterprises providing an integrated solution beyond just mere alerts and notifications. By having a synergistic messaging notification platform provided by 2SMS, an enterprise’s employees, customers, suppliers--perhaps even share holders--can be kept current on a variety of activities, notices and actions required. This is not your father's alerts and notifications.

2SMS has obtained ISO 27001, an international standard for information security, something neither cheap nor easy to implement and maintain. A clear differentiator from the other enterprise oriented SMS providers and clear advantage for 2SMS as they overcome security challenges for text in the enterprise segment.  Usually this is the biggest hurdle for SMS in an enterprise environment alongside storage, retrieval and messaging management.

Listen to my conversation with 2SMS CEO, Tim King here (6:38)   

But the real power comes in 2SMS’ technology. Not just content with the hiding in plain sight “security” measures of SMS, their solution incorporates a proprietary component where secure messages are identified from a trusted source and naturally delivered to the recipient. But, the message doesn’t sit perilously on the handset, its in the cloud, thus protecting the user from any loss or “transfer of handset possession” e.g. being “pinched” or lost.  Plus it provides auditing and a legal trail as well.

 I spoke with Tim King the CEO of 2SMS [click here to listen to the podcast or tune in here at iTunes ]. As Tim relayed “business leaders are now recognize the power of SMS and identify with its non-financial benefits. They are going beyond financial benefits, and now see impacts  on operations or mission performance and results such as improved customer satisfaction, faster information distribution, improved productivity, improved efficiency. That’s how we harness SMS.” Having sold to enterprises in the past, the real marketing value of proof in their pudding was their tool which shows the ROI on the purchase of their services. Something buyers are always looking for to support a purchase, and a technique I've often used. Smart move as exemplified by their customers which include SnapOnTools, Exxon and Pfizzer.

2SMS’ enriched enterprise messaging services have placed the company at the leading element of a number of companies that are gaining traction and scale. Unlike Twitter texting, here’s a concrete business model with secure messaging services within a broader segment that pays the bills. This is a company that has many of the pieces in place, prepared as the wave of opportunity is breaking towards them.

2SMS and their noble competitors developing the enterprise messaging segment will add another wave of growth to SMS usage and further the next evolution of text. Check them out.

AKQA Mobile: Advertising for the Digital Mobile Age

AKQA is a global digital advertising agency that is at the top of the mobile advertising game, having won AdAge's Digital Agency of the Year for 2008, and being named the 48th most innovative company in the world by Fast Company. Mobile is a key component to their digital advertising practice is a key component to their strength, but their mobile  initiatives are their reals bench strength.

AKQA brought in Dan Rozen about a year ago, a long standing mobile marketing veteran in the UK, and since then they have grown to a dedicated mobile team of 20 with campaigns for Coca Cola, Visa, ESPN, Orange, Nike and most mobiley noteworthy Smirnoff vodka.

Listen to my interview with Dan Rozen, GM of AKQA Mobile here:

Smirnoff made its first stab at mobile with a WAP site built by AKQA. Rather than simply re-creating the Web experience on the phone, AKQA opted for an on-the-go cocktails and nightlife guide. In the U.K., the mobile site reaped about one-third the traffic of the Web site, reports Michelle Klein, Smirnoff's global digital marketing director, who calls AKQA "at the bleeding edge. They know what's happening in the technology space and they bring those ideas to us. They have their fingers on the pulse. They came with a big idea and then blew the idea out."

In other words, while mere ad mortals struggle to understand the social MOBILE web, Dan Rozen and his trailblazers are already deep into the next big thing.

Now on iTunes: Mobile Point View Podcasts

Ever seeking a chance to expand my communications efforts and marketing of Mobile Point View, my Mobile Influencers Podcasts are now available via iTunes and the iTunes store.
 Log into your iTunes account and either search for "Paul Ruppert" or "Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert" and you can select from any of my growing library of podcasts--all 38 will soon be available on iTunes for your listening convenience spanning over 9 hours of interviews with leading CEOs, innoavtors, and Mobile Influencers. Plug in and add it to your "life soundtrack, and feel free to add a Customer Review while your there. Much appreciated.

Psychology not Technology: On TV at the Mobile Marketing Association

BnetTV.com's correspondent Michele Sklar interviewed me at the Mobile Marketing Association forum in San Diego, CA on November 12th.

You can view the 8 minute interview by clicking here. Covering the range of issues at the MMA's Forum event I spoke of how advertisers need to be focusing on the psychology of making mobile impressions instead of the draw of the technology of mobile. The contextuality of mobile, it's "lean forward" and small screen more dynamics require emphasis  on the creative side of mobile advertising instead of being drawn to mobile's power to provide more impressions over other types of traditional media.

Mobile Culture Codes across the Globe
The context of differences are more important than similarities once you go global, and Michele and I covered how differences between the North America, Asian and European mobile advertising markets are shaping the development of mobile marketing globally.

Case Made: Recession Proof Business Models for Mobile Marketing

With economic ripples crashing against our ecosystem we also covered the false reality of a shrink to grow strategy under stressful economic conditions, and why mobile is well suited to survive as a component in broad advertising intiatives because of it's impact, high return and competitive strength against other larger, ahem less effective components of an overall advertising campaign.  Learn more by viewing the entire interview here.

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.

Mobile Advertising: Snap, Send, Get.

There's much buzz about the ever increasing impact of short code applications in mobile advertising and marketing. Sending simple texts messages when you see an advertisement in the world of old media such as magazines and newspapers, and engaging the brand through new media mobile. Look at ShopText as a great example of this and their campaigns with Cosmopolitan and other Hearst magazine properties. An emerging leader in the mobile short code marketing category.

Yet, short codes may be too early and too late. Now emerging mobile technology surrounding QR codes and dot matrix codes are starting to demonstrate their technological innovation. Instead of six to 10 key punches, now you can easily take a picture of a code and have the same functionality.

While at CTIA IT in San Francisco three weeks ago, I saw the next iteration of image recognition, Snaptell. The Snaptell solution doesn't even need the code. You just snap a photo of the advertisement and you're off. One touch functionality.

Listen to my interview with G.D. Ramkumar, the CEO of Snaptel ( 9 mins)

Interactive Media in Magazines
You can see how Snaptell works in the real world in the September 9, 2008 issue of ESPN Magazine. They've partnered with Snaptell with all their advertisers for this issue. The reader snaps a picture of an ad their interested in. Their phone is directed to a mobile web landing page, and they get more information about the product/service plus cool rewards, like ring tones, screen savers, games, ring back tones,  free-miums! 

In the background, the brand is able to easily access detailed information about the user, such as type of handset, network subscription, and other data which the reader might be interested in sharing, essentially all the actionable metrics which make these mobile advertising offerings of such great contextual value.   Snaptell provides an end to end solution for mobile marketing that includes campaign management, carrier gateway integration, content delivery, and an intuitive, easy to use interface for the advertising agency to set up a campaign.  Essentially the "snap on" Snaptell solution puts simple short codes to shame. 

How'd they do that?
The technology behind mobile image recognition is quite intriguing. Interlaced into the advertising image are feature points which are picked up by the phone, and compared against a data base, with over a billion components of images. Within a second it identifies and recognizes the feature points and activates an interactive instruction application. You don't even need to have the full image or even a majority of the image in picture, you can crop it, capture just a corner, and it still works. The payload is through an MMS message being sent of the image.  The coolest part is that it doesn't need to be still images such as a magazine or print ad.

It works with video, too!  Just watch a tv commercial, click an image, et voila, and actionable event is being requested of you. Pretty slick technology. 

Look for Snaptell in Men's Health, ESPN Magazine, Wired, and other magazines in the future.

Mobile Advertising: Bango Measures Exposure, Pursuasion and Transactions

Understanding how analytic metrics illuminate and profile users, with a measure of customer acquisition costs is a key performance indicator for advertising whether it is traditional print, fixed billboard or media such as TV and radio. The same now applies with the emerging mobile advertising channel.

If the real value exchange between mobile and advertising is to be fully capitalized, new data sets need to be developed for the advertising and brand industries that drive this space.

An on-going interest of mine has been how the mobile segment is moving to solve core questions like: a) how many people have been exposed to an advertisement? And (b) how effective is the advertising?  (c) what do my buyers look like across a score of indicies?  These are cornerstone questions to advertising, and nothing has changed now that it mobile is increasingly part of the advertising mix. 

As part of my quest I had the opportunity sit down recently with Bango's Anhil Malhotra. Bango is paving the way in mobile advertising metrics, working with the Media Rating Council and Mobile Marketing Association, moving beyond simple CPM (cost per 1k exposures), PPC (pay per click), CPC (cost per call) and CPA (cost per action) metrics to establish new audience verification metrics for mobile. 

Listen here [8.5 min]

         to my podcast with Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing with Bango (recorded at the Harvard Club of New York) as we explore the future of mobile advertising metrics, and how there is no end to the appetite of what people want when it comes precise and concise audience verifiability.

The reality is that mobile provides much more power in the battle from exposure to persuasion to transactions. Listen and find out how. 

Velti Invests in CASEE & Chinese Mobile Marketing

Velti Maneuvers into China's Mobile Marketing

Chinese mobile advertising startup CASEE has closed an investment from London-based mobile marketing company Velti plc. The investment was worth up to $6 million, according to the announcement from Velti. CASEE operates an on line mobile advertising marketplace at CASEE.cn  Riding on the success of AdMob neutral off-deck posture, some have characterized CASEE as the AdMob of China. Here's the value proposition: Wireless application protocol (WAP) site operators go to CASEE and sign up to run ads on their sites, while advertisers can bid for ad space through CASEE. So within the vernacular they provide inventory to those interested in mobile marketing campaigns. 

This caught my interest for all the obvious reasons--a Chinese company again leading a mobile initiative and gaining western attention, a mobile marketing play, international M&A--but mostly since I know Velti, the company which invested in CASEE.

Velti is run by CEO Alex Moukas who I had the chance to interview at CTIA in April. Velti is the leading mobile marketing company with over US$60 million in revenues--not the start up AdMob; a listing on the London AIM exchange makes it a far more robust public company. How many other mobile marketing companies are public?  None other that I know of. The company's been around for 8 years, starting out in the mobile messaging space and migrated up as the market has evolved. Mobile advertising is one of the most effective ways of driving fuller branding efforts especially within emerging markets such as China, where most access the Internet via a mobile WAP page. Good play for Velti.

Listen to my interview here with Velti CEO Alex Moukas: (x1, 10:30)

Mutual Utility
Velti's investment is a good play for them to enter into the fastest growing Chinese mobile market. CASEE is serving over 500 million ads a month on over 3,000 WAP sites in China. The company currently has 25 employees, but expects to reach 45 by the end of 2008. The company's publishing partners include Sina, Sohu and QQ.  The announcement said that Velti will be able to extend CASEE's mobile advertising technology outside of China and that the two companies will cooperate on product offerings and development. CASEE's founder and CEO is Xin Ye, former CTO of Linktone (NASDAQ: LTON).

GOOD BONES  & SMEs

CASEE was founded in 2006 by a local Chinese team headquartered in Beijing. Advertising clients span MNCs such as Kodak and General Motors to local, small and medium-sized enterprises. These Chinese SMEs are the real value here since that will be the primary source of advertising growth via the mobile channel in China for the future. Using their special sauce, it matches bids for advertising space against inventory offerings through targeting to maximise the price received by over 2000 content publishers from their WAP sites from advertisers. In short, the basic mobile marketing advertising model currently employed across the globe.  The real value here is the access the CASEE founders have in the Chinese market, including it's CEO, Xin Ye, who was the CTO of  Sohu. The founders and board have extensive experience in the local market, having held senior executive positions at US-listed Chinese companies like Sohu, Baidu and Linktone. CASEE serves more than 500 million ads every month to mobile phones in China and receives its revenues from advertisers.

I think both companies will fare well from the linking investment. Clearly it provides both a complimentary and substantial leg up, into mutually interested markets: one to go outside of China, the other the chance to get into China. Looks like a: win-win. Watch both.

Interview with Laura Marriott, Mobile Marketing Association

Here's a an audio (scroll down) primer on the Mobile Marketing Association from its President, Laura Marriott. I had the distinct pleasure--and fun--of meeting and interviewing the President of the Mobile Marketing Association at CTIA which you can listen to here.

Laura's s view of CTIA

...not much emerged at the show from the mobile advertising segment. Although there was increased interest and attendance from the agency and advertising arena reflecting a growing understanding and recognition of the importance of mobile in the marketing mix. Meaning: good things to come in mobile marketing.

What is the MMA?

Good question--a laurel which Laura tossed my way twice in the interview. MMA is a global trade association across the entire mobile marketing ecosystem with regional representation in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America reflected by 600 companies in the business drawn from across the world. The Mobile Marketing Association is the premier trade association that strives to stimulate the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. It's membership is comprised of drawn from the worlds of advertising agencies, advertisers, hand held device manufacturers, carriers and operators, retailers, software providers and service providers, as well as any company focused on the potential of marketing via mobile devices.

Listen here to Laura describe the differentiating aspects of innovation and creativity development across the world.  (1x, 11:51 min)

Is the MMA important?

Yes. As consumers increasingly use their handsets to browse the Web, it's no wonder that advertisers see mobile screens as valuable turf. In the US, cell phones haven't yet proved to be the same kind of advertising bonanza as the Internet, mostly because of the wireless industry's more controlled nature and the slower adoption of text messaging and mobile Web services. But momentum is gradually building, especially behind text-based marketing campaigns, which are more prevalent in Asia and Europe.

According to research firm eMarketer, worldwide spending on mobile advertising totaled $2.7 billion last year and is expected to hit $4.6 billion in 2008, rising to $19.1 billion by 2012. In contrast, eMarketer projects that Internet advertising in the U.S. alone will reach $25.9 billion this year. Global brands drive much of it since the advertising business is driven by global brands, while the types of marketing varies region to region. More text based in other parts of the world than the US, with use of sponsored Peer to Peer messaging for example in places such as India and Africa.

MMA Boards in each region set the regional focus while following global advertising guidelines and policies. Overall goal of the MMA is to provide ease of use of for global brands to enter the market on a global basis, not a carrier to carrier, country to country basis. Part of this is promoted through 8 events across the globe sharing as a best practice identification and inspiration process source. For those who are interested in pursuing the MMA best practices, there are also lots of white papers and other free downloads at their website.

The Elephant's Legs

MMA dances between the legs of two industry elephants, advertising and mobile. Through the deft leadership of Ms. Marriott she's been able to wrangle these beasts and have them cooperate successfully. Challenges exist such as extending reach and fully using the feature rich phones for advertising, but through education of brands as well as consumers on leveraging the technical sophistication of mobile phones the conversation around mobile advertising has made great strides.  As Laura rightly concludes: "Mobile advertising is going to be hot this year!"

GestureTek: CEO Interview

While at CTIA 2008 in Las Vegas I ran into to William R. Leckonby, CEO of GestureTek which you can listen to here (scroll down).

 Bill Leckonby doesn't look like your EZ Bake CEO so often seen at fledgling companies. Bill is in his 60s, a silver haired Yale trained engineer and has over 22 years of CEO or President experience. That's reflective of GestureTek's heritage, a going concern launched in 1986 when they invented and shaped the field of ‘applied computer vision’ for computer-human interaction. The company’s multi-patented video gesture control technology (VGC) lets users control multi-media content, access information, manipulate special effects, even immerse themselves in an interactive 3D virtual world – simply by moving their hands or body.  Think either CNN anchors on election night changing screens with the movement of a hand or Tom Cruise in Minority Report--all their handiwork.

Listen to my interview with GestureTek CEO (1click, 5:38 mins)

GestureTek now has jumped to mobile. Through the camera on your mobile phone, any handset device  device can be enabled to control the device through gestures such as shaking, rolling, or banking.  Minimal software embedded on the camera pre-distribution by the operator, and that's it. Alternatively it can be downloaded via a game program which incorporates the GestureTek software. Very low calorie high impact solution. GestureTek already has their software on applications within NTT DoCoMo and Telefonica in Spain.

Watch GestureTek. They are about to become a long term, overnight success story.