Robin “Internetiturundus” Gurney

I come from a “traditional internet marketing” background. That means I have spent almost ten years thinking about creating effective websites, online pr and link building, search engine marketing, usability & accessibility issues and, more recently, stuff like website credibility, analytics and content strategy /information architecture, but you know what ?

I am way behind the game

Where is the future of this internet marketing stuff? Well its probably in your pocket right now. Yep it’s in that thing we call a mobile phone.

Marketing people have been talking about convergence for a long time now and I have to admit that I think mobile has won the race already.

Wireless pocket devices (will we still call them phones just because they can make calls too?) that people carry with them everywhere are the convergionists’ dream: mobile WILL become a key ad medium of the future.

The trick however will be to create engaging content that adds real value to people’s lives: I do not think that currently profitable gimmicks like ring tones and poor replica games will produce enough profit long term. They will be commoditised.

Niche content, accessible anytime and anyplace, is where the big bucks will be.

After all, mobile users are unaccustomed to receiving interruptive advertising, and unlikely to change their minds about that.

So you can forget about bombarding people with unsolicited mobile-spam-sms/mms.

Mobile marketers will have to think smart !

Of course its naive to say that mobile will replace all but certainly its share of marketing budget will grow significantly.

Small agencies that think smart (and move quick) will be able to lead the shift to integrated marketing where mobile will play an increasingly large role.

So here we will be dedicating more time to understanding the potential of mobile marketing, how it fits with what we do and more importantly how it can be used to gain competitive advantages for our (altex marketing) clients….

Marino Bresciani

Some of you knows that I am quite keen on anything that makes mobile technologies useful and, most of all, usable for the majority of us, even those who do not consider personal computers as their best friends. That’s why a lot has been done right now on “virtual agents“, or, with a modern terminology, “k-humans“.

A colleague of mine from the university wrote his master thesis on one of the first versions of this virtual agents, and already at that time (2002), it was already possible to see how the facial expressions of these agents could be more dynamic according to the tone of the conversation between the agent itself and the customer.

But this was then, what about now?

Have a look at this flash demo below, that shows a simulation of a totally automated call center, where all the calls are answered by “Lucy”, that welcomes the user and, according to his requests, redirects him to the appropriate “collleague” (it can be a human or even another k-human).

But the most juicy detail is towards the end of the video, where you can see how this application works fine as well, on a Nokia N73, with all the necessary technologies embedded (live streaming, text-to-speech, voice recognition). This demo has been presented at the G-Force in London, in June 2007, and deserves its respect, as it is – at the moment – the only technology able to do this kind of cool stuff!

So, are you already planning your new future customer service?

Maarja Semevsky

One of the most important questions that the organizer of an sms-campaign faces is the one about the target group. Who is the consumer of the product and what is their relationship to mobile phones? ComScore, an internet marketing research company with offices in New York, Toronto as well as London, has released a study of mobile users. From the survey conducted in the USA it became evident that at the moment the users of mobile phone can be divided into three groups:

1. The Older Generation – aged 35 or more. This group of people had their first contact with mobile phones in their adulthood. They expect from their mobiles only basic functions and do not get excited about new technological developments.

2. The Transition Generation – aged 25 to 34. These people fall in between two distinct groups: those who developed with mobile phones and those who did not. They came in contact with mobile phones in their teens or as young adults.

3. The Mobile/Cellular Generation – aged 18 to 24. Those young adults have used mobile phones most of their lives and therefore got used to the idea that mobiles are a part of their life.

Serge Matta, the vice president of ComScore says that during the last decade mobile phones have changed the habits of American consumers dramatically. The youngest users grew up with the technology, those just a few years older did not. That causes considerable differences in attitudes and behaviour between different groups of users. As mobile phones constantly evolve in terms of design, functionality, and features, it is important that manufacturers understood the needs and expectations of different consumer groups.

Nowadays mobile phones enable us to do much more than just call. They offer entertainment, convey social status and express one’s personality. Both the Mobile and the Transition Generations see mobile phones as multi-functional, at the same time as the Older Generation needs only the basic functions. Almost a quarter of both the Mobile and the Transition Generations find that trendiness of a mobile phone is an important factor when buying one, as compared to 10% of the Older Generation. The Mobile Generation also places great value on the features of a mobile phone, for example 42% finds a camera to be important and for 20% an MP3 Player is important.

It does not take much for an sms-campaign to be successful. It is important to know your target group and plan the campaign accordingly.

Find out more about the study here. Click on the link below

Link to study