by Chilldor

SMS just turned 15 years old! According to wikipedia:

The first commercial SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Airwide Solutions(using a personal computer) to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone (using an Orbitel 901 handset). The text of the message was “Merry Christmas”.
The first SMS typed on a GSM phone is claimed to have been sent by Riku Pihkonen, an engineering student at Nokia, in 1993.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas, SMS!

by Chilldor
eMarketer has conducted a survey called Mobile Brand Advertising, which among other things also shows the amount of money globally spent on m-marketing.

Compared to the year 2006, the amount of money in the mobile marketing is expected to double this year. Also the proportion of solutions listed under branding is increasing steadily. Yet, the domination of sales promotion is expected to continue due to the reactivity of the mobile as a channel.

I even dare to be more optimistic about the future, as the growth designed in that survey seems to depart from the present context. I believe that by the year 2011the straight forward classification of marketing activities into m-marketing and “other marketing” will be somewhat more difficult and, in fact, there is no point in drawing the line.

by Martin Koppel

It seems that nowadays marketing people have started to use mobile marketing more and more in their campaigns. Some proactive ones have even built the whole marketing concept on mobile marketing. It is mainly because mobiles provide more flexible and effective ways for marketers to get their information directly to the audience. The other side of course is that people can respond to the campaign or be part of it just using their everyday tool- cellphone.

According to MobiADNetwork Coca Cola has also realized the benefits of mobile marketing and used it in “My Coke Music” campaign. When Coca Cola slightly uses simple mobile marketing solutions to make their campaign more effective, then Hyunday got in use more advanced techniques. To attract new drivers in the 18 to 24 demographic mobile was a natural fit with this group. You can see the different features of that campaign from here .

It seems that marketing focus has starting to change the aim is on solutions that still can attract people and can deliver the message to target group, since traditional ways aren’t so effective any more. It will take a while before mobile marketing will be the boring and traditional way of marketing, but what interests me is, what comes after that…

by Martin Koppel

Consumer magazines have been realizing that mobile Web might be quite useful.

Experts say that mobile web is almost as sensational a the Internet 10 years ago, it is the Internet in peoples’ pocket. Mobile Internet comes complete with all the ads that consumers see on their desktops. Mobile sites provide a new platform for magazine brands to sell ad space. Unlike the paper, mobile magazine sites provide ad space that can be targeted to exact locations, respond to user requests, providing a dynamic ad platform.

Since phones are portable and personal devices, mobile ads can reach consumers quicker and more intensely than ads in other media. The frequency of return visitors to mobile sites outstrips Internet sites clearly. At the same time the Mobile Marketing Association keeps strict guidelines on phones, protecting them from spam. Consumers just have made clear how much they value their phone privacy.

The idea is not taking magazines to mobile, it is taking brands to mobile by taking the core user of each brand and translating it to mobile. Magazines are not reproducing the content, they are looking at what customer needs on the go. It is an effective way for marketing the brand and bandage people even more with the magazine.

What comes next?