Report: Teen market nearly saturated

Virgin Mobile USA and other mobile firms that specifically target the teen market may want to take note of this latest research from MultiMedia Intelligence that says that the U.S. teen market is hitting saturation point. MultiMedia reports that the number of teens subscribing to wireless service surpassed 16 million in 2007, an increase of 12 percent over 2006. By 2012 that number is expected to rise to only 17 million, which means that wireless penetration rates among teens are reaching saturation point and growth in this market is stagnating.

In addition, the firm says that while ARPU from this market niche is strong because teens use their phones to do more things such as text and purchase premium content, pricing pressures and saturation will soon bring an end to the "teen cellular gold rush."

MultiMedia Research says that over half of teens are cellular subscribers by age 13. Girls tend to mature earlier than boys, which means that female subscribers outnumber male subscribers--the gap narrows by age 17.

Bulk SMS - a revolution of mobile phone industry

Short Message Service or simply the SMS is a revolution of mobile phone industry. SMS are often called the Text Message. SMS started to get huge popularity during the initial days of 21 century. After seeing the rapid popularity of SMS, companies decided to do marketing of their product through SMS. But since they are targeting a large mass to whom they will start to campaign about their product. So it will be an irritable situation to send SMS to the people individually. They started to think about some tool by which they will be able to send the promotional SMS in bulk to campaign about their product. Following this idea a new concept was developed called ‘Bulk Short Message Service’ or the ‘Bulk SMS’.
In this short article you will come to know about some basics of Bulk SMS, its features, and some of its general information. At first you should know the definition of ‘Bulk SMS’. In short ‘Bulk SMS’ is a special type of system by which an institution or an organization becomes able send or receive a large volume of SMS i.e. SMS in a bulk. That’s why this concept is known as the ‘Bulk SMS’. The Bulk SMS do follow a special channel of particular bandwidth limitation. Delivery reports can also be gathered if the Bulk SMS sender wishes to gather.
Now, followings are the some important features of Bulk SMS for you. The most obvious and useful feature of Bulk SMS could be found from its name. A single SMS could be sent to number of users using the concept of ‘Bulk SMS’. The Bulk SMS sender could set the number of recipients. The number of recipient may be set to 1 or to some other huge digit. A unique sender Identification tag or ID Brand is generated for each and every user. Every time the sender has to use that ID brand while sending Bulk SMS.
The group functionality is also an important feature of the ‘Bulk SMS’ service. The reputed companies are using the ‘Bulk SMS’ system to promote their product due to its low cost nature. It is seemed that the cost of sending Bulk SMS in million is 20% to 30% less than the printed media campaigning. The network coverage of these types of ‘Bulk SMS’ operator is quite good and the network area is also very huge.
Now some of the basic and common advantages of ‘Bulk SMS’ system for you! Though this service has the biggest use in field of product promotion by companies, though it can be used in some other purposes too. This system can be used to send number of messages to the cellular phones of many individuals at any instant. The other advantage is the low cost factor that is mentioned already earlier in this article. These bulk sms,SMS Messaging to friends are becoming a favourite time pass to youth.

Gas station alerts consumers of price hikes via SMS

Pumped-up efforts

In an exercise that can be replicated nationwide, a gas station in Minnesota's Twin Cities is using SMS text messages to alert customers of hikes in gas prices.

Super Stop USA's full-service gas station, car wash and detail center is working with wireless promotions company Club Texting on the alerts that ask customers to text GAS to 25827 for price-increase notifications. Subscribers - opted-in customers - can also get Bonus Savings coupons to get anywhere from 5 to 10 cents off per gallon if the price has already gone up by the time they arrive.

“Super Stop wanted to have a way to get to its customers on the go, and the only way to do that is via mobile,” said Amy Baglan, sales manager for Club Texting, New York. “Within the first week or two of doing this, the owner would recognize regulars coming to the station within an hour or two of sending out the text message.”

A typical text message alert reads: “SUPER STOP GAS ALERT! Prices are rising to $2.99. We will follow soon. If we have already gone up, show us this message and save 10 cents/gal until 1pm tomorrow!”

The Superstop SMS campaign is supported by an opt-in customer email database and a Web site explaining the program and driving sign-ups via Club Texting’s customizable widget, Word-of-mouth also generated participation.

The call to action asking people to text in was on in-store signage.

“Gas prices are such a sensitive issue right now that people were telling their friends and families and neighbors about this, so Super Stop USA has had a lot of success with that as well,” Ms. Baglan said.

The campaign has achieved a response rate of about 20 percent, according to Ms. Baglan. This includes people who paid in the store and doesn’t include the significant number who paid at the pump.

“Super Stop USA wanted people to opt-in on their own, because this is to their advantage too, and capitalize on the fact that it’s able to notify them immediately about price changes and give them a call-to-action,” Ms. Baglan said.

Club Texting manages all the outgoing and incoming messages for this campaign. Its other clients include Madison Square Garden and nightclubs such as Tao Las Vegas, Pacha New York City, Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club, Coco Bongo, Sandbar in New Jersey and Yellow Rose in Austin, TX.

Current participating wireless carriers that work with Club Texting are AT&T Wireless, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, T-Mobile, Alltel, Leap, US Cellular and Boost Mobile.

Another successful SMS campaign that Club Texting worked on was with Niche Media’s Philly Style magazine.

The periodical used Club Texting to start a preferred reader club and offer members insider deals and discounts from participating advertisers via SMS, such as secret happy hours and a Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt for an engagement ring.

Ms. Baglan said that using mobile for alerts can eliminate the printing costs of flyers and newsletters.

"Printing flyers can cost thousands of dollars a month, and in a few months of a text-messaging campaign, [a company can] eliminate the paper flyers,” Ms. Baglan said. “You’re giving a digital flyer directly to people who’ve opted in, so it’s much more effective.

In the case of Super Stop, this campaign was another source of revenue.

“It’s an additional revenue driver and they’ve been able to reach their target demographic: affluent 25-45-year-olds,” Ms. Baglan said. “It’s not the first group of people in the mobile landscape you’d think would use SMS, but they’ve had great success with it.”

Club Texting sets clients’ accounts and provides them with customer service, but each client manages its campaign completely on its own.

“If the client does it correctly and really puts in an effort, the response rate generally ranges between 40-60 percent,” Ms. Baglan said.

Pitney Bowes’ mobile marketing strategy: A Q&A

Pitney Bowes is a $6.3 billion mailstream technology firm specializing in mail, documents and packages. It is using mobile to drive traffic to its booth at trade shows and events – a goal for all business-to-business companies at such networking expos.

Lenore O’Connor, director of trade shows and customer events at Pitney Bowes, Stamford, CT, talks to Mobile Marketer’s Mickey Alam Khan about her company’s strategy to integrate mobile into the overall marketing outreach to prospects at conferences. Pitney Bowes’ entry into mobile marketing is only a year old, but the company is convinced that the channel works best when combined with an incentive. Excerpts from this conversation:

What is Pitney Bowes using mobile for?
Pitney Bowes is using mobile as an integrated component of our marketing campaigns at key trade shows and events to help drive awareness and foot traffic to our booth.

We have been tailoring mobile and other marketing elements for each venue according to the audience and location. Integrated marketing elements have included text messaging, direct mail, leaflets in registration bags and non-traditional tactics like bus-wraps.

Have the text message efforts worked out so far?
We have received very positive feedback so far from trade show and event attendees.

A stamp on mobile

A few of our key findings include response rates depend on the audience, demographic and what the offer is. There has to be a compelling reason and incentive for the recipient to respond.

What role does mobile play in your customer acquisition efforts?
At Pitney Bowes, integrated marketing is a critical component of our customer-acquisition strategy.

For example, we use a mix of marketing channels to communicate with customer prospects, including direct mail, the Internet, telemarketing and traditional advertising. This helps optimize and manage every touch point to enhance the customer experience and build more effective relationships.

We see mobile as another valuable channel in our marketing mix that can help us reach customers and prospects. It also helps us communicate the wide range of technology, products and services we offer that customers and prospects might not have known us for.

Any recent mobile efforts?
All of our campaigns have revolved around integrated marketing or 360-degree marketing. We incorporated mobile, direct mail campaigns, email campaigns, advertising, inserts and Web, according to the audience and venue, to reach out to our customers and prospects.

At the events and trade shows we focused on incorporating these touch points to help leave no stone unturned and drive attendees to our booth or the event.

• World Business Forum ’07 (New York, October 2007): We handed out business cards, using recycled paper, with instructions to receive speaker notes that were being transcribed by a professional note taker for the 12 different sessions.

Attendees could text us their email address and we notified them when the notes were available and could be viewed.

This campaign was successful not only for the mobile aspect, but once attendees visited the Web site they were able to opt in to receive additional information including Pitney Bowes’ editorial advisory publication, “Pivotal Thoughts.” This enabled us to continue a dialogue with attendees.

• GraphExpo ’07 (Chicago, September 2007): The target audiences for this show are service bureaus and printers. We developed a program to help drive prospects to our booth with marketing elements including a bus wrap, a handout in the shape of a card and text messaging.

The offer encouraged attendees to text message the words “Graph Expo” to PITNEY and show the acknowledgement to receive a free gift. This helped spark interest in driving people to our booth.

After qualifying prospects and interest, we directed attendees to the appropriate Pitney Bowes subject matter expert to provide additional information and demonstrations.

We received a response rate similar to a typical direct mail program. In this emerging media channel, this is considered to be a good response rate.

• eBay Live! 2008 (Chicago, June 2008): This is the closest venue that Pitney Bowes attends that is a consumer event. The target audience is the small office/home office.

We utilized mobile as a part of our marketing mix to help drive traffic to our booth and learn about our latest custom postage product.

This product allows users to select images to be uploaded to the Web site and once approved, postage can be printed with the image on it. This is a great opportunity for holidays, graduations, special occasions and events.

We created 10 stamps total, nine were given out during the three days of the show. We had a registration bag insert, an ad in the show program and business cards were handed out at the booth. This enabled attendees to receive alerts prior to us handing out the commemorative postage at the booth.

Why mobile in those cases?
It was an integrated component of our marketing program to reach out to customers and prospects to help raise awareness of Pitney Bowes, our wide range of technology, products and services, and drive attendees to our booth or the event.

Did the efforts cost a lot?
It was consistent with other direct mail campaigns.

What about other mobile efforts, including one done at a Direct Marketing Association event? Lessons learned from those?
Knowing your audience and making sure the offer is compelling enough to drive them to the booth are key components for success.

At the DMA show, we used mobile as a part of our integrated marketing mix to help drive traffic to our booth, and raise awareness of our comprehensive technology, solution and service offerings.

Several of our business areas participated with different customers at the show. Our marketing campaign helped raise awareness and increase knowledge about our expanded offerings.

What’s the big challenge these days with trade shows and visitors?
The challenge is getting customers and prospects to the show in general and once they are there, driving them to your booth.

The key is finding effective ways to set your company apart and communicate your value proposition for helping customers and prospects to help solve their business challenges and take advantage of opportunities for their organization.

What are some of the challenges you see with mobile in your trade show efforts?
One of the challenges is adoption of mobile technology and text messaging with different audiences.

At the trade shows and events where we have utilized mobile marketing, adoption varied greatly depending on whether it was a business-to-business or consumer audience.

Also, the location of shows and events seem to have some influence on this as well.

And some of the advantages?
Advantages include helping to drive awareness and foot traffic to your booth and educating attendees on your comprehensive offerings to help solve their business challenges.

Who are you using to help you with mobile?
We are working with The Hyperfactory to help support our mobile marketing initiatives at trade shows and events.

What else would you like to do in mobile marketing or are considering?
We plan to continue to leverage mobile marketing and text messaging as a component of our integrated marketing mix at key trade shows and events this year.

What lessons have you learned from your mobile outreach so far?
Mobile campaigns need to be simple and compelling to be successful.

Also, interest and response increase when you offer an incentive like a premium item or gift at your booth or sending executive speaker notes to attendees after a conference.

When done effectively, integrated marketing can be a critical component to help drive interest in your offerings and overall value proposition.

The key is knowing your audience, venue, location and using the right mix of marketing channels i.e. direct mail, mobile, the Internet, telemarketing and traditional advertising. This can help optimize and manage every touch point to enhance the customer experience and build more effective relationships.

More mobile marketing regulation may not benefit consumers

By Eric Holmen

Earlier last month, the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, calling for more stringent regulation of the mobile marketing industry.

These two consumer advocacy groups expressed concern about proliferation of mobile spam and the potential for location awareness to become an intrusive aspect of mobile marketing endeavors.

The FTC, should it respond to this call-to-action, would be justified in taking a proactive stance to stave off dubiously ethical practices, particularly as mobile marketing represents a highly personal method of reaching target audiences.

It should be noted, however, that this personalized communication is the very aspect of the medium that makes it so effective from a marketing standpoint.

According to market research firm eMarketer, the individual connection facilitated by the mobile medium is the reason mobile advertising spending increased to nearly $2.7 billion worldwide this year.

This connection is also the reason why 89 percent of major brands plan to incorporate mobile into their marketing mix in the next year.

The goal of regulation is not, and should not, be to squelch all marketing or advertising messaging. It should not staunch this impressive participation, but rather ensure that messaging is consistently welcome and invited.

The current FTC policy is based on a simple rule: opt-in.

The Center for Digital Democracy’s complaints aside, unwelcome messages actually comprise only a very small percentage of all texts sent and received in the United States annually.

This success can be directly attributed to effective policy formulation on the part of the FTC and scrupulous execution on behalf of the majority of mobile marketers. Any expansion of FTC policy should reasonably build on the opt-in mandate.

Injecting any more complexity into the regulations would only serve to muddle the operating environment and may not benefit the consumer.

The technology will continue to mature and expand. It doesn't make sense that a consumer would have to first opt-in to get a text message, then opt-in to share their personally identifiable information, then opt-in to share location-based data, then opt-in to use commerce features, et cetera.

Of equal if not greater importance, the ability to opt out should also be swift and complete.

As mobile technology continues to evolve, it will be vital for companies and oversight entities such as the FTC to work in conjunction with each other to preserve the privacy of ordinary citizens.

If the FTC applies its current standards – opt-in requirements, in particular – to emerging segments of the mobile market, mobile marketing will continue to be a welcome and effective avenue of communication between consumers and the companies that serve them.

CBS, Coca-Cola have most reliable short codes: Study

Wireless data as a percentage of monthly subscriber average revenue per user

A new study claims that the industry average for an SMS text message response from a common short code was approximately 9 seconds.

The fastest common short code responded in less than 6 seconds and the slowest averaged more than 19 seconds, according to Keynote Systems Inc.'s Keynote Competitive Research’s first common short code study.

"Absolutely, speed is critical," said Nisheeth Mohan, product manager of mobile at Keynote, San Mateo, CA. "For a lot of transactions with common short codes customers pay a premium and if they don't receive a response in a desirable amount of time, it could have a negative response and drive away the consumer from the service."

The Keynote Common Short Code Study compares the round-trip delivery time and average availability of SMS messages sent to 24 top common short codes.

Per the study, many common short codes monitored had reliability issues. Some reported more than 10 hours of outage and one more than 50.

Text messaging traffic for December

Moreover, response times for some common short codes fell during the busiest time of day. One common short code had a 60 percent peak-period slow slowdown each day, indicating a capacity problem.

Wireless carriers can affect the overall performance of common short codes. CDMA carriers, for example, had slower send times than GSM carriers.

CBS (short code 99888) and Coca-Cola (2653) were ranked No. 1 in terms of overall reliability, with a Keynote score of 1000. This implies that CBS and Coca-Cola are always available and report the minimum number of outage hours.

Chase (24273) had a 991 score and The New York Times (698698) and Obopay (62729) tied at 988 in overall reliability.

Obopay topped in overall responsiveness, with a 984 score. It was measured on average performance, carrier consistency, performance variability and load-handling capability.

Wells Fargo (93557) was in second place at 938, followed by the New York Times’ 924 score. Thumbplay (48000) got an 895 score and Chase 891 for overall responsiveness.

Delivery of a message is not dependent on any one factor, Mr. Mohan said. It depends on the network's and the aggregator's performance as well as the content provider which sends the response.

"The carrier kind of becomes irrelevant because if a carrier is down, it could be down for all the short codes and equally impact all the short codes," Mr. Mohan said.

"Our rankings indicate how well the content provider/aggregator combination is working," he said. "The aggregator is the one who routes the message from the content provider to the gateway.

"Different content providers have different back-end servers which process the request differently. Another factor is how well the content provider can handle load."

Common short codes are four- to six-digit numeric codes to which consumers can send an SMS text message for viewing or buying mobile content and voting for a television contest or poll. The Common Short Code Administration leases common short codes to companies.

Among the 24 common short codes measured were also brands such as 4Info, CNBC, Cosmopolitan, Elle Girl, Fandango, Flycell, Google, NBC, Paypal, Pepsi, Reuters, Seventeen, Starbucks, Universal Music Group, UPS, USA Today, The Weather Channel and Yahoo.

The study was conducted using the Keynote Mobile Application Perspective, a software-as-a-service product. Keynote sent SMS messages to the 24 common short code addresses every hour for four weeks.

Keynote took measurements from New York and San Francisco over AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile during the tracking period. The roundtrip delivery time was calculated to reflect the end-user experience, according to the company.

Mr. Mohan was surprised by a couple of findings in the study.

"This was a fairly simple transaction - just a simple HELP message - and the variability that we saw shows a three-times factor, which is huge," he said. "Another one is the availability and the reliability. There was a significant number of outage hours."

By Mickey Alam Khan

BMW runs mobile campaign for X6 car

Sporting code

Luxury automaker BMW launched a campaign promoting its first X6 Sports Activity Coupe, using mobile as part of a multichannel effort to build a relationship with consumers.

The campaign is running nationwide on television, print and radio, driving people to a mobile WAP site created especially for the new car. The mobile aspect of the campaign is powered by mobile marketing company Waterfall Mobile, asking consumers to text a keyword to the 67463 short code.

“BMW’s goal is to get people to go to the WAP site, which has all the specs on this particular car,” said Matt Silk, executive vice president of Waterfall Mobile, San Francisco. “The site also helps users locate a car dealer in their neighborhood.”

BMW collaboprated with its d agency iconmobile for this campaign.

Each call to action has a different keyword to text in for tracking the effectiveness of each medium.

For example, consumers who see the ad in The Wall Street Journal are asked to text BMWWSJ to 67463 to get more information on the X6.

Consumers who text in receive an email thanking them for their interest in the car and are provided with a link to the WAP microsite at http://www.bmwusa.com/allnewx6/mobile.

The site lets users view a slideshow of pictures of the inside and outside of the X6. Also, users can explore the X6 in terms of performance specs, handling, design, safety and technology.

WAP site visitors can sign up for email alerts about the car.

“I think the mobile aspect of the campaign focuses on branding and getting the cross-over vehicle out there,” Mr.Silk said. "The various locations for the calls to action are ways that BMW is starting to test the waters to see which one of the media placements drives the most participation.”

Mobile is being used as an extension of the original campaign built around this car. It is meant to complement that campaign and to build a subscriber list for future promotions.

Waterfall Mobile

Waterfall Mobile has worked with other interactive advertising agencies representing automakers for mobile campaigns.

Take Japanese automaker Toyota Motor. The Waterfall Mobile platform was used mobile to brand Toyota Yaris cars by the agency Drill Team.

The campaign was sponsored by Toyota, but was actually for the South by South West festival. Toyota made it possible for people to get updates on the event’s happenings. Consumers could even create an itinerary for themselves via their handsets.

Toyota wanted to brand itself as a company that is all about consumer experiences by letting consumers have a free and useful service.

“Across and outside of the BMW campaign, what we are seeing is there is so much confusion around what to do in mobile,” Mr. Silk said. “But when it comes to what to do everyone wants to know what’s the right thing to do. We let our clients try it all – voting, texting, WAP sites.”

Making the most of mobile data

By Ray Anderson

Measurement is critical to any business. So it is particularly important to ensure that the products you choose for measuring mobile delivers depth, breadth and accuracy of information needed.

Retail stores use loyalty cards to track customer spending patterns, with managers paying close attention to visitor routes through the shop to optimize sales.

Online, things are no different.

Measurement is all about customers – the people visiting your site, interacting with your campaigns, downloading and purchasing your content. And just like the store, accurate measurement depends on the ability to identify physical individuals.

By its very nature, the mobile Web lends itself to measurement – a phone is personal, always on and with your customer 24/7.

But, as the industry is starting to see, mobile analytics is not so easy given that traditional Web techniques do not work – no JavaScript to track page views, no cookies to mark visitors and IP addresses belonging to the network operator rather than the end user.

Once you are collecting data, it is important to know how to read it and what points are most important.

Here are some tips to keep in mind.

User ID is important. The thing that makes a mobile handset unique is the mobile phone number.
Unfortunately operators and consumers are reluctant to give out their numbers in fear of spam.

But fortunately, the most advanced mobile analytics products use a range of information to deliver a persistent user ID. Use this ID as your index to storing information you collect yourself.

For example, if you know the visitor’s phone number through a text campaign, link it to their analytics user ID. You can use this ID to avoid complex login pages and to personalize your site for each customer.

The MNO and carrier is important too. This also gives you the visitor’s country and other information, but take care as some MNOs also support MVNOs. Virtual networks such as Boost Mobile which use the Sprint network have very different consumer demographics.

Since multiple carriers are using the same infrastructure it becomes harder to distinguish between networks, so choose a mobile analytics service that has the ability to do this if you want to target specific carrier demographics.

Next, remember that an individual’s handset can show you more than you think. The type of handset can tell you quite a bit about the visitor. A BlackBerry is associated with business while a Sony Walkman phone may represent a music lover.

And measure pages. Many mobile analytics products embed a small image on each page to track navigation across a site. For this to work, it is important to have the tracking code on each page.

Also consider placing tracking codes on blogs, mobile social sites, desktop pages and in emails.

Recording which links your visitors are clicking gives you a better picture of their navigation and decision process. Measure the links from advertisements and search terms into your site to understand which messages work best. Measure links out to other sites owned by partners or by advertisers.

If you have a popular desktop site, leverage the traffic and redirect some of it to your mobile site. Track this to show the success of desktop Web promotion.

In text campaigns vary text keywords with location to collect data about specific locations or personal preference.

With payments, offering something for a cost clearly marks your most loyal visitors. Many will opportunistically download stuff, but only the top percent will pay for premium content

Jim Bean promotes "integrity, character" via mobile

A shot at mobile

Bourbon brand Jim Beam is taking a shot at mobile in a multichannel marketing effort.

The campaign's message promotes integrity and character, asking consumers to photograph a bar code located in the top corner of the Bourbon maker’s print ad. Consumers receive a text back with a link to a mobile version of TheStuffInside.com Web site where they can engage in conversation about true character and learn more about the individuals who embody it.

“The Stuff Inside is an entirely new approach to marketing the 213-year-old brand, completely deviating from the bottle-on-a-barrel concept,” said Rory Finlay, senior vice president and global chief marketing officer of Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., Deerfield, IL. “Instead of talking at consumers about what a great brand Jim Beam is, we are now showing them.

“The Stuff Inside champions individuals and organizations that embody the core vales of Jim Beam: character, integrity and values,” he said.

Beginning in July and throughout 2008, consumer print ads will run nationally in ESPN The Magazine, Rolling Stone, Maxim, Blender, XLR8R and Garage as well as trade publications such as MarketWatch, Cheers, Stateways and Beverage Dynamics.

Gone in 30 seconds

Only legal purchase age consumers will be able to use their camera phone to snap an image of the bar code. Beam asks site visitors to verify their age.

All promotional materials will drive consumers to The Stuff Inside Web site at http://www.thestuffinside.com.

Besides the dedicated site, tagging national print ads with 2D codes and national print ads, Beam will also do out-of-home advertising, point-of-sale items, in-market events and social media tools.

The campaign highlights individuals and organizations that share its own values, thereby acting with character, doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, help others who are less fortunate or persevere through a struggle.

Energy BBDO handled creative design for The Stuff Inside print ads and point-of-sale collateral. Zezza Network was responsible for the Web site and social media development. Starcom Worldwide bought the print, online and out-of-home media.

The Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is the flagship brand of Beam Global Spirits & Wine, itself a unit of the $8 billion Fortune Brands.

Beam brands also include Sauza Tequila, Canadian Club Whisky, Courvoisier Cognac, Maker's Mark Bourbon, Laphroaig Scotch Whisky, Larios Gin, Whisky DYC, Teacher's Scotch Whisky, DeKuyper Cordials and Liqueurs, Knob Creek Bourbon and Starbucks Liqueurs.

“We will champion those who are dedicated to their craft and committed to quality and character – just like Jim Beam – and will embrace an entirely new way of thinking by recognizing; supporting and celebrating the true character of select individuals and organizations in non-traditional ways,” Mr. Finlay said.

By Giselle Abramovich
Associate Editor Giselle Abramovich covers ad networks, advertising, content, email, media, messaging, legal/privacy, search, social networks, television and video.

More Mobile Marketing Food for Thought From South Africa

I was fairly confident after my two recent pontifications about the booming business of mobile marketing in South Africa that several months would surely pass before another relevant news item would catch my attention from that part of the world.

I was wrong.

Eddie Groenewald, the CEO of a major mobile marketing company in Cape Town, South Africa released a white paper that is getting attention from mobile marketers around the world. The general message? Now that we know how to send messages through mobile marketing, let’s start concentrating the quality of the message.

At first I was blown away by both the simplicity and profundity of such an implication. But how true. We’ve been so dazzled by the bells and whistles of this new powerful advertising mechanism that the quality of the communication that can honestly make or break the effectiveness of a campaign is rarely if ever discussed.

Apart from offering a host of other campaign management ideas, Eddie really hit the nail on the head (and is likely turning heads in the process) by stressing the value of thoughtful communication when initially sending messages and responding to consumers.

from mobile marketing watch

South Africa Takes Mobile Marketing To The Classroom

Apparently there’s more to learn about mobile marketing than we initially realized. There’s so much to learn, in fact, that the UCT graduate school of business has unveiled a course that will teach marketers and business leaders “how to reach the estimated 36-million cell phone users in South Africa.”

On a variety of fronts, South Africa has taken a proactive approach to mobile marketing. From a rising number of mobile marketing firms to the big business that is the mobile industry in South Africa, many analysts point to South Africa as a harbinger of things to come for mobile marketing.

If your interest is peaked by how this course will be structured, I too have my fair share of questions. All we know for sure is that the course is designed to help individuals become better acquainted with mobile marketing and guide them in developing superb communication strategies.

“The explosion in information technology over the past few years means that business today moves at an increasingly fast pace,” says co-director of the course, Dave Duarte. “There is now a great need for marketing campaigns that can keep up with this pace and mobile marketing fills this gap.”

The UCT GSB course will begin late next month.

99.9999% How many nines are enough in mobile?

All of us have probably heard of the saying "Five Nines" which means 99.999% system availability and is the mythical reliability target often quoted as a goal to achieve when running a computer system or service. There is a larger debate on what the number means, if it is only the "network" or if it should include applications, servers, etc.

I'm not going down that debate path today other than to state the obvious that the "more nines" the better. Instead I would like to use the standard availability table to describe one of the hidden realities that currently exists with mobile services. So first let's start with the table:

99.999% is 5 minutes of downtime per year, and 90% is 36.5 days of downtime per year.

So now the question is:

Would it be acceptable for a production mobile service to only be available 90% of the time?

Surprisingly Keynote has seen examples of this low level of service from even the most well known of companies. One of the most problematic areas seems to be SMS services and especially short code programs.

A short code is where you text message a special keyword or phrase like "Pizza 98065" to a number similar to a cell phone number. This number routes your keywords to an application which then returns some form of answer back to your handset. There are many examples of short code text messaging programs for looking up stock quotes, checking the weather, looking up an account balance, checking your airline flight, etc.

I think most people would have a "reasonable expectation" that when they send out a text message to a short code, some form of answer will be returned to them in a time-frame that is useful. If you are trying to look up your checking account balance so you know if it is possible to use your debit card in order to make a purchase, most people would expect the answer to come back in a few minutes or less, not hours from when the request was sent.

Keynote is able to monitor the performance and availability of any type of short code program. We were very surprised to see examples of short code services from major/giant/well-know companies where the success rate of the short code request is at the 90% level or lower. This means that over the course of the year, that service isn't working for over 1 full month of time.

To be fair, the types of common problems we are seeing aren't always coming from the actual application behind the short code, but instead problems are coming from the SMS aggregators processing the messages. The SMS aggregator is the intermediate party (company) sitting between the network operator (AT&T/Sprint/Verizon/T-Mobile) and the actual application that processes the keywords recognized by the short code.

When you vote via text message on a TV show, your text message flows from the network operator to a SMS aggregator, which then routes your text message to the owner of the application processing your vote. The message you get back saying "Thanks for your vote...." follows the reverse path, from the application owner, to the aggregator, and then back on to the operator network and then finally to your mobile device. There are many other examples of short code promotions that follow this same model.

One of the most common problems we have seen is that the message reply "never comes back", which means you sent your text to a short code but you never receive any type of reply in a reasonable amount of time. Your message has gone into "limbo".

Here is an example graph from a short code service that allows you to submit general information queries via a short code. The graph lines "dipping down" toward the bottom indicates that the success rate of the service is dropping. In this case the last 1 weeks worth of data shows that this service is only successful 58% of the time on average. And it is from a service that just about all of us would recognize.

We are currently advising our customers not to assume that their SMS services are running at 99% or higher. In reality, very few of the ones we have seen are running at this level. Many are running down in the 90% range and a few like the one I have shown here has major problems that need to be fixed.

If you are concerned about the availability of your mobile services, it is important to develop some type of strategy that will give you visibility into what is happening in the real world. I'm sure services like the one above went through extensive QA testing, but once a service is released out into the hands of real users, you might get a different result than what you established during pre-production testing.

by Tony Perez on May 28, 2008

Branding on Mobile – Big Business, High Stakes

Branding on Mobile – Big Business, High Stakes

Mobile is now a mainstream device for data consumption. Within the least year, two strategic acquisitions demonstrate the respect for – and interest in – the mobile market by big players. In May 2008, comScore, Inc. snapped up M:Metrics, Inc. for more than $44 million. This just a few short months after privately held Nielsen Company bought privately held Telephia, Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Mobile Becoming Marketing Darling

The two acquisitions confirm that major consumer marketers will pay big bucks to get good information on mobile demographics, such as activity profiles, times of peak usage and the difference between males and females in accessing and using mobile data. Telephia, (now Nielsen Mobile), was a leading provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets, and is being incorporated into the company’s A2/M2 program to measure consumer usage of digital technology on any platform. With the acquisition of M:Metrics, comScore plans to measure combined Internet usage across both PC and mobile-based platforms.

Until recently, TV and the PC were acknowledged as the top two sources for digital information. TV virtually dominated the field until the ‘90s, when PC and Web usage began a major surge. However, mobile is the darling of the 21st century.

What does this mean to you as a mobile service provider – or as a mobile web designer or marketer? A lot.

Branding Moves to Phones

Let’s take the example of a major soft drink manufacturer who is in the habit of spending millions on TV and PC (Web site) advertising. Now the company is looking to mobile for brand marketing and promotions. Short code or SMS campaigns offer instant promotions, and the costs – and stakes – are high in these campaigns.

For example, the company might send an SMS message that will offer a free soda at a convenience store close to the mobile end user. It will want to measure how many people pick up the message and act upon it. In a mature market, that measurement may reflect nothing more than the brilliance – or lack thereof – or the campaign. However, in this emerging market, other factors can creep in.

Performance Critical for Branding, End User Loyalty

There are two components in this emerging market that can take precedence over the marketing message in terms of user satisfaction. First: the design itself. Does the mobile application download quickly and accurately? Are there things that could be done to better optimize the application for the target customer base? Second, in the mobile ecosystem, there are many players between the application code and the consumer, and some of them are dependent on loading, handoffs, and service provider/device interactions.

Since brand image is a key component to mobile promotions, if the message is late, or if the consumer never receives a requested response, not only is the opportunity lost, but the brand image can suffer significantly.

Major brands understand that they need continuous performance monitoring and measurement to know how well their mobile promotions are performing. Not knowing that you have a poor-performing application compounds the problem. Poor performance detected early enough can help you limit the loss of user loyalty.

A nation of young mobile phone users

May 23, 2008

Mobile nation (LA)

8 million

Number of 8- to 12-year-olds with a mobile phone

16.5 million

Number of teens with a

mobile phone

29%

Percentage of 13- to 17-year-olds who respond to ads on a mobile phone

46%

Percentage of 13- to 17-year-olds who say they're open to

advertising on their mobile device if it lowers their bills

Source: Los Angeles Times

Advertisers in touch with teens' cellphones

By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2008

As she readied for last night's prom, Jamie McGraw asked her friends for advice about hairstyles, shoes and a dress.

She also turned to her cellphone for a little help.

McGraw receives daily text messages from Seventeen magazine about fashion, including tips about what to wear to the prom. She planned to take the magazine's suggestion to wear a brightly colored outfit and be prepared for "dress malfunctions." "When the texts recommend a certain look that sounds good, I will try it out, but it doesn't always mean buying something," the 17-year-old Laguna Niguel resident said.

Yakking teens and phones have been inseparable for decades. The difference today is that teens use their cellphones for a lot more than just talking. It has become a palm-size entertainment and information center increasingly consuming their time and attention. Advertisers are realizing that if they want to reach teens, they need their number -- literally.

"They're not watching TV, you're not reaching them in other places," said Andrew Miller, chief executive of Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising network. "Mobile is where they congregate."

This year, shy escorts can buy (for 99 cents) a preproduced video of a guy asking a girl to the prom ("We'd take amazing prom pictures together," he says) and then send it via mobile phone to ask a girl out, thanks to Venice-based Mogreet Inc.His nervous date can visit Cosmo Girl's mobile phone site and look at the prom section to find out how to say "No" to alcohol. And she can go to PromGirl.com to download a widget that lets her browse for prom dresses on her phone without burning up valuable Internet minutes.

It may all seem a little bothersome, but teens don't mind receiving messages about products on their phones, says Nic Covey, director of insights at research firm Nielsen Mobile. Nielsen said teens were nearly twice more likely than adults to trust and respond to advertising and pitches on mobile phones.

"For them, responding to an ad that's relevant by sending a text or following a link on their phone is a logical brand engagement," Covey said. It's so natural that the student council at Notre Dame high school in Sherman Oaks decided to invite teens to their graduation via a prerecorded video sent over a mobile phone.

Not all teens are so readily accessible, of course. Molly Nadeau, a senior at Fairfax High in Los Angeles, loves the trendy and inexpensive fashions of Forever 21 Inc., but that doesn't mean she wants to be inundated with blurbs about its latest blouses or jewelry on her mobile phone.

"Once they have my number, I just think the ads would come 24/7," she said. "I wouldn't want that." That wouldn't make her father happy, Nadeau noted, since he pays the phone bill and her plan doesn't allow for unlimited text messages.

Marketers claim they are sensitive to such resistance, saying that's why they craft the ads more in terms of useful information teens would want to get on their phones.

Hearst Magazines, for instance, has developed nine different mobile sites across different magazines, including Seventeen and Cosmo Girl. Cosmo Girl's site contains information on horoscopes, gossip, fashion, career advice and beauty tips, alongside promotions from retail giant J.C. Penney Co. and cosmetics maker Clinique Laboratories. Teens can also send a text message when they see a product they like in the magazine and sometimes receive a free sample.

"We decided we needed to follow [the reader] with our brands -- wherever she is, we needed to be there with her as a source of entertainment," said Sophia Stuart, director of mobile for Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

That means a prom section that gives girls advice on date etiquette and fun things to do aside from drinking and having sex. "We wanted to help her have a script and be there if she needs our help," Stuart said.

Other brands are messaging their way into teens' phones as well. Teens interested in Element Skateboards can sign up for text message alerts when there are skate events in their area, or when stores get new products. Those who want to be in the know about clothing retailer G by Guess can get text messages about sales and promotions.

"You have to take an active role in integrating a brand into consumers' lifestyles by being in their pockets," said Roman Tsunder, president of Access 360 Media Inc., which recently launched promotions for Guess Inc. and Element that encouraged teens to sign up to get text messages on their cellphones from the companies.

Teens don't seem to mind the text messages they receive from the retailers. Tsunder said only 4% of people who sign up for the texts ask to stop getting them. And Miller said 2% to 4% of those who see or receive ads on mobile phones click on them to find out more information. On the Internet via computers, so-called click-through rates are generally closer to 0.01%.

Some teens do mind, however, if advertisers bug them too overtly, said Alyson Hyder, media director for California at Avenue A/Razorfish, a digital marketing firm.

"They will be quick to turn on the backlash," Hyder said. That's why "brands that target the teen audience are looking at more authentic ways to insert themselves into the conversation, as opposed to advertising."

For a Nintendo Co. campaign, rather than send teens an ad about a new Nintendo game, mobile-phone marketing firm Hyperfactory published a brain teaser relating to it in game magazines. Users sent a text message to get the answer, and they received a message back with a link to sign up for alerts about the game and download free wallpaper and mobile games. The company declined to say how many consumers participated.

When Kiwibox.com, an online teen magazine, launches a service to send teens text messages with horoscopes and celebrity alerts this year, they'll include a short advertisement at the end sponsored by different brands such as Sparq Inc., a company that designs workout training programs for aspiring athletes, and Paramount Pictures.

But it can be a thin line between the type of product pitches that teens will accept on their mobile phones and those they won't.

Quentin Brown, an 18-year-old high school senior from Santa Monica, said he texted to vote during the National Basketball Assn.'s slam-dunk competition at this year's All-Star game. In return, he received a flurry of text messages with offers to buy jerseys and other basketball-related stuff. He didn't mind the texts for the jerseys, since he's interested in them and always looking for deals. But he didn't like getting ones about things he didn't care about, such as asking him to join an NBA fantasy draft or go to NBA summer camp.

"They were kind of stalking me," he said. "But then they stopped and I was glad."

Not new media, but new marketing: ad:tech panelist

Texting is now the native tongue of the socially active.

Thus said Nick Brien, worldwide CEO of Universal McCann, New York, and panelist Nov. 6 at the ad:tech New York keynote presentation, “The New Media Universe: Forging a Model of Interdependence.” He said strategic communications and consumer-context planning are vital to connecting with the today’s media-savvy savvy audience.

“Irritating and intruding into a consumer’s life is no longer the way to connect to a potential customer,” Mr. Brien said. “This isn’t about new media. It’s about new marketing.”

An overcapacity of products and services calls for branding in order to stand out and be an experience, he told interactive marketing executives gathered at the nation’s leading online advertising show.

Brands need to adapt as media changes, Mr. Brien said.

For example, 65 percent of people chose the Internet over any other media. One of every three shoppers uses social networks to make purchase decisions. Additionally, 70 percent of mobile users send text messages.

New media channels are also emerging with the recent digital phenomenon.

“Love the digital world,” Mr. Brien said. “Bring it in. We are not in the business of keeping media companies alive. It’s all about the consumer.”

Consumers generate insight and that’s why it is imperative to understand how users behave, how they live and what they need, he said.

“Media enhances personality,” he said.

Users are actively generating content and participating in brand development.

Mr. Brien recommends involving consumers through conversation, collaboration, engagement and participation.

“The consumers want to play when they are included,” he said.

In this environment, advertising agencies need to decide what they stand for.

“Agencies need to decide if they are in the agency business or if they are a business with agency services,” Mr. Brien said. “As an agency you really need to talk to your consumer.”

Persuasion is one way to get through to customers, but influence and persuasion is the best elixir for success.

Targeting the mass audience should be a data-driven effort, Mr. Brien said. It’s time to wipe-out the incumbent legacy models.

“Users are creating credibility for brands,” Mr. Brien said.

From Mobile Marketer By Giselle Abramovich

Mobile search: Not there yet

A new report from the industry's leading search marketing lobby claims that advertisers are eyeing mobile search, but don't want to pay for it.

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization's annual State of Search Engine Marketing Report found that 40 percent of respondents have an interest in mobile search. But a quarter of these marketers said they want to pay less for mobile search than for traditional search advertising.

“To me what’s interesting is when we first started tracking this and we talked about new media, we generally had people thinking they would pay a premium,’ said Dana Todd, chairman of SEMPO and executive vice president and cofounder of interactive shop SiteLab Interactive, La Jolla, CA. “We have a more mature advertising marketing place now and it’s not as simple as just writing a text ad.

“Advertisers are actually unwilling to pay a premium,” she said. “They said they are open to paying for demographic and behavioral targeting but not willing to pay for keyword targeting.”

About a third of advertiser respondents in the SEMPO report claim they want to pay the same for mobile search as they’re currently paying for traditional search.

“There is definitely a market for mobile and it's going to take off, but there are just so many challenges as of now,” said Neil Strother, analyst at JupiterResearch, Kirkland, WA.

“Let’s start with the fact that not everyone has a data plan for their phone,” he said. “Our research shows that 90 percent of people who have data plans browse the mobile Web at least once a month, but these stats are much higher for online search, making it way more appealing to advertisers.

“I feel like consumers don’t understand mobile search just yet,” he said. "They understand the idea of it – entering a keyword and getting results back – but don’t understand fully what the capabilities are. There is click-to-call, for example. Also the search results are not very optimized and I am not quite sure how relevant they are either.”

Mr. Strother was not involved with the SEMPO study.

The SEMPO report surveyed 867 search engine advertisers and search engine marketing agencies.

The 2007 survey showed direct sales and branding are the top objectives of paid placement programs, whether they be via mobile or online.

Almost identical to the 2006 survey results, advertisers report their primary objectives for search engine marketing spending are direct sales (58 percent) and increased brand awareness (61 percent).

Twenty percent of respondents report they are trying to generate leads for sales they will close and for sales a dealer or distributor will close.

Another two in five advertisers report they are trying to drive traffic to an ad-supported site.

“Besides the fact that the volume of usage is not high yet, not all companies are optimizing their sites for mobile search,” Mr. Strother said. “Not all phones have the right capabilities and not all people have GPS - all things that we expect will drive mobile search forward.”

Mr. Strother said that 3G, GPS, better-optimized WAP sites and more data plan users will drive mobile search usage and consequently attract advertisers.

“The possibilities are incredible, we are just not there yet,” Mr. Strother said. “It will take time and a bigger critical mass, with more smartphone users, speed and an overall better experience.”

More than 50 percent of respondents in the SEMPO study tracked the following success metrics for search engine marketing campaigns: site traffic, post-click conversion, click-through rate, ROI, cost-per-click, cost-per-action, cost of sales generation and sales volume.

“It is not pleasant waiting for mobile search results,” Mr. Strother said. “It is going to take another leap in volume of people with capable phones for monetization to take off. I think it is going to be a slow process and will take about three to five years and it will be big in the next decade.”

The 2007 SEMPO global survey of online marketers was conducted by Radar Research and administered via IntelliSurvey Inc.

“The mobile search industry needs to prove it has a qualified and valuable audience and it needs to be easier for search marketers to participate,” SiteLab's Ms. Todd said.

Mobile search: Not there yet

from Mobile Marketer

By Giselle Abramovich

Freeairtime.co.za Reaches the Right Market

Mobile users need airtime to connect with their friends. What better way to connect with friends and get more airtime to continue your conversation.

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Freeairtime.co.za is a site developed where consumers can earn free airtime for referring their friends and receiving marketing messages from advertisers.

Thus, not only are our advertisers able to reach customers directly on their phones, with relevant advertising, but the customer earns rewards for receiving the adverts. This added incentive results in customers taking significantly more notice of the advert.

The WAP site generates a large amount of traffic. Users register and check their balance often, and use the free chat facilities available to them, to keep in contact with friends and family.

- We offer advertising banners for sale to our clients on the WAP site.
- It's a place for advertisers to get one-on-one time with their target market.

from www.momarc.com

Glossary of Terms used in Mobile Marketing

If this is your first mobile marketing campaign, we realise that the terminology may appear confusing. It is important that you understand the basic terms associated with a mobile marketing campaign, to fully utilise it's effectiveness. Therefore we provide you with the following list of basic terms.

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2008-01-31

SMS (Short Message Service)

A text message is up to 160 characters in length and can be sent from a computer to a cell phone or from a cell phone to a cell phone.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

MMS is the big brother of SMS. If you send a graphic, photo or sound by using your cell phone, you use MMS technology for that purpose.

Standard Rate Text Message

This type of text message, sent through a common short code, is free to the consumer.

Premium SMS

Premium SMS means the user of the service will be charged an incremental fee to participate in a program. The charge will appear on the consumer’s cell phone bill or deducted from their Prepaid minutes.

MO or Mobile Origination

Mobile Origination means that the consumer has originated the text message sent to a short code. In other words, if a radio station announces on air that it is giving away tickets to a concert, and the listener responds by sending a text message to the short code to enter the contest, then the listener has sent an MO text message.

MT or Mobile Termination

Mobile Termination means that the opt-in consumer has received a text message from a short code. For example, a retailer might send a text message to join its opt-in Sales Club announcing a 25% off all merchandise deal to its members. This would be an example of an MT text message.

Opt-In

Text message promotions are subject to spam laws and there are significant fines for violating these laws. Therefore, a consumer must “opt-in” to your promotion before further contact with that consumer is permitted. We at MoMarc take the opt-in laws very seriously and will not knowingly permit any of its customers to run any promotions that violate this policy.

Opt-Out

Consumers must have the opportunity to opt-out of promotions at any time. This is normally done by sending a text message with the word “stop” in it. Fortunately for you, our systems are all designed to handle opt-outs so you don’t have to.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

WAP is simply the wireless web. When you access the internet through your cell phone, you are accessing a WAP site and you are involved in a WAP session.

from www.momarc.com

Mobile Marketing FAQ's

A collection of questions and answers relating to what we do, how we do it and any other information we think would be useful.

1. What is mobile marketing? Mobile marketing is a groundbreaking new way of communicating with customers and prospects. Check out glossary for great ideas about how mobile marketing and interactive communication can generate sales.

2. Do I have to sign up with MoMarc before I can do Mobile Marketing through MoMarc? Yes, because MoMarc has to setup an account for each client. Each client receives a log-in to track campaigns and has to agree in writing to adhere to the industry rules and regulations of mobile marking. MoMarc also offers training and support for clients.

3. How many characters can fit into a standard sms? The maximum SMS size is either 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. Please note that the number of characters includes spaces.

About Mobile Marketing

Mobile is but one component of a cross-media marketing communications campaign. It offers the ability to target consumers when and where they're ready, willing, and able to engage with your brand and, potentially, make a purchase.

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When consumers leave their homes, there are a few essential things they take with them. These are their keys, wallet or purse, and cell phone.

The fact is, the mobile phone has become the most immediate and personal way to connect with consumers, no matter where they roam.

Extend your marketing reach, get more mileage from your advertising spend, and build stronger, more loyal relationships with consumers.

We extend your ability to communicate in exciting new ways. With the "always on, always with you" nature of mobile devices, mobile marketing is quickly becoming a 'must have' for enterprises seeking to interact with their audience - wherever they are.

From turnkey SMS campaigns to a fully customizable approach where the only limitation is your imagination, MoMarc combines the IT infrastructure and industry expertise necessary to ensure the success of your mobile campaigns.

Besides the excellent features offered, Mobile Marketing makes it possible to reach clients who don’t have Internet access. You can now build lasting relationships with clients through personalized messaging.

Other excellent benefits of using Mobile Marketing include:

• Targeted and cost effective marketing campaigns
• Creating promotion drives within 24 hours
• Fast response time – within 24 hours
• Penetration level of new markets is around 70%
• Obtain a recall rate of 75% and more
• Subscribers will only receive relevant advertising, which results in better response rates
• Prevention of spam through adherence to rules for marketing ethics
• Easy incorporation with existing promotion strategies
• Extending services beyond normal run of the mill strategies, enabling you to go the extra mile for your customer.
• Clients can decide when they want to open the messages
  

Now is the time to get into mobile marketing! It's the best and most innovative way to use technology to penetrate the cell phone user market. Mobile marketing offers companies a fast, efficient and highly cost effective promotion tool for reaching their target audience.

It is immediate and engages the customers through direct subscription based ad campaigns.

It offers the ability to target consumers when and where they're ready, willing, and able to engage with your brand and, potentially, make a purchase.

Click here to contact us, and make a connection...

Mobile Marketing Solutions MOMARC

Momarc is a leading mobile marketing company, offering advertisers a multitude of solutions of reaching consumers through innovative mobile technology.

MoMarc is unique in that it offers a full solution to advertisers which includes a huge opted-in database.


www.momarc.com

High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)

High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbit/s. Further speed increases are available with HSPA+, which provides speeds of up to 42 Mbit/s downlink.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evolution from 2G to 3G

2G networks were built mainly for voice data and slow transmission. Due to rapid changes in user expectation, they do not meet today's wireless needs.

Cellular mobile telecommunications networks are being upgraded to use 3G technologies from 1999 to 2010. Japan was the first country to introduce 3G nationally, and in Japan the transition to 3G was largely completed in 2006. Korea then adopted 3G Networks soon after and the transition was made as early as 2004.

From 2G to 2.5G (GPRS)

"2.5G" (and even 2.75G) are technologies such as i-mode data services, camera phones, high-speed circuit-switched data (HSCSD) and General packet radio service (GPRS) were created to provide some functionality domains like 3G networks, but without the full transition to 3G network. They were built to introduce the possibilities of wireless application technology to the end consumers, and so increase demand for 3G services.

When converting a GSM network to a UMTS network, the first new technology is General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). It is the trigger to 3G services. The network connection is always on, so the subscriber is online all the time. From the operator's point of view, it is important that GPRS investments are re-used when going to UMTS. Also capitalizing on GPRS business experience is very important.

From GPRS, operators could change the network directly to UMTS, or invest in an EDGE system. One advantage of EDGE over UMTS is that it requires no new licenses. The frequencies are also re-used and no new antennas are needed.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Third Generation 3G

3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2G, and preceding 4G. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the International Mobile Telecommunications programme, IMT-2000.

3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.

Unlike IEEE 802.11 networks, 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony. IEEE 802.11 (common names Wi-Fi or WLAN) networks are short range, high-bandwidth networks primarily developed for data.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Second Generation 2G

2G (or 2-G) is short for second-generation wireless telephone technology.

Second generation 2G cellular telecoms networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard in Finland by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in 1991. 2G networks were fully digital while previous 1G networks were analog. Three primary benefits of 2G networks over their predecessors were that phone conversations were digitally encrypted, while on analog systems it was possible for third parties to eaves-drop on calls; 2G systems were significantly more efficient on the spectrum allowing for far greater mobile phone penetration levels; and 2G introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages.

After 2G was launched, the previous mobile telephone systems were retrospectively dubbed 1G. While radio signals on 1G networks are analog, and on 2G networks are digital, both systems use digital signaling to connect the radio towers (which listen to the handsets) to the rest of the telephone system.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented Mobile Data Service available to users of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and IS-136 mobile phones. It provides data rates from 56 up to 114 kbit/s.

GPRS can be used for services such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access. GPRS data transfer is typically charged per megabyte of traffic transferred, while data communication via traditional circuit switching is billed per minute of connection time, independent of whether the user actually is utilizing the capacity or is in an idle state. GPRS is a best-effort packet switched service, as opposed to circuit switching, where a certain Quality of Service (QoS) is guaranteed during the connection for non-mobile users.

2G cellular systems combined with GPRS is often described as "2.5G", that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate speed data transfer, by using unused Time division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. Originally there was some thought to extend GPRS to cover other standards, but instead those networks are being converted to use the GSM standard, so that GSM is the only kind of network where GPRS is in use.

Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)

Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)

One of the key features of GSM is the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM), commonly known as a SIM card. The SIM is a detachable smart card containing the user's subscription information and phonebook. This allows the user to retain his or her information after switching handsets. Alternatively, the user can also change operators while retaining the handset simply by changing the SIM. Some operators will block this by allowing the phone to use only a single SIM, or only a SIM issued by them; this practice is known as SIM locking, and is illegal in some countries.

In Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States many operators lock the mobiles they sell. This is done because the price of the mobile phone is typically subsidised with revenue from subscriptions, and operators want to try to avoid subsidising competitor's mobiles. A subscriber can usually contact the provider to remove the lock for a fee, utilize private services to remove the lock, or make use of ample software and websites available on the Internet to unlock the handset themselves.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM: originally from Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. Its promoter, the GSM Association, estimates that 82% of the global mobile market uses the standard.

The ubiquity of the GSM standard has been advantageous to both consumers (who benefit from the ability to roam and switch carriers without switching phones) and also to network operators (who can choose equipment from any of the many vendors implementing GSM)

GSM also pioneered a low-cost alternative to voice calls, the Short message service (SMS, also called "text messaging"), which is now supported on other mobile standards as well. Another advantage is that the standard includes one worldwide Emergency telephone number, 112. This makes it easier for international travellers to connect to emergency services without knowing the local emergency number.

Newer versions of the standard were backward-compatible with the original GSM phones. For example, Release '97 of the standard added packet data capabilities, by means of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release '99 introduced higher speed data transmission using Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE).

GSM is a cellular network, which means that mobile phones connect to it by searching for cells in the immediate vicinity. GSM networks operate in four different frequency ranges. Most GSM networks operate in the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands. Some countries in the Americas (including Canada and the United States) use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands because the 900 and 1800 MHz frequency bands were already allocated.

The rarer 400 and 450 MHz frequency bands are assigned in some countries, notably Scandinavia, where these frequencies were previously used for first-generation systems.

In the 900 MHz band the uplink frequency band is 890–915 MHz, and the downlink frequency band is 935–960 MHz. This 25 MHz bandwidth is subdivided into 124 carrier frequency channels, each spaced 200 kHz apart. Time division multiplexing is used to allow eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency channel. There are eight radio timeslots (giving eight burst periods) grouped into what is called a TDMA frame. Half rate channels use alternate frames in the same timeslot. The channel data rate is 270.833 kbit/s, and the frame duration is 4.615 ms.

The transmission power in the handset is limited to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900.

GSM has used a variety of voice codecs to squeeze 3.1 kHz audio into between 5.6 and 13 kbit/s. Originally, two codecs, named after the types of data channel they were allocated, were used, called Half Rate (5.6 kbit/s) and Full Rate (13 kbit/s). These used a system based upon linear predictive coding (LPC). In addition to being efficient with bitrates, these codecs also made it easier to identify more important parts of the audio, allowing the air interface layer to prioritize and better protect these parts of the signal.

GSM was further enhanced in 1997^[11] with the Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) codec, a 12.2 kbit/s codec that uses a full rate channel. Finally, with the development of UMTS, EFR was refactored into a variable-rate codec called AMR-Narrowband, which is high quality and robust against interference when used on full rate channels, and less robust but still relatively high quality when used in good radio conditions on half-rate channels.

There are five different cell sizes in a GSM network—macro, micro, pico, femto and umbrella cells. The coverage area of each cell varies according to the implementation environment. Macro cells can be regarded as cells where the base station antenna is installed on a mast or a building above average roof top level. Micro cells are cells whose antenna height is under average roof top level; they are typically used in urban areas. Picocells are small cells whose coverage diameter is a few dozen meters; they are mainly used indoors. Femtocells are cells designed for use in residential or small business environments and connect to the service provider’s network via a broadband internet connection. Umbrella cells are used to cover shadowed regions of smaller cells and fill in gaps in coverage between those cells.

Cell horizontal radius varies depending on antenna height, antenna gain and propagation conditions from a couple of hundred meters to several tens of kilometers. The longest distance the GSM specification supports in practical use is 35 kilometres (22 mi). There are also several implementations of the concept of an extended cell, where the cell radius could be double or even more, depending on the antenna system, the type of terrain and the timing advance.

Indoor coverage is also supported by GSM and may be achieved by using an indoor picocell base station, or an indoor repeater with distributed indoor antennas fed through power splitters, to deliver the radio signals from an antenna outdoors to the separate indoor distributed antenna system. These are typically deployed when a lot of call capacity is needed indoors, for example in shopping centers or airports. However, this is not a prerequisite, since indoor coverage is also provided by in-building penetration of the radio signals from nearby cells.

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Wireless Markup Language (WML)

Wireless Markup Language, based on XML, is a markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification, such as mobile phones, and preceded the use of other markup languages now used with WAP, such as XHTML and even standard HTML (which are gaining in popularity as processing power in mobile devices increases).

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Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)

WAP is an open international standard for applications that use wireless communication. Its main use is to enable access to the Internet from a mobile phone or PDA.

A WAP browser provides all of the basic services of a computer based web browser but simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone, such as its smaller view screen. WAP sites are websites written in, or dynamically converted to, WML (Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser.

Before the introduction of WAP, service providers had extremely limited opportunities to offer interactive data services. Interactive data applications are required to support now commonplace activities such as:

• Email by mobile phone
• Tracking of stock market prices
• Sports results
• News headlines
• Music downloads

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Instant Messaging (IM)

Instant Messaging (IM based on typed text. The ) is a form of real-time communication between two or more peopletext is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.

Instant Messaging is not email, SMS, or MMS allthough Instant Messaging can also be done on mobile phones on the internet or on WAP.

Instant messaging (IM) and chat are technologies that create the possibility of real-time text-based communication between two or more participants over the internet or some form of internal network/ intranet. It is important to understand that what separates chat and instant messaging from technologies such as e-mail is the perceived synchronicity of the communication by the user - Chat happens in real-time before your eyes. Some systems allow the sending of messages to people not currently logged on (offline messages), thus removing much of the difference between Instant Messaging and SMS, MMS or e-mail.

Text messaging

Text messaging, or texting is the common term for the sending of "short" (160 characters or fewer, including spaces) text messages from mobile phones using the Short Message Service (SMS). It is available on most digital mobile phones and some personal digital assistants with on-board wireless telecommunications. The individual messages which are sent are called text messages.

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SMS Message size

SMS Message size

The maximum single text message size is either 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. Characters in languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Slavic languages (e.g., Russian) must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode).

Larger content (Concatenated SMS, multipart or segmented SMS or "long sms") can be sent using multiple messages, in which case each message will start with a user data header (UDH) containing segmentation information. Since UDH is inside the payload, the number of characters per segment is lower: 153 for 7-bit encoding, 134 for 8-bit encoding and 67 for 16-bit encoding. The receiving handset is then responsible for reassembling the message and presenting it to the user as one long message. While the standard theoretically permits up to 255 segments, 6 to 8 segment messages are the practical maximum, and long messages are often billed as equivalent to multiple SMS messages.

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Short Message Service (SMS)

Short Message Service (SMS) is a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application on the planet, with 2.4 billion active users, or 74% of all mobile phone subscribers sending and receiving text messages on their phones. The SMS technology has facilitated the development and growth of text messaging. The connection between the phenomenon of text messaging and the underlying technology is so great that in parts of the world the term "SMS" is used as a synonym for a text message or the act of sending a text message, even when a different protocol is being used.

SMS as used on modern handsets was originally defined as part of the GSM series of standards in 1985^[1] as a means of sending messages of up to 160 characters (including spaces), to and from GSM mobile handsets.

Most SMS messages are mobile-to-mobile text messages, though the standard supports other types of broadcast messaging as well.

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Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard for telephone messaging systems that allows sending messages that include multimedia objects (images, audio, video, rich text) and not just text as in Short Message Service (SMS). It is mainly deployed in cellular networks along with other messaging systems like SMS, Mobile Instant Messaging and Mobile E-mail. Its main standardization effort is done by 3GPP, 3GPP2 and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA).

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Mobile Marketing via MMS

MMS Mobile Marketing can contain a timed slideshow of images, text, audio and video. This mobile content is delivered via MMS (Multimedia Message Service). Nearly all new phones produced with a color screen are capable of sending and receiving standard MMS message, with the notable exception of the Apple iPhone. Brands are able to both send (Mobile Terminated) and receive (Mobile Originated) rich content through MMS A2P(Appliation to Person) mobile networks to mobile subscribers. In some networks, brands are also able to sponsor messages that are sent P2P (Person to Person).

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What is Mobile Marketing

Marketing on a mobile phone has become increasingly popular ever since the rise of SMS (Short Message Service) in the early 2000s in Europe and some parts of Asia when businesses started to collect mobile phone numbers and send off wanted (or unwanted) content.

Over the past few years SMS has become a legitimate advertising channel. This is due to the fact that unlike email over the public internet, the carrier who police their own networks have set guidelines and best practices for the mobile media industry (including mobile advertising). The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and the Mobile Marketing Association, as well, has established guidelines and evangelizing the use of the mobile channel for marketers.

Mobile Marketing via SMS has expanded rapidly in Europe and Asia as a new channel to reach the consumer. SMS initially received negative media coverage in many parts of Europe for being a new form of spam as some advertisers purchased lists and sent unsolicited content to consumer's phones; however, as guidelines are put in place by the mobile operators, SMS has become the most popular branch of the Mobile Marketing industry with several 100 million advertising SMS sent out every month in Europe alone.

SMS services typically run off a short code, but sending text messages to an email address is another methodology. Short codes are 5 or 6 digit numbers that have been assigned by all the mobile operators in a given country for the use of brand campaign and other consumer services. The mobile operators vet every application before provisioning and monitor the service to make sure it does not diverge from its original service description.

Besides short codes, inbound SMS is very often based on long numbers (international number format, e.g. +44 7624 805000), which can be used in place of short codes or premium-rated short messages for SMS reception in several applications, such as product promotions and campaigns. Long numbers are internationally available, as well as enabling businesses to have their own number, rather than short codes which are usually shared across a number of brands. Additionally, long numbers are non-premium inbound numbers.

One key criterion for provisioning is that the consumer opts in to the service. The mobile operators demand a double opt in from the consumer and the ability for the consumer to opt out of the service at any time by sending the word STOP via SMS.

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