‘Sprite Yard’ now part of mobile marketing playground

NEW YORK—Coca-Cola Co. is moving aggressively onto the mobile marketing playground with a kind of mobile MySpace centered on the company’s Sprite brand.

The soft drink titan plans to launch a worldwide community allowing users to create profiles and exchange photos and messages, executive Mark Greatrex said during the keynote address at the Mobile Marketing Forum in New York. The free downloadable application, dubbed “Sprite Yard,” will be available via a short code and also offer wallpapers, games and video clips.

The effort launched in China last week and is set to launch in the United States beginning June 22. To access the application, U.S. consumers can text “YARD” to 59666 and receive a reply with a WAP link to access the Sprite Yard for the fist time.

Coca-Cola hopes to offer the application in “many more countries” next year, Greatrex said.

“Sprite will be our pioneer in the fast-moving world of mobile marketing,” Greatrex told the audience. “We believe Sprite Yard is the most comprehensive mobile marketing effort on the planet.”

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MMA Updates Mobile Ad Guidelines

IN ADVANCE OF TODAY'S START of the Mobile Marketing Forum in New York, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released an update to its Mobile Advertising Guidelines.

Much like the Interactive Advertising Bureau's universally recognized ad formats, the Mobile Advertising Guidelines provide advertisers with technical specifications and standard WAP ad units (such as banners). Marketers also get detailed explanations of various click-through capabilities, including email opt-in and click-to-call, as well as specific best practices with regard to ad content.

This fourth version of the guidelines includes provisions for mobile Web and downloadable content (such as ring tones and ad-based games), as well as an overview of multimedia messaging services.

Wireless carriers, tech firms, agencies, and content providers comprise the MMA's Mobile Advertising Committee, and they collaborate on the guidelines as a source of standardization in the rapidly growing industry.

"The guidelines are an example of how the MMA leads the worldwide mobile marketing industry by bringing all players in the ecosystem together," said Pete Distler, general manager, Sprint Mobile Media Network.

Later this year, the MMA will deploy a usability lab to evaluate the efficacy of the guidelines, and update them again if necessary. The organization has been working toward developing industry best practices, innovation, and standardization since 2000.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing Association Announces Formation of Participation TV Committee

MMA Will Focus Key TV and Mobile Media Membership to Ensure Best Practices Continue to “Uphold Public Trust and Positive Consumer Experience”

New York (June 6, 2007) - The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), which represents more than 400 companies across the mobile ecosystem, today announced the formation of the first industry-wide committee to focus on the growth of TV’s mobile participation. The MMA, which launched the first version of its interactive TV guidelines in June 2005, appointed a committee, represented by all key industry sectors, that will enable U.S. TV viewers to engage with their favorite shows in a consistent manner. The Participation TV (PTV) Committee includes TV broadcasters, producers, mobile operators, mobile gateway providers and application specialists.

The MMA PTV Committee will continue to develop industry guidelines that protect the long-term viability of the industry by setting standards across all key elements of the interactive TV supply chain. The guidelines will be integrated into the MMA’s Consumer Best Practices guidelines
(www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf ) and reinforces the MMA’s commitment to the development of the mobile content industry. The Committee will be co-chaired by Telescope, Inc. and Granada USA. The MMA continues to demonstrate its leadership in the field of participation TV, which delivers a specific experience for TV viewers, enabling them to vote, integrate play-at-home versions into TV formats, and enable home viewers to appear on their favorite TV game shows through their mobile devices.

“The formation of the Participation TV Interest Group occurs at a key juncture in the history of consumer-TV interaction, given the numerous and growing successes of reality, text-to-vote and mobile TV programming across the industry,” said Troy Sample, chief executive officer of Telescope and chairman of the MMA PTV Group. “The MMA is taking the leadership reins in its development of common guidelines upon which the entire industry can build their campaigns. The MMA has helped galvanize the mobile marketing industry in a way that few self-governing industry organizations have done. The formation of the Participation TV Interest Group will help fuel the growth of what is already an exciting market sector.”

“MMA members include the leaders in developing consumer programming across all marketing channels, including broadcast, broadband internet and mobile TV, and this new committee is a natural fit for the association,” said Cyriac Roeding, executive vice president, CBS Mobile and MMA’s Global and North American chairman. “The Participation TV Interest Group will enable all players in the mobile marketing ecosystem to speed delivery of interactive or participation campaigns centered on the growing demands of today’s highly mobile consumer.”

Committee membership is open to all active MMA members.

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the mobile channel for use by brands and content providers. The 400+ global member companies include agencies, advertisers, hand held device manufacturers, wireless operators, aggregators, technology enablers, market research firms and all companies focused on marketing via the mobile channel. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

Cell Phones Emerge as New Advertising Medium

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Advertising is a highly competitive market with corporations constantly searching for an edge. As a result, select firms are now trying to reach customers via a new medium: cell phones. "Companies are using text messages to notify customers of special deals and banner ads to sponsor items, such as ring tone downloads," noted Julie Ask, research director at Jupiter Research.

A few factors are driving the interest. Increasingly, cell phones are becoming more data oriented and PC-like. Consequently, there is now space that advertiser can use for marketing. "Cell phone screen size is certainly not optimal but it does provide companies with room to advertise their wares," said David Chamberlain, senior analyst at market research firm In-Stat.

In addition, cell phones are quite popular among a prime advertising demographic: youth, including college and high school students. Many college students have abandoned wired connections for wireless ones, and a survey by The American Advertising Federation (AAF) found that 69 percent of high school teens own cell phones. The youth market tends to be quite interested in products with short life cycles, such as music and movies. These products generate a lot of advertising because companies need to quickly create a buzz as new products arrive.

Good News, Bad News

Yet advertising can be a two-edged sword. While it can create interest in a product, it can also generate a negative message. Pop-up advertisements represent one area where companies found the medium hurt rather than helped brands. Because little is known about the impact of cell phone advertising, vendors are moving cautiously. To date, the market is sending a mixed message.

At least initially, only a few consumers are embracing the idea of cell phone advertising: an In-Stat survey found that four out of every five users opposed the idea. The group supporting cell phone advertising seemed open to letting advertisers subsidize the cost of premium services, such as directory assistance, ringtones and messaging. High prices are often a reason why users do not rely on these premium services, so having advertisers partly underwrite the cost would seem to benefit users and advertisers alike.

With the market beginning to evolve, companies are searching for the most effective advertising vehicle. Banner advertisements are one possibility. "I don't think banner ads will be too effective because of the cell phone's small screen size," said Bob Egan, service director, emerging technologies at market research firm The Tower Group Inc.

Location-based advertising is another area that may have to struggle for acceptance. Here, carriers couple Geographic Positioning Systems with cell phones, so cellular networks can track user movement. As consumers pass various locations, they receive unsolicited advertisements, for instance, a local restaurant could send potential customers text, graphic, or video messages about a daily special as the users passed by.

Sign Me Up

Opt-in advertising services, where consumers sign up for advertising about items that interest them, seems likely to gain traction. "Customers do seem open to receiving mailings about a band's album or next concert," In-Stat's Chamberlain told TechNewsWorld. Sports and celebrity news are other areas where such advertising seems acceptable.

Past experiences may be one reason why users are leery of cellular advertising. Along with useful advertisements, for instance, have come boatloads of spam. "Many users are concerned about how many spam messages will make their way to their cell phones," The Tower Group's Egan told TechNewsWorld.

Spam may be even more unwelcome in cellular networks than it is in data networks. Depending on users' calling plans, they may have to pay a few cents whenever they read such messages.

Spam Filtering Needed

As a result, cellular providers may need to put anti-spam measures in place like those that Internet Service Providers use for data services. "Cellular carriers may find that users will be canceling their contracts and moving to other services if they can not control cellular spam," noted In-Stat's Chamberlain.

Spam overruns are a future rather than a present concern; currently, most of the cellular advertising campaigns are at a nascent stage. "We've seen a few interesting pilot programs and special promotions but no advertiser has yet allocated a lot of money to cell phone advertising," Jupiter Research's Ask told TechNewsWorld. There is interest in such possibilities, and companies, such as Enpocket, Martix Mobile Marketing, M-Qube Inc., and Texting Now are focused on helping companies deliver their marketing messages via cell phones.

These firms have generated some promising early results. Enpocket claims that 15 percent of users respond when they get text-message ads, and that number is twice the level of direct mail advertising.

The high response rate coupled with the significant research required because cell phone advertising is so new has resulted in expensive rates, at least initially. Marketing companies are charging between 10 and 35 cents each to send text messages to cell phone users, a rate 25 to 50 percent higher than billboard, radio, and television advertising.

Some companies are willingly paying the extra fees. The medium has been more popular abroad than in the U.S. In Europe, text messaging has been quite popular for a number of years. In Asia, especially Korea and Japan, cell phones are commonly used to complete mobile commerce transactions.

How big the cell phone advertising market will become in the U.S. is unclear. Andrew Robertson, CEO of BBDO ad agency, the third-largest in the world, expects cell phones to become larger than television advertising, but not everyone agrees with that statement. "Television advertising still accounts for 85 percent of advertising dollars spent in the U.S.," concluded In-Stat's Ask. "Even if cellular advertising is quite successful, it will take many years for it to approach the volume of revenue that television advertising generates."