Author Archive
by Paul Ruppert
October 2, 2008 at 10:50 am · Filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing
One of the power points of mobile is that it can be engaged with mature media and leverage it’s convenience and context. While other mature media can’t. Think about it, do you want to read a book while watching a movie?
With mobile you can read a newspaper, click on an ad and receive cool fremiums through a mobile’s image recognition applications and the mobile web. You can learn more specifically about that in a recent podcast post of mine at my blog, MobilePointView, “Mobile Advertising: Snap, Send, Get”.
Converged: Movies & Mobile
In a great example of convergence in mobile advertising, the US National Guard, through the creative guidance of Arlington, Virginia’s LM&O Advertising and Rawtenstall, UK based 2ergo, a mobile marketing technology provider is using mobile’s contextual convergence capabilities to reach teens and help enlist potential recruits. 
Using 2ergo’s Swift platform, LM&O created a mobile Internet site for The National Guard that allowed moviegoers to access and interact with in theater advertisement for the National Guard– the “Warrior” by accessing a web site on their mobile phones while sitting in the theater. The mobile site, found at http://warrior.swiftmob.com, features freemiums such as MP3 and wallpaper downloads, the “Warrior” video of the commercial, and a recruiter contact form for those interested in learning more about The National Guard.
Such mobile websites enable an advertiser such as the National guard a compelling recruiting tool that breaks through the normal advertising noise, at the right time–sitting idle anticipating a movie–and through the right medium–the intimacy of your mobile phone–which makes a precisely targeted impression with their key audience–18 to 24 year olds. The impact of the message is no doubt heightened by the Kid Rock score and the cameo appearance by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
A deft play for seemingly polar opposites–NASCAR teens and Rockers. Unlike trailing boomers like me, millenials expect content to be available on their mobile phones even in a movie theater!
The “Warrior” ad will appear for a two-month period before PG-13 and R rated movies in 3,117 theaters on 27,079 screens nationwide, generating over 124 million impressions. “Warrior” packs a punch with three parallel story lines - Kid Rock performing a USO-type show, Dale Earnhardt Jr. overcoming adversity on the racetrack, and National Guard Soldiers serving their country in harms way.
Out-of-theater, ahem “tethered internet” supporting elements include an official “Warrior” micro-site, www.NationalGuardWarrior.com, featuring free downloads of the “Warrior” film, an MP3, wallpaper, behind-the-scenes videos and photos. In addition, the National Guard partnered with Yahoo! to give each campaign element a unique and memorable call-to-action.
In the first month of the campaign, the mobile site has already received thousands of unique visitors and has seen 9000 MP3 downloads, 2600 video views and 600 wallpaper downloads.
Check out this great example of converged media and mobile advertising next time you go to the movies.
by Paul Ruppert
August 25, 2008 at 10:12 am · Filed under Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Podcasts
Exposure > Persuasion > Transactions
Understanding how analytics illuminate and profile users, with a measure of customer acquisition costs is a key performance indicator for advertising whether it is traditional print, fixed billboard or media such as TV and radio. The same now applies with the emerging mobile advertising channel.
If the real value exchange between mobile and advertising is to be fully capitalized, new data sets need to be developed for the advertising and brand industries that drive this space. 
An on-going interest of mine has been how the mobile segment is moving to solve core questions like: a) how many people have been exposed to an advertisement? And (b) how effective is the advertising? These are cornerstone questions to advertising, and nothing has changed for its transfer to the mobile channel.
As part of my quest I had the opportunity recently to sit down with Bango’s Anhil Malhotra. Bango is paving the way, working with the Media Rating Council and Mobile Marketing Association, moving beyond simple CPM (cost per 1k exposures), PPC (pay per click), CPC (cost per call) and CPA (cost per action) metrics to establish new audience verification metrics for mobile.
Listen here: mmfanilbango2 to my podcast with Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing with Bango (recorded at the Harvard Club of New York) as we explore the future of mobile advertising metrics, and how there is no end to the appetite of what people want when it comes precise and concise audience verifiability.
The reality is that mobile provides much more power in the battle from exposure to persuasion to transactions. Listen and find out how.
by Paul Ruppert
August 25, 2008 at 10:08 am · Filed under Advertising, Mobile Advertising, SMS
In my earlier post on the short code enabling business, “Too Early & Too Late?” (click here), I outlined why I think this is a segment on very weak footing. Short code solutions are an easy way to enable print and media advertising to the mobile web space. But its time may have already come and gone.
The real opportunity for these short code enablers is to quickly shift to a more powerful technical solution, otherwise known as QR code technology.
QR codes are two dimensional bar codes which have quietly grown significant first in Japan and Korea, and now in Germany, Italy and Spain—all dense users of mobile internet. They were invented by a Japanese company in 1994. Showing up mostly as thumbnails on magazines and newspapers, they work as quick, automatic links between print and on-line mobile media that don’t require a customer to type in an internet address or a short code key word combination. Any object, machine or advertising space can be engaged and serve as a prompt to a consumer. Simple as click and connect. Watch it here
Physical size of the QR code is irrelevant. Northwest Airlines in Japan utilized QR codes on full size out door billboards 30 ft up from sidewalks which could be viewed and clicked on from across a street. Alternatively QR codes can be small thumbnails in “hand held” publications like La Gazetta Sportiva in Italy (think Sporting News) or Germany’s Welt Kompakt national newspaper (think USAToday). With just the click of a phone’s camera to engage the code and connect with a specified link, such codes are very compelling and simple to engage, even fun given their simplicity.
They provide multiple functionalities enabling options such as click to call, links to maps, code conversion to images such as a gif file, constantly changing splash or mobile web destination pages driven even by personalization—think every time you click on the code you are being sent to a different page, or information being delivered depending on location and time. QR cores are the singular means to engage context without “big brother” monitoring your every location and while remaining fully in control over your opt in issues. High calorie GPS may do more in an advertising context but at what costs? QR codes are much more “low calorie” with the user still maintaining a degree of control.
Technically QR codes provide greater reporting capability on the type of action delivered to the consumer clicking on the code. Mobile carriers can view what handset class or specific handset type are engaging on what codes, thus providing even greater metric use planning for advertisers and brands that short codes solutions can. Plus QR codes have greater back-end capability. Click destinations and resulting actions can be varied and changed based on time parameters, geo-location of click, number of clicks, or even immediate response needs of brands or advertisers such as end of sports events, natural disasters or other time defined-sensitive actions.
Such time-shifting and channel-changing is impossible through fixed, print based short codes. Short codes vary only through the frequency of a change in print/media ads, placements within different channels, print or media properties, or frequency of issue. Hence, an ad in Cosmo remains fixed in its functionality until the next monthly edition is published and released. These factors combined with the ever increasing penetration of SmartPhones in the US market and its mobile ‘big screen’ availability will begin to pressure and shape this market away from text code functionality.
As to potential timing of QR codes entering the US market—they are already here in trial scenarios. A fledgling start up, Mobile Discovery, recently completed a semester long trial at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Partnering with Gannett, QVC, Reuters, local restaurants, clubs, apartment complexes and others, QR codes were engaged across the campus by students using any and all mobile operators in the forms of CPG trials, daily sweepstakes, bus arrival timing (click on the code, see how long your bus wait is), and editorial content engagement as examples.
The short code based solution is then fairly rigid as compared to QR codes. This is a critical KPI differential. From an advertiser’s perspective, the measure of who is actually reading the ad in relation to the request is murky with short codes as compared to QR codes. Without access to handset ownership–which sounds quite intrusive in the US for both consumers and carriers–who knows whether the request is appropriately targeted to the segmented reader of an ad. Think sitting in the dentist’s office reading an Esquire 9 months old and responding to a short code ad, and you get a sense of whether that was read by a woman, man, or teen age boy. QR codes being inherently connected to the handset data become far more valuable as a measured metric for the advertising world.
Most of you are aware of the ubiquitous bar codes used everywhere. What you might not know is that is there is a standards body behind the UPC Codes you see everywhere. Some argue that the QR codes won’t take off because it is a proprietary solution and has associated licensing fees, etc. [Seems in talking to a short code vendor in researching this article I was incorrectly steered towards believing that QR codes were proprietary, and had a license fee associated with them. My error, there is no proprietary fee, and are free to use.] Thus buttressing the following: My view is if that was the case Qualcomm would not exist today if IPRs were a major hurdle in technology adoption. Since QR codes are free, that barrier doesn’t exist. I”ve also heard that the bar code standards body, specifically GS1 US, which is assigns GS1 UPC codes to companies/organizations in the USA, and it’s associates the industrial/Commercial EDI, Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) (used in the grocery industry), and VICS EDI (used in the general merchandise retail industry) are the most likely source of a non-proprietary standard reflective of the UPC code, which could be used in the mobile segment. Bunk. Who has more impact in this segment, two trilllion dollar global industries or a standards body? Standardization issues and IPR commercial models will not stop this growing phenomenon.
If short code enablers are to remain competitive and grow within the mAdvert segment, they need to either partner or build such functionality into their service portfolio. If not, they will find themselves outmaneuvered by QR code enabling companies that already ‘grandfather’ short code technology into their solution. In the end it will be a better way to build engagement with consumers enabling them to do much more than they can now. Let’s see how well the segment reacts.
by Paul Ruppert
August 19, 2008 at 7:42 am · Filed under MMS, Messaging, SMS
I’m looking for a few good mobile messaging companies (early stage) to present to conference producer friends of mine who have asked for my help in identifying ‘below the radar start ups’ in the mobile messaging segment.
I’m always looking for new topics to write about so when three producer friends asked for my help in the last 
month, their requests caught my interest and drove me to action.
If warranted I’ll blog about the company as part of our innovation identification effort here at MM2.
Consideration Criteria
Send a short making your case note, or power point, to me at pruppertMM2 at gmaildotcom if you are an angel funded or early stage (Series A or soon to be Series B) company and you think you should be part of my consideration and would be interesting to a mobile industry conference producer. We’re seeking intriguing messaging innovation as much as creative commercial plays–and I know that N. America is not the source of all things mobile.
Biased as a business centric more than creative type, my filters are about what’s the path to revenue, quality of a team, type of solution, competitive positioning, barriers to entry, access advantages, burn rate, etc., which start up companies offer. Eons ago I was a product developer identifying innovative mobile technology / solutions, and even then I preferred to focus on scalable revenue potential as opposed to cool technnology. I admit it, my filters might be a little askew for the developer crowd, yet I’m enlightened and experienced enough to see the combinatorial value of both in a fledgling firm.
Thanks and Good luck!
by Paul Ruppert
August 18, 2008 at 8:43 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Podcasts
Telcordia provides tools for the mobile miners.
Just beneath the surface which most consumers experience and analysts attention stop, are a host of companies that manage the complexities within cellular operators. They manage the OSS, BSS, infrastructure interaction, and ensure that all of the processes are integrated benefiting the carrier / mobile network operator. This takes time, money, talent, resources. Consdier it and “integration tax” to ensure you can make your call, send your text, access a website and capture content of your liking.
Train’s on Time !
Telcordia is one of those companies which make the trains run on time. They provide a variety of solutions, often
murky and overlooked, which keeps things running. Think of them as innovation accelerators. They are the ones which the carrier turns to and says: “We want to do this, and have this vendor. Make it work across all our systems.”
Learn more about the critical contribution Telcordia. Take a listen to my podcast with Grant Lanahan, the VP of Strategy for Telcordia.
by Paul Ruppert
August 18, 2008 at 8:40 am · Filed under Advertising, Mobile Advertising, SMS
Mobile advertising is the fuel of arguments between mobile trend makers across the globe. An emerging traction point is the use of short codes for simple print and media extension into the mobile web.
In the states, ShopText, HipCricket and SnapTel are successfully developing the short code segment as mobile advertising enablers. They’ve captured a beach head through the use of short codes as a bridge between old and new advertising media. By including mobile short codes on fixed and print advertising they’ve carved out a solid position in a confused and crowded space by offering a low friction means for advertisers and agencies to capture the increasing power of context, immediacy and personalization offered via the mobile platform.
ShopText especially has been very successful leveraging their experience in advertising by enabling high profile campaigns by the likes of Hearst–Cosmopolitan and Esquire–Burger King, and P&G products such as Tampax to capture a solid “access advantage” with brands and agencies, making ShopText the clear leader in the developing short code enabling space.
Paradoxically these simple short code solutions may be both too early and too late. Regardless of how connected their client portfolio is today, unless short code enablers show they have the means to migrate up the technology value chain, short code simplicity will be quickly leapfrogged by the on-coming rush of technology which is quietly prevalent in Asia especially Japan, and is being swiftly adopted in Europe. The US will be next. The ripple effect through the short code ecosystem will be considerable jostling even larger public companies such as Neustar, which administers the short code distribution in N. America.
Most of these enabling companies have been started by advertising executives who have leveraged their understanding and experience with agencies and brands. They have provided a means to do things people couldn’t readily do before. However, their offerings are more point type solutions, “better, faster, cheaper,” than breath taking mobile innovation which will help define the mobile advertising space. Short code enablers have architected an easy means to extend media through a secure, off the shelf solution using accepted standard short code functionality. All good in jump starting traditional print and media into the mobile web world.
But, my biggest concern is there no identifiable defensibility against similar advertising or mobile savvy teams building short code solutions from entering the market. Anyone, anyone, can secure a short code contract, vary key words or text combinations, start selling to brands and advertisers and compete in the space. There’s no entry defensibility. With easy entry, scalable growth becomes an issue. You can see a glimpse of that already happening in the short code enabling business with the rush of providers using short codes for rental and real estate applications at the local market level.
Yea, yea, the simplicity of the short code solution has captured value in initially developing this space. But to gain “venture value,” up-starts need as much to manage complexity, and if the market remains the same, the short code enablers will be forced to compete on price alone as more enter the space. Low margin, low prices means highly efficient volume becoming the key driver. But with such intense competition, where are scale efficiencies achieved? Something else needs to be in the value mix. Knowing “mobility” within advertising won’t cut it. Access or relationships with brand and agency decision makers will not carry the load alone, and beyond speed to market what “efficiencies” can be captured with simple short codes? Additional reporting metrics might be only creative point to cash in on but what else is there with such limited functionality?
Unless short code enablers adapt to more powerful technology now just coming on line, these fledgling start ups plus the entire short code engagement business will find itself dying in the sun while the tide changes.
Check out Part 2 of “Short Code advertising: too early & too late?” to find out what this technology is. . . .
by Paul Ruppert
July 12, 2008 at 8:42 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, iPhone, iPhone 3G
CURRENTLY China Represents 20% of the iPhone’s Market
Everyone is gaga about the iPhone–summer silly season–even in China where it is available only on the black market. Although Apple has no deal with a Chinese operator. Kevin Li, an analyst at In-Stat China estimates there are over 1 million of them in the middle kingdom. With 5.4 million iPhones sold since introduction, 19% of production is going to China–where the iPhone isn’t legally sold.
On February 3, 2008, I reported at my blog Mobile Point View that there was a revenue gap between Apple and ATT, and roughly 25% of iPhones were being hacked or hijacked to overseas markets–the consensus at the time was 400,000 iPhones were in China. That number has grown significantly. Notwithsanding the price. An IHT artilce reports that in Bangkok, Patpong’s vendors are selling the eight gigabyte iPhone for 29,000 baht, or US$ 860. In China, along Huaihai Road in Shanghai, at the Cybermart mall you can get an unlocked non-3g iPhone for 3,000 yuan, or $438. If you’re willing to go with the Chinese knock-off copy, only 1,000 yuan, or US$146.
One of the access points for China’s iPhones is now Hong Kong, where Hutchison Telecommunications (3HK) has been overcome with requests from internet applications to become iPhone-istas. All mobile handsets are unlocked in Hong Kong–no subsidization there. So it will be a growing channel point for iPhones into mainland China. An unlocked iPhone costs 4,680 Hong Kong dollars, or US$600, but customers must sign up for a two-year contract, with the least-expensive monthly plan costing HK$ 188 dollars or US$ 24. No word on early deactiviation penalty. Given the travel flow between the mainland and HKSAR, Hong Kong in some form will become a main entry point.
iPhone Wi-Fi as China’s Great Firewall Killer?
If and when the iPhone comes to China, the Chinese government has a dilemma. iPhone’s wi-fi feature will have to be removed. Otherwise web surfers will be able to circumvent China’s restrictive internet access security. Moreover, China Mobile has it’s own full music download service which iTunes would be a head to head competitor of. iPhone with no wi-fi dimenishes the user experience, which may drive more iPhone wannabes to seek out the pirated version over an eventual CMCC version.
China Mobile now in new Talks with Apple: When will iPhone legally be Available in China?
Speculation abounds whether China Mobile (CMCC) will succomb to Apple’s shared revenue business model. According to Market Watch on July 9, China Mobile has re-entered talks with Apple. Supposedly Apple has dropped its requirement of revenue sharing of services and airtime.
At this point, my earlier prediction of no iPhone in China looks pretty good. Additional rumors in the Chinese internet are that now China Unicom (CUNC) has signed and will introduce the 3G iPhone in August. RIGHT. Don’t hold your breadth. From all my contacts there, everything from IT deals to just plain business meetings are being put off until “After the Olympics.”
Ox iPhone
Whether it is China Mobile or China Unicom, here’s a refined prediction for legal iPhone sales in China…look for the iPhone to enter China during the Chinese New Year in 2009, the year of the Ox-enduring prosperity and strength. A natural fit…gift giving, cash flowing, iPhone buying.
by Paul Ruppert
June 9, 2008 at 10:45 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Podcasts
How’s your [mobile] website performing?
We know that primarily due to Keynote systems who were pioneers in developing metrics for the web when it was still in an infant stage. Now Keynote is bringing their understanding and measures of the web to the mobile web. Providing on-demand testing and measuring for Common Short Code management (CSC).
Why is this important?
Common short codes are the mechanism in which billions of messaging are transited for a variety of solutions. Probably the most prolific impact of CSCs is in tele-voting such as when you vote for your favorite singer on [Insert:One of 40 different country versions of] Idols. As McDonald’s would say: “Billions and billions.” So, these things have impact in the mobile value chain. 
Tools for Mobile Miners
Keynote provides a short code management tool by illuminating how effective your short code is and its level of performance. Small things such as up processing time, latency, visibility of performance and overall reliability. With the mobile advertising getting traction around the world, short codes will be come increasingly part of our every day experience and marketing interaction–have you ever looked at a Snicker’s bar wrapper, there are short codes on there for most of the summer months. Soon you’ll see them in newspapers as well as billboards.
Listen to my interview at CTIA with Anchu Algarwal and Mannie Gonzalez of Keynote Systems.
by Paul Ruppert
June 8, 2008 at 7:13 am · Filed under CTIA Wireless
INSIDE designs and manufactures their “Micropass”, the silicon that goes into your “smart card” credit card and is the market leader in the segment. The twist is that they combine the silicon with a low power microprocessor enabling both read and writing functionality.
Contactless & Inside
INSIDE recently released a new micropass platform to bring contactless mobile applications towards broader usage. In partnership with Visa, and being a leader in the developement of QVSDC (Quick Visa Smart Debit Card) standards, INSIDE is one of the leaders in the effort towards global interoperability in the contactless payments field.
Although not center to the mobile space, companies such as INSIDE are within the mobile payments value chain and will be critical for its development. Inside is leveraging its card industry position and migrating to the mobile segment. With both the financial and mobile industry waking up to the growing opportunity in mobile transactions, Inside is well positioned to claim the mantle of market leader in the mobile NFC, especially with Visa as a strategic investor.
One of the characteristics of INSIDE’s MicroRead technology is the capacity to behave as a router in the phone rather than just a simple modem, establishing secure connections between different devices, and giving phone manufacturers flexibility to address various market applications and regions.
Their chip is in your credit card today (especially in Europe) and will be soon in your mobile as well. Watch these guys, they’ll be the reason you will soon be using your mobile phone as a payment and transaction device.
by Paul Ruppert
June 8, 2008 at 7:07 am · Filed under iPhone
Tomorrow Apple is holding the Apple World Wide Developers Conference, and there is the obvious expectation and buzz of the blogosphere that an iPhone 2.0 will be released.
All the iPhone-istas are frothed up about the next tsunami which an improved iPhone will cause—secret photos of stashed products being stacked in Freemont warehouses, rumours of different color schemes for the phone, new functionality–up to a point–excluding 3G capability such as a text friendly key pad and clam shell cover, are all floating through the inosphere. Of course lest we forget the true believers–MacBook users and what new features and benefits they might be hoping for.
Stay tuned, more to come tomorrow.
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