Mobile Marketing @ MobileMonday.at
After I missed the first 2 events, I managed to attend yesterday’s Mobile Monday in the famous Naturhistorisches Museum.
Besides networking, the main topic of the evening was the presentation of the “Mobile Marketing Challenge” results – a couple of agencies were pitching concepts for mobile marketing campaigns.
Even when working for 3united/VeriSign Austria (now Mobile Messaging Solutions), I was not really involved in any mobile marketing activities, so I was curious to see the contestant’s proposals.
I was surprised to find that most of the presentations focused on traditional SMS campaigns, or WAP/mobile portals/banners – none of them had suggested the use or implementation of any mobile apps. Twitter and Facebook were mentioned by some, but played no major role in the campaign layout.
Maybe it was naive for me to expect a certain level of innovation – but, come on, SMS?! That’s soooo 90s…
It doesn’t surprise me at all – if you want to reach a truly wide audience and not just technologically savvy bloggers, you have to use SMS. How many people have smartphones?
Hmm I don’t have exact numbers, but from my previous experience with VRSN I’d say that the majority of handsets currently in use are able to install and run “oldfashioned” Java apps – no need for a fancy Smartphone.
Think about online marketing 10 years ago, and how it evolved from simple animated GIF banners to Flash microsites, video, interactive ads, ARGs… I don’t see a similar level of development in mobile marketing, considering that SMS campaigns are still the most accepted form (both from marketeers, mobile operators and – seemingly – customers).
So, I guess I expected some kind of innovation-”Leistungsschau” of Austria’s top mobile marketing agencies – and all I got was a crappy SMS campaign
(PS: Actually, I was wrong, at least one presenter mentioned a “gimmicky” photo app as part of their campaign)