Adcentricity, Impact Mobile partner on digital out-of-home media

By Mickey Alam Khan

April 13, 2009

Adcentricity, the leading aggregator of digital out-of-home media, has partnered with mobile marketing firm Impact Mobile Inc. to target mobile consumers.

The deal will add a mobile component to campaign buys made across 85 Adcentricity media partners and 150,000 digital screens.

“Mobile advertising, as much as digital out-of-home is a fantastic hyper-targeting opportunity for brand campaigns,” said Rob Gorrie, CEO of Adcentricity, New York. “There is always an opportunity to further engage consumers in each of these environments.

“So we’re trying to make sure that we’re not doing mobile for mobile’s sake,” he said. “So the partnership with Impact Mobile is designed to provide specific services or initiatives that are turnkey and specific to retailers and brand needs in further connecting with consumers.”

Adcentricity is an out-of-home media strategist that offers strategy, planning, buying, creative and tracking services for ad campaigns across its partners’ screens.

 Cross-selling Obama

The company claims to deliver 200 million monthly impressions across digital screens in sports arenas, convenience stores, restaurants and bars, gas stations, office buildings, ATMs, grocery stores, universities and transit locations.

Working with Impact Mobile will enable Adcentricity to offer mobile capabilities in four areas.

The first offering is based on calls to action including SMS, votes, sweepstakes, contests, coupons, promotions, text for information, surveys and call-back request.

Rob Gorrie is CEO of adcentricity

The next is retail and redemption offers comprising bar-coded mobile coupons, unique PIN numbers that drive to Web and ticketing.

Content delivery including ringtone, wallpapers, videos and games is the third service.

Finally there are mobile applications comprising mobile Web sites and smartphone applications.  

“Increasingly, push media channels are using mobile as a valuable direct response media,” said Gary Schwartz, president/CEO of Impact Mobile, New York and Toronto. “Mobile allows brands to bridge the consumer beyond the ad impression to click-throughs and obtained conversions to Web, store and other destinations.

“The consumer’s phone is essentially a personal digital display,” he said. “Impact Mobile is a fervent believer that mobile is not a standalone media and works best to add value to traditional push media. Mobile helps connect the media dots and move the consumer effectively.”

Impact Mobile has several retail clients who use the firm’s JumpTXT platform for SMS, MMS and WAP messaging, and the delivery of mobile content and applications.

Also, Impact Mobile has worked with music and sports venues over the years to create direct response offerings for digital signage.

“We are very excited to now power the largest digital display network in market,” Mr. Schwartz said.

Adcentricity launched its AdVenue platform last year, helping then presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign in the battleground state of Ohio. The platform helps advertisers target by region and venue type, as well as demographic data.

Per Adcentricity, AdVenue helped identify the targeted demographic and psychographic audiences within key geographic areas to develop and execute Mr. Obama’s campaign.

That campaign is said to have produced a monthly audience of 866,189 serving 2,173,457 Obama ad spots with an SMS call-to-action including specific keywords in each DMA.
 
“The digital out-of-home industry actually has in place the same benefits that mobile has – media while on the go,” Mr. Gorrie said. “So the value of couch-based advertising for television just isn’t as strong as it used to be.

“So these days the fact is, people are looking to drive sales and activity and you need to first find and then motivate people when they are active and not passive when they’re on the couch,” he said. “Offerings like mobile couponing or store-based locators provide an inherent value in assisting the consumers through their purchasing cycles.

“The fact is, mobile helps transform the digital out-of-home industry into a marketing solution and mature it beyond a media transaction.”

 Editor in Chief Mickey Alam Khan covers advertising agencies, associations, research, and column submissions. Reach him at mickey@mobilemarketer.com.

 

Source: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3021.html

Netbiscuits, Impact Mobile to deliver messaging campaign services

Michael Neidhoefer is CEO of Netbiscuits

Netbiscuits is working with Impact Mobile to deliver templated messaging campaigns for brands.

By integrating Impact Mobile’s technology with Netbiscuits’ development platform, publishers and developers can further their marketing reach by establishing a one-to-one relationship with the consumer’s mobile phone via SMS and continue that dialogue via opt-in subscription services.

“Brands and agencies are looking for 360-degree solutions,” said Michael Neidhöfer, CEO of Netbiscuits. “We need to provide the tools to allow our customers to simply and effectively achieve any marketing challenge.

 

“Impact Mobile enhances Netbiscuits’ ability to extend the mobile Web experience,” he said.

Netbiscuits operates a business-to-business Web software platform for the creation, operation and monetization of mobile Web sites. It serves the mobile Internet programs for brands such as Yahoo, MTV and eBay.

Gary Schwartz is president of Impact Mobile

The new services will allow publishers and developers to add rich functionality to bridge the consumer to high-ROI destinations such as the mall, convenience store, dealerships and events.

The services target any company that is online and needs a mobile Web site, because the mobile Internet is happening right now.

“In this context, we see intelligent cross media and multi channel marketing, which also includes text messaging, as the next step to engage and retain today’s customers,” Mr. Neidhöfer said.

Short code registry NeuStar, SMS aggregator mBlox and trade publication Fierce Wireless are leveraging the Netbiscuits’ “send-to-friend” SMS service today at CTIA Wireless 2009 show.

Consumers can try these services on their phone by text messaging NEUSTAR to 88398 or MBLOX to 88398.

“Marketing is all about moving the customer closer to a sale,” said Gary Schwartz, president of Impact Mobile, New York. “Mobile is the most effective media to do this as it is horizontal and better connects the media touch points.

“This Netbiscuits/Impact Mobile solution helps the brand move the consumer seamlessly from mobile Web to retail, into viral opportunities and other high ROI-destinations,” he said.

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Associate Editor Giselle Abramovich covers ad networks, advertising, content, email, media, messaging, legal/privacy, search, social networks, television and video. Reach her at giselle@mobilemarketer.com.

Mobile cannot just be about impression-based advertising

Gary Schwartz is president of Impact Mobile

By Gary Schwartz

There is nothing like a good old BBC nature series. And after eight years in the mobile marketing world, I can safely say that the mobile ecosystem is as complex and fragile as any recondite nature show.

The problem is that we do not have Sir David Attenborough’s fatherly voice to help explain how all the pieces fit together.

 

On the contrary, we are faced with mobile evangelists who travel through town with a loud bell touting one or two isolated services. What is for sale today? Bluecasting, Microsoft’s mobile tagging, QR codes at retail point-of-sale and etcetera.

Unfortunately, solution-driven strategies rarely work.

Can’t we lobby the BBC to run a stop-motion documentary on the mobile ecosystem and explain how each piece works or does not work in any given situation? What would Sir Attenborough say?

Discovery
Usually Attenborough starts at the bottom of the food chain.

I would guess that the mobile food chain begins with “discovery.”

Mobile, unlike push media and even online media (that has better search ergonomics) is not something the consumer can easily find.

Without a well planned discovery strategy, mobile is vanity press and simply does not exist.

Discovery primarily comes through short code activation of SMS and SMS with link to a mobile web destination. There is also direct access through the mobile web which is gated by the wireless carrier’s on-deck links or the pervasive iPhone store.

There are other discovery solutions in market: image recognition applications that require the user to send in the photo image for processing.

Additionally, there is one-way content bluecasting.

Another often discussed strategy is adapting Japan’s DoCoMo solution of using the phone to scan codes to discover Web-bound product details.

SMS is data-light, simple-to-use and an effective, monitored channel.

Most U.S. marketers recognize that SMS is the top menu button on every loyal customer’s phone and is the communication channel of choice of millions of prose-challenged Americans daily (Well over one billion text messages are sent every day).

Activation
Whichever way the channel is discovered, “mobile interactive” is a fundamentally different animal to its related genus, “online interactive.” Although a click is a click is a click, and thus follows many of the online characteristics, there are two key differences:

1. Geography: The mobile primate is “mobile” and therefore closer to where they and their brand sponsor would like them to be: the mall, convenience store, dealership, event . . .

2. Consumption: Mobile is on-the-run snack food and online the main course. As my colleague at the IAB, Joe Laszlo, writes: the mobile consumer uses the phone to “save time” ( Looking up an address or map are examples of a time-saving application, as are checks of traffic or travel information) or “kill time” ( fill unexpected slow moments in the day. This use case, too, is likely to be short and interrupted unexpectedly; however, a user in this mode is open to—indeed hoping for—amusing distractions.)

The mobile user is often consuming in a quick, impulse manner, therefore it is an ideal environment to opt-in to saving alerts, coupons, promotions, store reminders, etcetera. And because these offers are consumed on the run, the mobile user is often ideally positioned to act on a call-to-action.

With this in mind, mobile cannot be just about impression-based advertising but must extend beyond-the-click activation and bridge to point-of-sale, point-of-entry, etc. The brand misses half the mobile ecosystem if he/she does not explore passed the mobile display.

Mobile is all about “what next.”

Of course, this is admittedly an abbreviated overview of the mobile ecosystem but I am sure Sir Attenborough will oblige us with a more detailed Blu-Ray series on homomobilius very soon.

 

Gary Schwartz is president of mobile marketing technology firm Impact Mobile Inc., New York. Reach him at gary.schwartz@impactmobile.com.

Source:  mobile Marketer 

There is no such thing as a mobile campaign

February 17, 2009

Gary Schwartz is president of Impact Mobile

By Gary Schwartz

Before you quietly gasp and run off to cancel your subscription to Mobile Marketer, look around. The world continues to buy media vertically – television, radio, print, even online is farmed off to the digital agency and bought as a segmented buy.

If you run mobile as a standalone campaign, it is doomed to the graveyard of “Yes-I-tried” mobile case studies.

 

Mobile is an integrated part of the buy and would not exist, in most cases, without the 360-degree plan. Why? Mobile is primarily a pull media. It needs to be added to the traditional push media to come to life and work its magic.

The most touted example of mobile “pull” is when the brand uses the phone as a “mobile mouse” and the short code as the “mobile click” to activate its media.

Live Nation and AEG leverage their digital display boards and drive the concert-goer to the sponsor’s intended destination, far beyond the venue. Using mobile sweeps, PINs and coupons as incentives, mobile works to engage and bridge the consumer to high-ROI destinations.

Coca-Cola’s PIN-on-Product mobile affinity program has no start date or end date – just a continual channel that turns the phone into a reward card allowing consumers to add points to their account as they leave the convenience store.

Why are these approaches to mobile effective?

Because all of the above short code examples are not run as one-off campaigns but as an always-on, cross-media channel.

Mobile is an interactive pull element that helps these media clients dialogue with their consumer. It is an always-on element of the media mix and it connects media dots that historically never dialogued.

The same holds true for good mobile Web design. 

Let’s look at J. C. Penney’s Black Friday or current Valentine’s Day services.

Click on a mobile banner and link to the JCPenney mobile Web site and you will see the same toolkit of options that help the consumer move effectively into the store: find the deal (click2sms), find the store (click2sms), get a wakeup call for the sale (click2call) – mobile is allowing the consumer to move seamlessly from clicks2bricks.

Go to American Eagle’s AE.com and pick a hoodie. Want to try it on before you buy it? No problem: click the “send to phone” button. The hoodie image plus the nearest store is sent to your phone to help you bridge this cross-channel chiasm.

You are not the only cross-channel shopper.

A recent Forrester Research consumer survey found that more than half of consumers buying in bricks-and-mortar begin their research process online.  Cross-channel shopping is expected to top $1 trillion by 2012.

Although consumers are actively cross-channel shopping for their considered purchases, brands and retailers fail to create a seamless multichannel shopping experience.

The shopper is way ahead of us simple media folk: they are channel-agnostic.

While the media planner continues to buy media vertically, mobile is one of the only media elements that can help the consumer move from the hoodie on the billboard to the hoodie online to the hoodie in the aisle.

So in a world of vertical buying, mobile is a horizontal. It effectively helps the planner connect the dots. And in connecting the brand’s media touch points it drives incremental value on the vertical buy by aiding measurability and accountability on the buy.

More importantly, mobile is helping move consumers from the ad placement to the where the brand needs them to be – point-of-sale, online store or lead-generation engine.

If media planners continue to see mobile as an independent campaign that is not designed to specifically bridge the consumer, then they are missing the value of the mobile channel. Then, mobile will inevitably not drive ROI in the 360-degree media plan, ending up a media also-ran.

Gary Schwartz is president of mobile marketing firm Impact Mobile Inc., Toronto, Ontario. Reach him at gary.schwartz@impactmobile.com.

Source http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/2656.html

MEF Americas Welcomes Industry Leaders to Its Membership Roster and Continues to Expand Geographic Reach

New Member Companies Represent Ecosystem Players in Canada, Latin America and USA

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ — The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) (http://www.m-e-f.org) today announced its continued expansion with new members representing a global and regional presence spanning across the entire mobile entertainment value chain — from content creator, to carrier and everything in between. New member companies include 226 Records Company, ACN- The Matrix Group, BinBit, Comverse, Dolby, Dada Entertainment, Impact Mobile, MasurLaw, MediaFLO, Myxer, Netbiscuits, Paymo, Okto, OpenMarket, Research In Motion (RIM), Telefonica and Vringo.

“As the MEF Americas board was recently expanded to accommodate regional growth across the Americas, we are thrilled about the addition of our newest members in Canada, Latin America and the USA,” said Jim Beddows, the board chair for MEF Americas. “MEF’s mission is to facilitate the growth of the mobile entertainment industry in part through its initiatives, which are supported by and directly benefit our members. MEF’s unique value as an organization is its breadth across the mobile-entertainment supply chain and its presence globally.”

MEF America members will continue to help drive the next-generation of business, regulatory, political and cultural policies through its initiatives. These include:

    *  Content Sales Reporting: addressing the need for timely and accurate content reporting across the value chain

    *  Mobile Video: focusing on exploring business models and facilitating  consumer adoption of mobile video services

    *  Sweepstakes: a Members’ guide to regulations governing sweepstakes in the USA on a state by state basis

“MasurLaw is joining the MEF because it is the single most efficient way to reach to the top of every major media company and carrier worldwide,” said Steven Masur, Managing Director of MasurLaw, another new MEF Americas Member. “It is the only organization thinking clearly about how government regulation worldwide affects the mobile content business.”

About Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)

The Mobile Entertainment Forum was formed in 2000 to represent companies throughout the entire mobile entertainment value chain. As the global trade association of the mobile media industry, MEF works on behalf of its diverse membership to drive mobile entertainment adoption, shape regulation and deliver competitive advantage to its members.

With global headquarters in London, a Hollywood-based Americas secretariat, an Asian chapter in Hong Kong and the newly expanded EMEA branch, MEF’s network of members represents a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of mobile entertainment businesses and entrepreneurs. For more information and a full list of members please visit: http://www.m-e-f.org.

 
 
SOURCE Mobile Entertainment Forum

JCPenney uses mobile to push customers in store for holiday sale

 

By Giselle Abramovich

December 24, 2008

 Sign up for a wake-up call

J. C. Penney Company Inc. is using mobile to help customers beat the rush at its biggest After Christmas sale ever.

The retailer’s stores will be opening 5:30 a.m. – the earliest opening on the day after Christmas in company history. For the first time ever, JCPenney will offer an After Christmas sale “Wake-Up” call, Customers can visit jcp.com beginning Dec. 23 and sign-up for the “Wake-Up” call to their mobile phone.

“The strategy here is to get customers excited about coming into our stores on the day after Christmas,” said Kate Parkhouse, a spokeswoman for JCPenney, Plano, TX. “The day after Christmas is becoming an increasingly popular shopping event.”

 

JCPenney is one of America’s leading retailers, operating 1,093 department stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

Customers can find special offers for JCPenney’s After Christmas sale online at jcp.com on Tuesday, Dec. 23 or in newspaper sales circulars on Christmas Day.

The sales circular will highlight JCPeneny’s After Christmas “Doorbusters” – available to customers shopping JCPenney on December 26 from 5:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Additionally, the sales circular will feature special bonus coupons which can be used on Friday, Dec. 26 and Saturday, Dec. 27 ($10 off a $50 or more purchase and $15 off a $75 or more purchase) for further savings.

The day after Christmas is one of the biggest teen shopping days of the year.

In fact, JCPenney stores will set all new merchandise in its teen departments to ensure teens can choose from a broad array of today’s latest looks.

JCPenney will also be extending store hours on Saturday, Dec. 27, with stores opening at 8 a.m. and closing at 11 p.m.

JCPenney offers a wide array of national, private and exclusive brands such as Arizona,, Decree, American Living, Fabulosity and C7P.

This isn’t the first time JC Penney has used mobile to support one of its sales.

JCPenney had a wake-up call for Black Friday.

Additionally, this holiday season customers can sign up for helpful shopping tips to be text messaged to their mobile phone.

The company also had a mobile phone component for the Back-to-School season – teens could opt to sign-up to receive text messages to their mobile phones featuring feature fashion tips and ideas.

“Right now mobile marketing remains a small part to our overall marketing campaign,” Ms. Parkhouse said. “Our campaigns consist of wake-up calls, text messages, WAP sites, etcetera.

“As Internet-enabled mobile phones begin to become the norm, we’ll begin to explore more ways to use mobile phones to market to our customer,” she said.

Associate Editor Giselle Abramovich covers ad networks, advertising, content, email, media, messaging, legal/privacy, search, social networks, television and video. Reach her at giselle@mobilemarketer.com.

Source: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/2344.html

Mobile services: The new necessity

 

Tony Martin
From the December – January 2009 issue of PROFIT magazine

Searching for a recession-proof market? Look no further than the college student across from you on the subway. While maintaining a conversation with friends, she’s also staggeringly adept at using her cellphone to fire out text messages, browse photos and listen to music — seemingly all at once.

In a few years, the once rare — and expensive — cellphone has evolved into a more affordable, fully featured mini computer. What’s more, people are willing to pay for the plugged-in lifestyle these devices offer — and for all the bells and whistles, too. Nielsen SoundScan reports that U.S. consumers spent US$567 million on cellphone ringtones in 2007. And according to Gartner Research, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide in 2007; that’s a 16% increase from 2006, and even more are expected to move in 2008. “There are few areas that have growth potential because of the economic situation,” says Ted Anderson, a Toronto-based managing general partner with venture-capital firm Ventures West. “The mobile space is one of them.”

Big demand lies in developing applications and services rather than trying to crack the hardware side of the market, given the dominance of players such as Apple and RIM. Still in its infancy is the ability to interact with social-networking sites via a cellphone — the so-called Mobile 2.0. And many commonly paid-for services could be enhanced with a cellphone feature. Consumers could tie into their home-security system to be alerted via text message if there is an unexpected entry or if their dog strays, says Marc Choma, director of communications for the Ottawa-based Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.

Thanks to the inclusion of GPS capabilities in newer phones, location-based services (LBS) are another largely unexploited market. Dial “#taxi” on your cellphone, for instance, and you’ll be connected to the nearest cab. A small fee will appear on your next wireless bill, which highlights another attractive feature of the mobile market. “Getting paid couldn’t be easier, since payments are largely handled by wireless companies,” says Michael O’Farrell, chair of Dublin-based dotMobi Advisory Groupand co-author of Mobile Internet for Dummies.

Anderson believes LBS possibilities are endless; he’s working with a firm whose technology can track the speed a mobile device is moving. Parents could, say, have their older children’s cellphones shut down at a certain speed to prevent them from using their device while driving. The revenue could come from a subscription plan, which insurance companies might make more attractive by offering discounts to clients who use the technology.

With Forrester Research reporting that 54% of consumers who shop online still buy from a bricks-and-mortar store, another approach is to focus on cross-channel marketing, says Gary Schwartz, CEO of Toronto-based Impact Mobile. “It’s not about building the next cool application,” he says. “It’s about understanding how consumers behave and facilitating that in a more effective way.” The website of clothing retailer American Eagle, for instance, allows consumers to have an image of an item sent to their cellphone. That link then opens all sorts of doors. Beyond reminding consumers to complete their purchases when they’re at the mall, it could allow suggestions of other items, coupon offers or an invitation to enlist in a loyalty program. One caution is that consumers don’t want the whole Web on their phone, according to O’Farrell: “They want information designed for mobile, and that means simple and direct.”

If this all seems like so much pie in the sky, consider that the International Air Transport Association has decreed that passengers should be able to load their boarding pass onto a mobile device by 2010. Says Schwartz: “That will not only change people’s behaviour, but their perspective towards using — and all the possible uses for — cellphones.”

 

source: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/entrepreneur/technology/article.jsp?content=20081201_30008_30008

Universal Press Syndicate and Impact Mobile to Provide Mobile Push Publishing Solution to Newspapers

Kansas City, MO  (09/18/2008)  Universal Press Syndicate, the largest independent newspaper syndicate in the world, and Impact Mobile, an industry leader in mobile marketing and advertising technology, announced today that they are partnering to provide a mobile “push” publishing solution to newspapers and their advertisers.   

Push publishing allows newspapers to push their content to readers via an application that resides on the smart phone. An icon that is branded for the newspaper resides on the phone’s desktop, giving the newspaper daily interaction with its users.   

“Universal Press Syndicate believes in providing innovative revenue-building opportunities to the newspaper community, and this smart phone strategy is the next evolution in audience development,” says John Vivona, Vice President of Sales at Universal Press Syndicate, headquartered in Kansas City, MO.   

“Many publishers currently use WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) sites for their mobile platform. Smart phone applications will extend the mobile reach to a new audience,” says Vivona. “This exploding mobile segment includes BlackBerrys, iPhones and Windows-based devices. The content and the advertising are interactive for the user, who represents an affluent, highly desired demographic for both newspapers and their advertisers.”  

Impact Mobile’s President and CEO, Gary Schwartz said, “Impact Mobile is excited about our relationship with Universal Press Syndicate. We see our role in the market as providing platforms to make traditional media interactive. Universal’s newspaper clients will now be able to establish a one-to-one relationship with the readers and the opportunity for ongoing communications with targeted consumers.”   

For more information on the push publishing product, please call Universal Press Syndicate’s sales department at 800-255-6734.

About Impact Mobile

Impact Mobile is an industry leader in North America promoting mobile as a media channel. Impact Mobile provides carriers, global agencies and brands, best in class technology to meet all their mobile marketing needs. For further information please contact press@impactmobile.com. 

About Universal Press Syndicate 

Universal Press Syndicate is the largest independent newspaper syndicate in the world and the industry leader in bringing products and services to print and digital media that offer superior editorial and humor content, as well as, advertising and subscriber opportunities. Headquartered in Kansas City, MO, Universal Press Syndicate distributes some of the most popular comic strips and features in newspapers today, including Dear Abby, For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury, Garfield, Roger Ebert, Pat Oliphant, and Tom Toles. Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU) is the corporate parent company that includes Universal Press Syndicate, Andrews McMeel Publishing, uclick (www.gocomics.com) and AMUSE.

Creator(s):

Contact(s): Kathie Kerr

http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/newsrelease/?view=914

Pudding And Impact Pair On Mobile Text Ads

Monday, Sep 22, 2008 7:00 AM ET

Mobile ad network Pudding Media is partnering with Impact Mobile to provide agencies and advertisers with a self-service tool for buying contextual ads on SMS text messages.   Combining Pudding’s targeting capabilities with Impactmobile’s Jumptxt mobile marketing platform, the new service promises to give advertisers access to a broad inventory of category-specific impressions as well as greater engagement with consumers. By responding to the text ads, consumers can opt in for subscriptions to retail coupons and special offer alerts, as well as enter promotions and tell-a-friend programs, said Gary Schwartz, president and CEO of Impact Mobile, in a statement. “Our goal is to make it simple for the media buyer to buy inventory and the ongoing engagement,” he said. Pudding Media’s network allows marketers to run ads across all mobile formats including SMS, voice and the mobile Web.–Mark Walsh http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=91104&Nid=47516&p=940434

MIXX 08 Impact Mobile – Gary Schwartz Video Interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg6N7Hq4Suc Gary Schwartz Interview