This week, we have Rohit Dadwal from the Mobile Marketing Association.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
In my current role as the Managing Director of Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific Limited, I oversee the MMA’s operations in the region. MMA is regarded as an industry authority across the globe and as its APAC head I am in charge of all its efforts toward growing this community, educating it and highlighting its regional successes in the global arena. With over 16 years of experience in the internet, digital and mobile spheres, I have been an active industry advocate at key platforms across the region in an effort to evangelise the use of digital and mobile media.

Together with the association, I hope to play a part in driving awareness of mobile marketing and making it the premium platform for marketers to engage more directly with their consumers. I am also keen to work more closely with the different players in the mobile marketing ecosystem around the region to regulate the industry and move it forward.

Prior to joining the MMA, I was the APAC Director for the Platform and Mobile Services Business of Microsoft. Having worked for Bharti-British Telecom India, I also have experience on the service provider side.

2. How big a part does mobile marketing play in your job?
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade 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 use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and it has regional chapters including North America (NA), Europe (EUR), Latin America (LATAM), Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

3. How would you define mobile marketing?
MMA defines mobile marketing as a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.

The crux of this definition lies in two parts of its taxonomy:

1. The “set of practices” includes “activities, institutions, processes, industry players, standards, advertising and media, direct response, promotions, relationship management, CRM, customer services, loyalty, social marketing, and all the many faces and facets of marketing.”

2. To “engage” means to “start relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, [and] be present at time of consumers expressed need.” Furthermore, engagement can be initiated by the consumer (“Pull” in form of a click or response) or by the marketer (“Push”).

4. What geographical market do you focus on?
MMA is a global organisation but my focus is on the Asia Pacific region.

5. What are the latest developments and trends in mobile marketing in the markets you operate in?
The mobile marketing industry has seen several milestones in the past year. Industry hopes for 2010 include tech-savvy consumers welcoming rich content on mobile, engaging campaigns from a more mature and experienced group of mobile marketers, and eager brands ready to jump on to the mobile marketing bandwagon.

The APAC region accounts for nearly 30% of the overall market for smartphones. Attracted by innovative smart devices and killer applications, there will be an increase of mobile subscribers in Asia joining the data use bandwagon.

Higher mobile data use will raise concerns over online/mobile privacy, particularly as users share important personal information over social media. Privacy will become more important, and will be an important driver for the formation of new policy.

With a potential 200bn USD plus of global remittance moving through the Asian population, analysts believe it will be a key adopter of mobile payments. Currently, Singapore and Hong Kong are the most mature electronic payment markets in Asia.

Mobile healthcare is another fast growing segment in Asia with its aging but tech-friendly population. Applications cover a wide range of possibilities like remote patient monitoring, mobile nursing, mobile medical records access, access to free mobile healthcare information and more.

The phone in your pocket may also double as a music store, as a new music distribution model with mobile operators becoming choice of music supplier becomes commonplace across Asia.

Smartphones can also double as mobile game machines, and the delivery of advertising within mobile applications for games will only grow. The revenue from in-game advertising may be used to partially or completely subsidize the price of mobile games/services that the application provides.

6. How do countries and regions differ in their adaptation and use of mobile marketing?

The Asia Pacific region leads the world in mobile marketing and advertising and accelerating growth will see nearly $7.7 billion (and more than $16 billion globally) spent there in 2011. Japan and South Korea are the world’s most sophisticated mobile markets; China is the largest; India is the fastest-growing. Asia also is home to a huge number of developing nations — from Bangladesh to Mongolia — that have yet to get a significant toehold in mobile.

In key Asian markets, mobile is THE mode of communication to reach consumers. Millions more Indian consumers are reachable through mobile than through TV. In countries like Japan, there’s a whole class of people that have gone completely mobile and don’t ever touch a desktop.

In comparison, according to Forrester Research, US marketers only spent approximately $400 million on mobile advertising—just a fraction of marketers’ overall $25 billion digital ad spend in 2009. However, with a growing consumer segment turning to their mobile phones for Internet access, the market is showing its potential. Texting and the iPhone app enquiries have gone through the roof.

Inspite of the great progress seen in the past few years, US marketers still see mobile as a disruptive medium. They find it more suitable for one-off marketing efforts rather than something that can be integrated into the overall marketing strategy to be leveraged on a sustainable basis.

In comparison, Asian marketers have been successful in recognizing and selling mobile as an indispensible extension of the more traditional marketing efforts of brands. Print and electronic ads direct consumers to text for more information or to visit a mobile website. All marketing efforts now have a mobile plug.

US marketers are not completely exploring mobile channels such as SMS and MMS for their marketing needs. In Asia, SMS has been recognized as the lowest common denominator in mobile communications and many marketers are successfully running creative text-based campaigns.

7. What do you think of advertiser’s general knowledge of mobile marketing?
Inspite of the obvious advantages of marketing via the mobile channel, brands and agencies are still reluctant to explore the medium to its full potential. Part of the problem is mindset: much of the hype surrounding mobile is still fixed on the technology, or sets out mobile marketing as the hero of the piece. It is necessary to realize that mobile marketing and advertising are best positioned as one part of an integrated marketing mix, leveraging on traditional media to drive attention to the more interactive, more personalized mobile ads – or vice versa, as the case may be.

Cost is another issue, together with measurement. In this brand new space, the lack of standardized measurement and easy costing makes it difficult to sell mobile as an option to clients, who are more familiar with the ROI offered by traditional channels. Without effective measurement, it can be difficult to ascertain the efficacy of any given mobile campaign, another reason not to run mobile in isolation. Pairing it with other channel drivers can make the intangible results of mobile advertising more visible, and once clients understand the value that mobile can offer, the sky’s the limit. Naturally, it is also important not to oversell the value of mobile marketing – simply running an ad on a mobile platform is not enough to make it compelling to the audience, who have expectations and concerns (particularly around privacy) that are unique to the mobile space.

In the final analysis, mobile marketing can be very attractive from the brand/agency perspective, provided that some very fundamental issues can be addressed. Once costs go down, and measurement is addressed, once mindsets about mobile marketing have shifted to where it is a valuable part of the marketing mix, then there will be space for amazing ideas to come forth. A look around Asia, where mobile marketing is slowly reaching that state, should be enough to demonstrate that it is an effective way to reach customers. Done right, mobile marketing can be the basis for fostering strong customer relationships – and at the end of the day, for marketers, technologists, service providers and agencies alike, customers are the most important consideration.

8. What is the most frequent misconception about mobile marketing?
The most common misconception is that mobile marketing is just limited to SMS. It’s important to facilitate the understanding that mobile marketing is not about disseminating a text ad via bulk SMS messages to phone lists purchased by businesses/brands. Mobile marketing is not SMS spam.

With the influx of smart phones in the market, marketers are now able to reach out to their target audience by means of content rich applications that engage them and hence make them more receptive towards these ads. There are location based alerts and in-game mobile marketing, which are more interactive, fun and personalized.

Research-based consumer database development followed by the choice of the correct mobile platform to reach those consumers and the development and dissemination of value-based content is what makes for a successful mobile campaign.

9. Have you noticed any change in advertisers’ attitude towards mobile marketing in the last couple of years?
Definitely. As more success stories come to light, more and more advertisers and marketers are getting involved with the mobile revolution. The process started a few years ago when a few pioneering marketers took the first leap and relied on trial and error to educate themselves on the medium and its immense potential as a marketing channel. Now, with technological advances, with the customers becoming more comfortable with the technology and with the marketers knowing a lot more about their customers, we are seeing innovative marketers across the globe who are much more confident in their abilities to leverage this medium to both their own as well as their customers’ advantage.

10. How do you think mobile marketing will change in the next 2-5 years?
Mobile is opening up in a variety of ways, with trends such as mobile Internet presence and interaction, downloadable applications and customer service applications developing as key areas to watch. To pick one application over the other is difficult as each different tool offers users a different mobile marketing experience. The combination of flat rate data packages, WiFi and application stores is creating new opportunities for customers to interact with the mobile Internet. Users are now also able to customise their phones with applications and widgets, creating another way to deliver highly targeted marketing.

Markets like Japan are already offering a glimpse into what the future could be like for the rest of the world. Marketers in Japan are making great use of mobile’s interactive capabilities with quick-response (QR) codes. These two-dimensional bar codes that consumers can scan with their mobile phone cameras have led to the mobile activation of everything. Most mobile phones in Japan now come with code-scanning capabilities pre-installed.

Consumers want to interact with their favourite brands based on affinity – but also on entertainment, fun, personalization and increasingly, around productivity. The take-up of fast 3G services and vastly improved device interfaces are improving the user experience for millions of mobile subscribers as access becomes smooth and instant. We have reached the point where the PC experience is mirrored on the mobile phone. So, with the technology now reaching a point of maturity, it is only natural that the next phase of mobile is all about content, rich media, and the convenience of converged services.

And it’s the convergence of things like music, games and mobile Internet that is attracting brands to mobile as a marketing platform. Mobile is fast becoming a dominant force in both the technology and media landscape, as mobile marketers are now integrating mobile campaigns into existing digital or traditional media initiatives.

11. What area of mobile marketing has the most potential for growth?
As mobile functionalities increase, so will the avenues for mobile marketing. The four key emerging mobile functionalities that are driving growth in Asia include mobile payment, mobile gaming, mobile healthcare and mobile music.

On the mobile value added services side, the Asia Pacific region has seen consistent growth in SMS usage.

The high penetration of mobile devices as compared with personal computers has presented marketers with tremendous opportunities to convert a technology product into a medium for personalized engagement. Research has shown that mobile phone users are receptive to this application of the technology and the increasing use of feature-rich phones further indicates an openness toward using the device for different applications.

12. Which is the best mobile marketing campaign you have seen and why?
A lot of really exciting campaigns from across the globe were discussed at the recently held Mobile Marketing Association Forum in Singapore. One that particularly stood out to me was the Condom! Condom! Condom! campaign in India. This public-service campaign was aimed at raising awareness of condoms, making them more acceptable and de-stigmatising the “taboo” nature of condoms.

The campaign mascot, a pesky parrot, was used in a series of advertisements with mobile plugs. The first advertisement posed a tricky riddle and challenged the audience to figure out the answer and call a number to win prizes. The answer to the riddle was Condom. It was found that nearly 70% of those who saw the ad discussed it with their friends. 400,000 calls were made in 20 days by people attempting to answer the riddle. A few lucky winners were selected randomly and each received a camera mobile phone with free talk time.

The second television commercial showed off an amusing ‘Condom’ ringtone. Building on the popularity of mobile ringtones as personal statements, the ‘Condom’ ringtone was created so every time your phone rings, people react and a conversation ensues gradually reducing the embarrassment usually related to the subject. Nearly 550,000 requests were received to download the ring tone through SMS short code in India. Another 200,000 requests were received on the dedicated website: www.condomcondom.org. A ring tone with a health message was a global first and was noticed by everyone. It became front page news in key national dailies and was discussed on radio and television shows everywhere.

Marketers in Asia have been very successful in recognizing and selling mobile as an important and indispensible extension of traditional marketing efforts. They have been able to show how mobile can not only be an effective marketing medium in itself but can also complement other, more traditional branding efforts and marketing strategies. The Condom! Condom! Condom! campaign in India showed us how to seamlessly integrate mobile into our marketing efforts and create a dialogue with the target audience. The campaign reached around 150 men in India and was adopted by the Government of India for its own HIV-prevention efforts. It also received global recognition at the prestigious Cannes Lion 2009 International Advertising Festival and the Festival of Media, Valencia 2009.

13. What are the most common mistakes in mobile marketing?
The most common error is to launch a mobile campaign without any insight into the target consumers. There is no template for a mobile campaign that can be used across brands and across consumer segments. Mass media requires that advertising be tailored for as wide an audience as possible, whereas the technology that underlies mobile makes it easier to identify individual users, and modify or personalize the advertising experience for them. There are multiple modes of access available with a single mobile device, especially with today’s smartphones that offer several channels, including SMS, MMS, email, WAP/internet, voice, location-based ads, and more. It is important to realise that one size doesn’t fit all and that merely sending out advertising messages via an SMS will not bear results. It is important to understand the customers, build a customer database based on that understanding and then to figure out the best approach to reach them via their mobile device. Failing this, it is very easy for marketing messages to be perceived as spam.

It is also important to allow the consumers to control their engagement in such campaigns. Opt-in and opt-out guidelines should be clear and concise so the consumers know what to do in case they want to engage or decline. Mobile campaigns that do not place this control firmly in the hands of the consumers are breaching consumer privacy and are against industry guidelines.

14. If you were an advertiser, how would you start to implement mobile into your marketing mix?
One of the most important places to begin in defining your mobile campaign or initiative is to clearly identify your campaign’s strategic goals and objectives. Once these objectives are determined, it will be easier to determine what mobile tactics work best — as well as what measurement criteria can be used to evaluate the campaign’s success. Some goals or objectives for mobile marketing are increasing brand awareness; generating a customer opt-in database (although the database can only be used by the brand for the specific purpose that’s confirmed with the consumer); driving attendance or participation in events, visits, or purchases; increasing revenues; and improving customer loyalty.

After you define your goals, you must select a mobile marketing partner. The mobile partner can be in one of the following areas:

- An agency or a mobile-specific agency
- An aggregator
- A mobile application service provider (MASP)

Be wary: carriers have a number of relationships (direct connections) with aggregators and will counsel you to approach one of the folks in the above categories. You can choose to partner with an MMA member instead. This ensures your partner will adhere to and be aware of the industry’s best practices and guidelines.

Next, select your mobile marketing tactics. The most common tactics to date include sweepstakes, instant win, polling/voting, picture messaging, WAP, text to buy, participation TV, trivia, alerts, coupons, text to screen, and mobile content promotions (ring tones, videos, wallpapers). Each of these will deliver a different value and experience to your target consumer. Work with your mobile marketing partner to determine what’s best for you to achieve your specific goals and objectives.

Keep the following in mind when choosing your tactics:

- Mobile is a unique medium, and campaigns should be developed and designed with that in mind. The mobile medium has its own unique set of interactions and learned behaviors. Leverage them in your executions.
- Don’t just repurpose content from other media. Create experiences that are mobile-specific.
- Don’t forget the user. Make it usable! Rather than create complex applications which require the consumer to learn new technologies or new ways to access information, keep it simple. Use the tried and true, the mobile technologies with ubiquitous coverage — text, mobile web — and keep the consumer interaction and engagement short.
- Exploit mobile behavior. Remember, when consumers are accessing your services, they want value and they want it now (facilitate spontaneity). By using the mobile channels that are driving volume, you can reach the mobile consumer whenever and wherever they are.
- Focus on the mobile key messages and demographics:
a) Mobile users are time poor
b) Lots of youth users
c) Integrate into cross media campaigns including print, out-of-home, etc.
d) Provide a mechanism to buy or gain more information (value exchange)
e) Guidelines & best practices: Stick to the industry guidelines that help to ensure consumer privacy and a positive, consistent consumer experience.

Your mobile marketing partner will not only help you define your tactics and ensure your approach to the consumer is sound, but also help you define promotion flow; manage the database; procure a short code, if required, conduct testing; provide ongoing customer support and monitoring; and provide campaign reporting and analysis. Most important, however, your partner will help ensure your campaign follows industry rules and best practices to protect the consumer experience and consumer privacy.

Posted by Bernita