Report from the NYC OMMA Mobile Conference
I took a quick trip to New York last week for a one-day OMMA Mobile event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. It’s tiring doing a 24-hour turn-around trip, but 
energizing to be with a bunch of folks interested in mobile marketing.
Three major takeaways:
- There’s an increasing understanding that mobile is an important part of integrated marketing campaigns
- Mobile advertisers are anticipating technology evolution (that is, some new mobile ad technologies are poised to thrive)
- Hollywood and the TV networks are really interested in exploiting mobile
The panels packed into Wednesday were rich with insight. I think one of the big “aha” moments for some in the crowd was Greg March, media director at Wieden+Kennedy, who said, "People try to sell mobile for its own sake, but they shouldn't." This may sound like common sense, but there’s always a tendency in marketing to jump on the next hot thing. But I agree with his perspective that the value of mobile as part of an integrated campaign is obvious and almost limitless.
That said, not all mobile marketing is created equal. That theme emerged after AOL's senior product manager of search, Farhan Memom, declared WAP is dead. His point was that as phones get more sophisticated, their ability to use the regular Web improves. So companies shouldn’t be spending resources building tiny mobile web sites to serve a declining user base.
Similarly, Jim McDonnell, marketing manager, emerging channels for Papa John's International, told a panel audience that his company was less than thrilled about building an iPhone app to drive business. That’s not to say he doesn’t like mobile. In fact, he said, half their mobile business comes from smart phones. I believe he is not using mobile to the fullest advantage. One, he could use our service to offer an incentive to millions of theater-goers to eat at his restaurants before or after their movie – especially because studies show that 50% of movie-goers eat out. Also, Papa John's could offer more on their iPhone app, such as coupon delivery, more specials, and even an up-front payment system.
I also liked hearing Patrick Cartmel, managing director at MEC Interaction, tout the benefits of SMS text messaging, especially as a way to solve mobile advertising’s issue with a fragmented world of different handsets, carriers and mobile operating systems.
It was also exciting to see representatives from networks such as NBC and CBS, and their interest in mobile. They’re trying to leverage the best of mobile for their programming campaigns. CBS is just one that’s jumped on our voice and visual technology for its “Harper’s Island” murder mystery series (details here).
We’re sending out thousands of Buzzz Alerts™ each week reminding people about the upcoming episode, and this approach makes sense for other networks as the fall season approaches—a unique, useful and easy way to target audiences psychographically with mobile advertising.
Apptera co-sponsored the noon “Lunch and Learn" session, along with Yahoo!, Cha Cha and 2ergo. Yahoo! showed the ability to place banner ads on their mobile site. Cha Cha talked about how advertisers can insert 40-character text ads in their cool text-based Q&A service, and 2ergo showed some examples of WAP sites they have created for their clients.
We went last, which I was pleased about, since everyone had finished their lunch and about 120 people were crowded into the room to listen. I first explained how we view the three main modalities of mobile advertising:
- Text has high ubiquity and low richness of media
- WAP sites have higher richness but only a small percentage of mobile users can access (in the 15% range)
- Voice has high richness and 100% ubiquity (all of the world's 5 billion phones can get audio)
I next showed Voice & Visual ad examples and case studies from two of our publishers, Moviefone and HeyCosmo, playing ads from two of our advertisers, CBS & The U.S. Navy. I’m pretty sure the slides and multimedia demos were well received due to the bunch of questions asked, the loud applause, and the crowd that followed me out the door requesting more information afterwards.
I subsequently learned that there were a couple “Tweeters” in the audience posting using the #ommamobile hashtag.
@milissa tweeted: “Love the ad (coupon for snacks at movie theater delivered to phone) example from Apptera.”
@farhanmemon tweeted: “Apptera is giving their presentation. They insert ads into the Moviefone (777-FILM) and send SMS. Is voice the Killer App?”
Umm, yes, voice IS the killer app!
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