It was as exciting as always to chair one day of the MVNOs Industry Summit 2009 in Barcelona last week. It is the best place that I have found to get an update on what’s happening with MVNOs. In addition to the interesting MVNO business model and operator partnership debates, there were few moments that were touching the most essential topic of being a virtual operator: knowing the customer. Lebara had just got a new CMO, James Condon, and coming from Tesco retail brand straight to his first telco conference put it all in one sentence: “Having sat through retail conferences, there is a striking difference in this industry: no-one talks about the customer here”. Knowing this inherent focus on technology, platforms and business models– the industry even calling normal people subscribers (!) – we also pulled together with Sophie Powell from Informa a session to show what young people in the UK do with mobile. We filmed 5 stories at Blyk’s ^6 user group on young people explaining what they do with their mobile. It was a great contrast against the industry’s technology-driven hype of young people who use Instant Messaging, browse content like crazy, and are attracted by operators’ asterisk –heavy new phone offerings. Let’s have these young people to tell the story. Unfiltered, as it should be. I was just left wondering how much better the industry would serve its customers if it only dared to ask what they want and deliver on that promise – something that is embedded into the way how media works.
* Kev is on O2, and likes his cheap plan and simple phone whose battery is falling out
* Jade is on O2 and likes simple phones, doesn’t care what they look like, and avoids contracts
* Daniel has Nokia on Orange. It costs him £ 20 with £ 10 in credit to text and talk
* Jenny is on Vodafone with her replacement phone that wakes her up every morning
* Laura on T-Mobile hates her new touch screen phone that is hard to write texts
London, UK, 1 April 2009 – Blyk, the free mobile network for young people funded by advertising, has announced that PUMA will be using Blyk media, as part of a 360 campaign to launch one of it’s most innovative lifestyle trainers in history.
The campaign on Blyk will centre around a competition mechanic. PUMA will be giving away 100 pairs of the new shoe to Blyk members who respond to questions about their levels of physical activity. Engagement will be assessed by click through and activity on a WAP site about the new product, PUMA L.I.F.T.
Additionally, since Blyk has detailed profile information about its members, PUMA will be able to measure interest and engagement across different lifestyle categories. This type of insight is something that no other media can provide.
“This is a great brand fit for both PUMA and Blyk – we know from our member profiles that they love to hear about exciting new brands and are certain to engage with this very creative mechanic.” said Chris Bennett, Blyk’s Commercial Director.
Sean Casey, PUMA Lifestyle Marketing Manager adds: “We chose Blyk as our mobile partner due to the ability to interact directly with our target group and assess in real time their engagement with the brand. Our new product, PUMA L.I.F.T, gives us a great opportunity to assess the effectiveness of mobile through Blyk and we are looking forward to the results.”
Constructed with Lite Injected Foam Technology; PUMA L.I.F.T launches this month at select JD stores Nationwide- www.jdsports.co.uk/ www.puma.com.
The Ogilvy Digital Lab housed in the London agency’s beautiful canary wharf offices was packed on Feb 6th as Blyk alongside other mobile industry leaders showcased their thinking and case studies for about 150 Ogilvy staff and clients from offices across EMEA. Mobile Day was an impressive event coupled with an impressive line up of speakers.
Among the speakers and highlights were:
Rory Sutherland Group Vice Chairman and Executive Creative Creator for Ogilvy One kicked the day off with a clear message to his clients that mobile has relevancy on their marketing mix today.
Mark Lewis – School of Communication Arts 2.0 and sporting a most remarkable pair of trousers. His notion was that the internet has changed our world and that mobile will continue to set the agenda. But we all have to dive in and learn to embrace it.
Sander Munsterman from xs2theworld showcased their latest creative for mobile including a wonderful little Application built for Guinness. Check it out here.
Alex Meisl from Sponge showed numerous examples that demonstrated how mobile can deliver ROI for a client and suggested key planning principles for mobile are; relevancy, targeting, proximity, engagement and timeliness.
Jessica Greenwood from Contagious Magazine got everyone salivating with her showcase of sexy apps while reminding them that although 99% of creative directors own an iPhone only 2% of a brands customers will use one.
Also worth highlighting is that Blyk partners Velti (On Blyk content) and 2ergo were among the lineup of exhibitors.
The folks at Ogilvy just posted a short film highlighting the event. Definitely worth a look.
Jim Cook of MobiAd News summed it up perfectly when he said, “We’ve reached the point where the combination of handsets, network speeds and applications is such that we can give experiences to the consumer…we can engage with them in ways we’ve never been able to do before with any other channel…with any other advertising medium. So it’s a whole new world with new capabilities.”
After an interesting week in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, I took time to put 5 things down on what we learned related mobile and advertising:
1. Advertising spend is cut and moved to Blyk-like media. After a panel discussion I attended, a senior ad executive from Ogilvy came to me and said: “You know Timo, this year in advertising is about driving sales, sales and sales. The only thing people do for their brand is ensure that it is preserved while focus is on tactical sales campaigns. No brand building this year. And are the budgets cut or moved? Both – they are first cut, and the remaining moves below-the-line.” For a Blyk-like media this is not necessarily a bad thing as everything that gets a brand closer to its customer is now becoming increasingly important. This is certainly seen already as January 2009 was our best campaign month ever.
2. Mobile advertising fulfills variety of communications goals. “Our clients use mobile both for branding and direct response. Mobile can do both and it should be used to do both when appropriate for a campaign”, said Valerie Itey, Head of Mobile at Universal McCann in Spain. Another consensus was achieved that mobile needs to be integrated into the media mix. These are certainly our observations at Blyk as well: in 2008 our campaigns were equally split between awareness, engagement, driving sales and gaining customer insight. In the same GSMA panel discussion, Michael Smith, Deputy Director of COI Interactive from the UK, provided very good balanced views on this as well.
3. There are a lot of mobile advertising platforms around. It seems that everyone has one to offer. Literally, everyone: SIM card manufacturer, messaging platform vendor, WAP gateway provider, content provider, network infrastructure company and handset manufacturer. Even the ones making mobile phone chips have their ad platforms — not to even mention the traditional online brands, software companies, and focused mobile advertising platform developers. All these platforms do the same thing: campaign management, targeting and reporting, and are the best in what they do. It must be very difficult for operators to navigate in this environment where many people are selling platforms but only few are providing a business model to start generate revenues.
4. Mobile media is a strategic dilemma for operators. Almost every operator has mobile advertising among the top 3 strategic priorities in 2009, but most acknowledge that there is no strategy in place yet. The transformation from a telecommunications provider to a media company is a step to execute.
5. Mobile media is unique, and needs to be treated uniquely. Mobile is different to online, like television is different to radio. Mobile is about engagement more than any other channel. Mobile is a personal media built on communications between people, and generates a highest impact when advertising utilizes this unique nature. At Blyk we have taken this principle to youth market and built advertising on message dialogs – the same way you respond to your friend you respond to a brand.
Blyk received great feedback on the campaign made for Green Thing about responsible consuming. We all can make small, better choices to make our future better. Find out more at Blyk’s media site in Ads in Action.
