AIMS Canada

Read all about… Mobile Marketing

Posted by Tamera Kremer, AIMS member and volunteer, Director of Client Service - Thornley Fallis/ 76design, and founder Wildfire Strategic Marketing...

Mobile, or “the third screen” is still on the rise with marketers and consumers, but the landscape isn’t clear cut. We thought we’d share what members are reading, sharing and learning about mobile marketing from the AIMS del.icio.us Resource Library!

Read all about…

Trends: Top trends in mobile media Mobile Advertising vs. Mobile Marketing Ad agencies and Mobile Advertising

Technology: Barcodes provide link to mobile web Search heavyweights in mobile ads

Basics: Making sense out of it… Four Myths

From Candy to Text Messaging

eMarketer has a timely article about the evolution of those yummy candy hearts with sayings that used to be exchanged on the playground. (Remember the time spent deciding whether you'd give your best chum 'Look Good' or 'URA QT?)

The cryptic conversations that started over candy in the classroom are now mobile. In a survey of US adult cell phone users, 33% of the respondents said that they have communicated with their date or mate via text messaging in 2007.

Read Full Article.

Personally I'm holding out for the candy. I'm an avid user of IM and love the simplicity of text messaging. But a little sugar goes a long way. How about you? Expecting or sending any heartfelt text messages today?

BiteTV Presents at MobileMonday

A snowy night at the Mobile Monday event earlier this week. While I didn't win any door prizes this time I found good conversation and learned a little more about mobile technology.

It started with an interesting chat with Jacky from Xtreme Mobility, his company provides an application for people to make payments via cell phone. For instance, university students can add money to their campus cards without going to the kiosk or website. Useful when you hit the cafeteria after hours with a pizza craving! (I wonder if they can find a way to alert parents when their child is about to run out of lunch money?)

The speaker for the evening was Jeffrey Elliott from BiteTV. I wasn't really wowed by the content (of BiteTV, not the speaker) but then I'm not a 18-34 year old male and I realize that probably means I just don't get it.

From a business standpoint it was interesting to hear Jeffrey talk about being a media company at the centre of a lot of technology. Their content is provided in whatever format the viewer prefers; web, cell, VOD, TV. And their viewers are very involved in shaping the content that gets produced. We've heard it before but Jeffrey's presentation really made the point that it's not about the technology. It is about people getting the content they want, when and where they want it.

Asked which channel is about to take off Jeffrey didn't hesitate when he said 'mobile'. Of course it was a MobileMonday event so the answer wasn't overly surprising :)

Any marketers out there working on some interesting mobile campaigns? Would love to hear about them...

Highlights from Mobile Monday

I *finally* made it out to Mobile Monday yesterday and I'm so glad I did. Besides winning the door prize for a cool new Blackberry Pearl (very exciting!) I met a lot of smart people who know a lot about mobile technologies.

The first presentation was Mike Heinrich from VoiceOnTheGo. As the name suggests the technology provides voice access to your email, calendar, and contacts. By holding a microphone to a cell phone Mike walked us through a demonstration of the main tasks and they were all relatively easy to accomplish. A little time consuming compared with typing out a quick email or calendar appointment. But as laws are put into place to ban handhelds while driving I expect more and more commuters will be looking for alternativees.

Next up was Ramesh Balakrishnan from Critical Path talking about his solution to bring email to cell phone users. Consumers can whitelist or blacklist any number of email addresses so they only receive email on their phone from the people they select. An interesting idea for the consumer market who isn't toting a PDA on their hip. Although as text messaging takes off I wonder if the consumer market will skip email all together?

The two presentations were followed up by a panel discussion with the presenters and Philippe Lozier from Rogers Wireless. Kudos to Philippe for handling so many questions and sharing some of the customer service initiatives Rogers is working on.

The session last night was about the technologies behind mobile solutions. I'm interested in hearing how marketers are using mobile. Is anyone working on an interesting marketing campaign that incorporates mobile into the mix? Care to share your learnings/experience in the comments below?