m.Net Blog

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

We continue to help educate the market about the opportunities gained from embracing mobile marketing. I will be speaking at the ADMA Forum about how including mobile in the marketing package can help enhance campaigns. I have some interesting case studies to share from our experience with leading local clients.

Please also visit our stand in the Mobile Marketing Pavilion as I will be demonstrating www.campaignmobile.com. If you would like to see how Campaign Mobile empowers agencies, web developers and brands with the capability to manage their mobile-marketing campaigns please drop by and ask for a demonstration of the platform.

To find out more about ADMA Forum follow this link www.admaforum.com

Posted by Horden Wiltshire, Chief Executive Officer

I recently spoke on a panel at Mobile Content World 2008 in Sydney with Dave Mallam (MD Cogs Media), Kerry Field (Director MindShare Interaction), Sasha Hunt (Head of Digital and Direct, BT Financial) and Cameron Wall (Technical Director, G-Nius Mobile Intelligence). The panel was ably moderated by Jim Shomos, writer/producer of Let’s Talk.

The panel session discussed “Using Mobile to Drive Brand Awareness” and all the speakers gave a different and relevant view on this topic. There was a broad discussion that covered everything from the challenges of mobile marketing campaigns in financial services, the different technologies and enablers for mobile campaigns through to the barriers to uptake for mobile marketing.

One of the comments I made during the panel was that from our perspective we are starting to see clients looking to integrate mobile across more than one element of the marketing mix. Over the last 12 months m.Net has integrated many mobile marketing campaigns into all the major media formats; television, radio, print, ambient, and web. We see mobile as having the potential to be the glue across the different media channels in marketing campaigns. Increasingly we see customers incorporating the mobile campaign across more than one channel. Recently we developed a mobile site for Toyota to promote their latest Camry range. The mobile site provided information on the range and allowed potential customers to register for a test drive. This mobile site was integrated into the television campaign via a key word that viewers could text to a short code. The same mobile site was integrated into a mobile banner campaign within the Yahoo!7 mobile portal. My belief is that this trend will accelerate over coming years.

All of the panelists in the session gave great insights into the market from their perspective and the audience were active throughout the discussion raising questions about the best ways to encourage education in the market place. One common theme throughout the panel and Mobile Content World more broadly was the high data plans from the carriers were one of the key barriers to customer adoption. The reality is that data charges are coming down quickly; even Telstra’s casual roaming post-paid plan has come down by 90% over the last 18months. The challenge however is that users still perceive that data costs are high. Based on overseas evidence I am confident this trend in pricing will continue and this augurs well for the future of mobile marketing in the Australian market.

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

The iAwards, awarded by the Australian Information Industry Association, are Australia’s ICT Awards. The 2008 iAwards recognise innovation excellence across a range of important fields including education, finance, government, media, and security.

Entries in the iAwards are judged in terms of the following criteria:

• Uniqueness, technology and innovation, trendsetting

• Market potential, accessibility and reach, transparency and impact on quality of life, market share potential, and business and financial model/strategy

• Functionality and features, user requirements, compatibility and interoperability

• Quality and application of technology, contents and standards (ISO/CMM), product stability and reliability

• Presentation, organisation and clarity of submission

We’re very happy to announce that the AIIA has recognised Campaign Mobile in the 2008 iAwards as the best communications application in South Australia. To see Campaign Mobile in action, visit www.campaignmobile.com!

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

Earth Hour sponsor the Adelaide City Council has creatively used Campaign Mobile to promote the international energy-conservation campaign.

On the 28th of March a broadcast email was sent to South Australians directing them to a Campaign Mobile call to action on the Adelaide City Council website. The ACC Earth Hour mobile site features Earth Hour branding, written content, and links to downloadable imagery and video.

m.Net provided development support to the ACC, extending the functionality of the Campaign-Mobile-produced mobile site to enable seamless download of mobile content including Earth Hour wallpaper, video messages from the Adelaide Lord Mayor and Adelaide Football Club player Kris Massie, and an Earth Hour advertisement. Click here to view the live Campaign Mobile execution!

We are starting to see an incredible array of campaigns deployed using Campaign Mobile. Other recent executions of note include:

• Yahoo!7 is using Campaign Mobile to promote the Home and Away mobile site: http://mobile.homeandaway.com.au
• The Australian Dance Theatre is using Campaign Mobile to create and deploy a mobile site and promotion for its upcoming production of “G”: http://www.adt.org.au

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

We are pleased to confirm that we will be exhibiting Campaign Mobile – and the rest of the m.Net product range – at the massive ad:tech Sydney show from 12-13 March at Hilton Sydney. This show is promoted as Australia’s number 1 interactive event and it’s the place to learn from the sharpest minds in the industry.

Come to Stand 236 at ad:tech to see us put Campaign Mobile through its paces. You can register for a free pass to the exhibitor hall by clicking here.

If you are attending the conference, please ensure you attend our session on Thursday 13 March entitled Tailoring content for the mobile device (more details here). In this session we explore the changing consumer landscape and mobile-marketing best practices using the ongoing relationship with have with Warner Music and award-winning country music artist Steve Forde. This session aims to inform and entertain – see you there!

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

m.Net is now able to offer its clients Paypal Mobile as a mobile payment method, and we have already launched our first PayPal Mobile site, Warner Music’s Steve Forde artist mobile-marketing WAP site.

With over 5 million Australian PayPal users, and as the default payment method for eBay, PayPal Mobile is not a niche opportunity.

Why am I so excited about this?

• Prior to this the only viable mass market opportunity for payments was Premium SMS. The challenge for the content owner with this method was the scale of the revenue share most telecommunication carriers require for these services. With PayPal Mobile the fees are more analogous to those of a credit card which potentially means a cheaper product for the mobile consumer and more revenue to the content owner.
• Premium SMS really only worked for digital goods for the mobile (e.g. ringtones, wallpapers, games) since the product delivery was to the handset. The benefit of PayPal is that a real-world delivery address is stored for purchases, so users don’t have to attempt to type an address using predictive text and a small phone keyboard. You can pay for physical goods now via your phone using PayPal Mobile with the knowledge that they will be delivered to your preferred delivery address.

It is very early days but this is development in mobile payments is encouraging for both consumers and retailers.

Posted by Scott Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer

Today sees a really big milestone for m.Net and marks a huge leap forward for web developers and digital agencies. Today we launch the Campaign Mobile Public Beta – www.campaignmobile.com.

Campaign Mobile is a complete online mobile marketing platform for web developers and digital agencies. We have worked closely with a national group of web developers and agencies via an extensive alpha and private beta programme, and the beta launched today is the culmination of extensive market research and direct client trials.

So what makes Campaign Mobile special?

It is a completely online product easily accessible using a Web browser. Mobile marketing is now easier than ever before thanks to Campaign Mobile’s template-driven generation of mobile websites, mobile coupons, broadcast SMS campaigns, web triggers, and opt-in databases.

Mobile campaigns can be created, deployed and optimised quickly and easily. A basic web-to-mobile or SMS campaign can be created and deployed in under ten minutes. No mobile development expertise is required – so developers and agencies can focus on the important aspects of creative expression and campaign planning, confident that the technology is covered by Campaign Mobile. Our mobile device profiling technology is fully integrated into the platform, enabling campaign delivery in 170 countries and territories to over 6,500 mobile devices.

Today we have kicked off a (primarily) online and mobile marketing campaign promoting our initial offer of “one month free including an initial credit of 100 SMS messages”.

This is just the beginning. We will be rolling out new features and functions based on market research and direct feedback from our customer base.

Posted by Marisa Maio Mackay, Director of Research

Advertising on the mobile phone is an ambitious attempt by the industry to increase the use of non-voice applications by the masses. But what does the mobile consumer really think and expect as advertising makes a move on the mobile phone?

Research consistently shows that the regular use of the mobile phone beyond voice and text remains primarily contained among a small group of very high users – a group of consumers who seem to be using more and more data services and anything else new on the mobile phone and in doing so are gradually increasing the gap between them and everyone else (AIMIA Lifestyle Index Survey 2007, Worldwide Mobile Data Survey, 2006).

Some industry experts argue that mobile-phone users will become more-active customers of mobile data services as the market matures, but the trend both here and overseas remains remarkably consistent regardless of market maturity. Does advertising on the mobile phone present a viable channel to re-engage the customer when that customer primarily uses his/her phone for voice and texting because of a belief that using the phone for anything else will incur huge costs?

Mobile phone users are more and more frequently accessing content and services for free. They don’t like being locked into service contracts. They expect their favourite brands to be in the mobile phone space. And they don’t expect to pay for it. The users believe that it should be part of the brand’s service, and their mobile offering should complement the brand offering in other media channels. And of course, any mobile offering should provide real value based on existing customer behaviour and should tap into the customer’s personal interests. These views and behaviours have underpinned the response to advertising on the mobile phone.

As stated by a respondent during a recent m.Net research project, “I would definitely put up with ads for something entertaining. Like Cricket scores or whatever it might be. Or movie offers. Or something like that. Or astrology, whatever it might be. I’d more so put up with ads if I was getting a free service rather than paying for it. ”

Almost 70% of Australians claim they would accept ads for free content. On a worldwide scale, almost 50% claim they would accept mobile ads in exchange for a free service or the chance to win a prize. Around one third of respondents have actually purchased a product after seeing an ad on their mobile phone. Most importantly, however, is that 71% say ads would not cause them to stop using their phones!

In line with consumer views, mobile ads should not be the focal point of the interaction. They should rather relate specifically to the mobile moment. This is in direct contrast with the traditional push ads exemplified by the TV advertising experience where your favourite program is interrupted by invasive ads that have no relevance to you or your viewing preferences. The personal nature of the mobile provides the perfect counterpoint to this experience. Unique user identifiers can be used to track individual click-through behaviours and preferences to determine ad relevance. Ads can be created for a particular region or network or handset. Real-time databases can target consumers at any time and place and are less susceptible to click-fraud than online advertising.

So the message for companies is positive: mobile advertising has the power to move users to the exciting world beyond voice and texting! In fact, click-through rates on mobile ads are already higher than click through rates for on-line ads! The consumer is also clearly ready – but to engage the masses and keep them engaged the company has to be willing to treat the mobile like no other advertising channel before it.

“Online and off-deck media will become huge and change the way people behave and their relationship with marketing…“

Matt McGrath – CEO, Young & Rubicam Brands

This is particularly apt when we take into account emerging mobile video and TV services like vodcasts.

So when you are designing your next mobile ad remember to target and tailor your ads, because for consumers it’s all about the four key questions.

• Does it mean anything to me?
• Does it give me anything?
• Does it cost me anything?
• Does it lock me into anything?

Good luck!

Posted by Horden Wiltshire, Chief Executive Officer

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has published its sixth annual Deloitte Fast 500 Asia Pacific Ranking and CEO Survey, examining and ranking fast growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, China (including Hong Kong), India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.

The ranking acknowledges and profiles the top 500 companies — public and private — and the winners are ranked according to their revenue performance over the last three years.

We are proud to announce that m.Net is at number 38 on Deloitte’s Asia Pacific Fast 500, and is the fifth-highest-ranked Australian company overall.

The full survey can be downloaded here:

Stellar Performers: Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific Ranking and CEO Survey 2007 (1281 kb PDF)

This is a fantastic result for m.Net, and once more all we can say is… we don’t expect things to slow down any time soon!

Posted by Paul Daly, Director of Innovation

The mobile phone has become incredibly pervasive. Leading research company Informa has announced that there are now 3.3 billion active mobile accounts in the world. This means that there is approximately one mobile phone account operating for every two people on the planet! There are now 59 countries where mobile penetration exceeds 100%, with a significant number of people maintaining more than one mobile account.

The mobile phone has joined keys and wallet/purse as one of those things that one simply does not leave the house without. Indeed, there has been some speculation about its potential to replace those other two must-haves in the future.

In this–my first post to the m.Net blog!–I aim to discuss some of the things that differentiate the mobile screen as a new medium for content, and acknowledge some of its limitations.

Here at m.Net have identified the following differentiators for mobile: omnipresence and accessibility. Very soon the mobile phone will be everywhere, and everyone will have access to one. However these are not the only differentiators!

Other differentiators include:

• The mobile phone is more personal. There is a much stronger level of assignment between the consumer and his/her mobile phone than exists with a home phone or an Internet connection, where other users in the family may share the same connection or device. There is also an expectation on the part of subscribers that messages they receive will, in general, be of higher relevance to them.
• Meaningful context as a result of location. For many years there has been talk of location-based services for mobile phones as a possible killer application. Finally, the pieces are beginning to fall into place for new services that take advantage of the user’s location in order to provide value.

  Telstra has a model that allows service providers to provide access to information and other services based on the location of the handset. The subscriber must have opted in to this service and Telstra charges a fee to the service provider for each location request.

  Google has just announced a feature in Google Maps that allows a mobile subscriber to locate his or her own position within an on-screen map. If the handset has GPS capability it will source the location from there and, if not, it uses an algorithm that calculates approximate position based on signal strength from one or more mobile-phone base stations. While resolution is not perfect, it is certainly accurate enough for many applications.

  Today, the Google system only works with certain handsets; however it provides some really interesting insights into the scope for location-based services in the near term.

• Value added by other elements of context. The use of location as a variable is just one form of context that makes the mobile experience more interesting and relevant. If we know that the user of a particular mobile is unique, then we can assume that their browsing and purchasing behaviour provides a more accurate view of their preferences than it does when several people were sharing a connection to the Internet (e.g. from a home computer). This allows us to improve the relevance of the information and services that we offer them and provides a greater return on investment for our promotional spend. Our ability to leverage contextual information is very important in providing access to a better user experience. The better we handle this context the more likely it is that we will maintain an effective relationship with the consumer and the easier it will be for them to navigate to information and services of interest to them.
• The ability of the mobile screen to complement existing media. Because of its portability the mobile screen provides an ideal way for consumers to maintain a connection with sources of news entertainment and information while they are on the move. This is best implemented as a complement to their existing patterns for consuming content – via television, radio, print and the Internet. Early work in using the mobile as an interactive back channel for television through voting applications and the use of SMS response for participation in competitions and other forms of product promotion has been remarkably successful. The most successful campaigns involving a mobile element have been complemented by promotion in other media and this is certainly the way we at m.Net see the landscape well into the future.

Of course mobile does have its drawbacks as a medium for content. We speak of mobile as the very small screen and although the quality and resolution of mobile displays is constantly improving, it its still a much smaller window for navigating and viewing content. For this reason, we develop mobile Internet sites in ways that are significantly different from those used to develop traditional Web Internet sites. We also pay particular attention to the size of graphics, videos and animations so that screens of varying size can render them well. We also aim to keep page size down in recognition that until the tipping point for mobile data arrives, the carriage cost of data can be a major issue for consumers of mobile Internet content.

Perhaps the biggest problem faced by people developing and implementing content on mobiles is the lack of any real standardisation for access devices. Mobile phones have screens of all shapes and sizes, wildly-varying resolutions, different models for accommodating input from the user, different operating systems, and different amounts of memory.

The job of delivering content that renders consistently-well across a wide cross-section of the most popular handsets has become an area of specialisation. It is an problem to which companies like m.Net are able to provide an effective solution, removing a major headache for people looking to the use of mobile as an exciting new medium for content. With this type of specialist help mobile can become a powerful complement to traditional media in extending brand relationships with consumers.