Proximity Marketing: Vodafone Australia Street TV

Rating: finally proximity marketing that works
During the Mobility World Congress in Hong Kong last week mobile advertising was hot on the agenda. Richard Saggers from Vodafone gave a strong presentation highlighting Vodafone advertising success stories. We are not surprised that he used examples outside of Europe to highlight the success and the he did pinpoint Vodafone Australia.
Vodafone Australia is selling display advertising and has also launched a Street TV channel. I asked my friend who lives in Australia about this and I was amazed at the education of the consumer. She said, that she always keeps her Bluetooth on as it’s a great way to get promotions? She said that even when network coverage was low and she was out of 3G zone – she could always rely on Bluetooth.
I found this hard to believe at first – but having spent time in Australia it can be very lonely only one mile out of the city centre. So “pubs” which are in the outback are often Bluetooth zones with phone masts on them to make sure that tourists or locals can stay connected.
But anyway, back to Vodafone. Vodafone has set up what are called Blue Zones in Australia. It favours this form of proximity market to build relationships with consumers and monetize Bluetooth by triggering adverts into updates or promotions.

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Yahoo! oneSearch uses Greystripe for mobile advertising

Despite owning Actionallity, Yahoo! Has chosen Greystripe to run and in~game mobile advertising campaign to promote oneSearch.The ad campaign ran for two months and was run combined with a WAP survey.The overall click through rate for the campaign was 4.2%, which is significantly higher than the average rates for mobile WAP-based advertisements of 1% or 2%.
From the press release”The results of Greystripe’s oneSearch ad campaign were fantastic, with the highest CTR and the lowest user acquisition cost of all Yahoo! oneSearch mobile advertising campaigns,” said Trent Gruenwald, Marketing Manager for Yahoo!.“We are proud to share these results with the industry because it highlights the success that brands can have in mobile,” says Erica Chriss, VP of Strategy and Business Development, Greystripe. “It also highlights that the ad-funded model for mobile content is clearly a sustainable business. Consumers appreciate the free content and are receptive to the right kind of sponsor messages.”What we think?Even search engines need to advertise. Please excuse the shameless plug here - but we do see a huge opportunity in the market. The time is now for mobile and advertising - hence GoMo News strategic Mobile PPC and Mobile SEO services. Our previous campaigns have shown up to 7% click through rates. To take advantage of the mobile opportunity email me.

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Laura Marriott MMA comments on Mobile Marketing and the Olympics

Mobile Marketing seems to be getting huge exposure at the Olympics and suddenly a great platform opens of how innovative mobile marketing campaigns can be delivered.
Laura Marriott comments:Laura Marriott, president of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (http://www.mmaglobal.com/) commented; “Through the use of mobile video, text and content delivery, mobile marketing is taking the ‘Gold’ during the Olympics offering brands and consumers worldwide the ability to engage and interact for Olympic content when and where they desire, without travelling to Beijing.” Marriott continued; “Our global ad guidelines along with our consumer best practices ensure that consumers have a positive, opt-in experience while following the Summer Olympic Games via their mobile device. Consumers are relying on mobile marketing to interact, gain information and generally participate in campaigns that they personally see as fitting for their individual information needs.”
Members of the MMA implementing mobile marketing campaigns: Among the MMA member companies implementing mobile marketing campaigns include Celltick, Clickatel, NBC Universal, SinglePoint, The Coca-Cola Company and Yahoo! Campaigns incorporate a variety of uses of mobile marketing such as video commercials, SMS, text games and news content delivery.
What we think?I can’t wait to join the MMA under Visibility Mobile as I am sure that along with marketing Mobile SEO and discoverability of campaigns or images will be vital moving forward. My hand is still on my heart for Tibet –but I haven’t been able to stop watching the Olympics or writing about them.

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MyClick mobile visual search company plus Pepsi plus mobile marketing

Pepsi is tapping into China’s Generation Wow in innovative new ways by partnering with phone snap and click marketer, MyClick. Pepsi-Cola has launched its third Pepsi Creative Challenge as part of a 360-degree marketing campaign that will be supported across China on various traditional media, online, and via a breakthrough mobile marketing campaign using MyClick software. The promotion is targeted to Generation Wow consumers primarily in the 12-24 year old range.
How?
Voters are encouraged to download MyClick to vote instantly. The campaign is being supported with TV advertising and with a major presence at point of sale across a range of retail outlets as well as a host of media partners, including: Web, WAP, MMS and on-ground promotions.What about the mobile marketing?
Pepsi has issued a challenge for consumers to upload their photos along with their basic personal data (birth date, mobile number, nickname) on any of the six major portals, 163.com, xiaonei.com, taobao.com and 51.com, Poco.cn and iPartment. Winners will become the coveted PEPSI CREATIVE CHALLENGE STAR on all of Pepsi’s packaging to be featured during the Olympics on Pepsi cans.
What is MYClick?Its a mobile marketing mobile visual technology platform. Personal note add this name to the ever growing list of visual mobile search players.From the Press release“MyClick is revolutionizing the way advertisers interact with consumers. While SMS may be a way for person-to-person mobile marketing, there is a huge hurdle in terms of spontaneity as the consumer needs to get in to the messaging interface with cumbersome steps before accessing the information. With MyClick, the response is almost immediate, literally a click away,” added Mr. Tsang. “We’re confident with MyClick we can make even greater strides in maximizing the participation in Pepsi Creative Challenge. Studies clearly show that snap and click almost double the response rates compared to traditional SMS messaging,” added Mr. Tsang. “Bearing in mind, it is a lot more complicated to type in a URL on your phone. You are triple-tapping or even quadruple-tapping to get to a character. Once you go off the operator’s portal, typing a URL on a phone that doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard is a difficult thing to do. It’s a hurdle to interaction. MyClick is lightning fast, and it places no burden on the network. It is the fastest and most efficient solution for tele-voting. Consumers will jump at incorporating MyClick functionality into their mobile phones.
What we think?
Simple and fun and the chance to get on a can of Pepsi? Love it. Also great way to get users to download applications at during and before sporting events.
BUT, I am not sure if I like the frames used by the company to guide people where to click. I think that the whole image should be clickable.

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MangoMobile assists Nissan with Mobile Marketing

Rating: mango, mango, mango …. Mango mobile marketing!
MangoMobile and Nissan to push new Rogue Crossover Vehicle Oneline2Mobile Ad, Advergame and Mobile Wallpapers.MangoMobile has many hats it’s a reseller a marketer a discounter in Europe and now its powering Nissan’s mobile ad campaign offering direct to consumer games and services.
From the press release“While the mobile medium is a perfect fit for the Nissan Rogue brand, we knew that we had to make it easy for consumers to discover and ultimately acquire the Rogue mobile content,” said Robert Brown, Sr. Manager, Interactive Marketing, Nissan North America, Inc. “We achieve this by combining the broad reach of the online medium with the simplicity of our new ‘Online2Mobile’ rich media ad units. These ad units effectively circumvent the click-thru while simultaneously removing many of the barriers to entry consumers face with respect to mobile content.”
The Rogue downloadable mobile advergame is also an industry-first in the North American market. The Nissan Rogue mobile game features challenging game play, accelerating difficulty levels and a community leaderboard in tandem with Nissan Rogue branding and key market positioning. Additionally, the Rogue Mobile game breaks new ground with respect to performance tracking and measurability, delivering an unprecedented level of data and consumer insights back to Nissan.
“While many are content with entering the mobile marketing space via simple text campaign, it’s always great when a client like Nissan comes along and shows real initiative … encouraging our strategists and developers to really push the envelope and launch a breakout mobile campaign that spans mobile gaming, online advertising, text distribution and even downloadable wallpapers,” said Jamie Wells, Vice President, Strategy & Client Services, MangoMOBILE. “We are thrilled to be working with TEQUILA\ and Nissan on the Rogue launch, and look forward to working with them on even more innovative, more forward-leaning mobile marketing campaigns in the months and years to come.”
What we think?What is it about cars and mobiles. Nearly every mobile operator in North America and Europe has started off selling marketing and advertising to car manufacturers. The promotions tend to focus on click for free test drive. This new promotion with Mango goes a step further as its fuelled by an Advergame that is pushed directly to consumer.
Personally, I think marketing can never be too bad, but introducing Advergames D2C is a bit risky as if there are any implementation, download or use issues – the consumers might blame the sponsor of the service. On top of that its not clear if the adverts on the Advergame are all from Nissan or if they will also have other advertisers or if this can change over the air in the future. This means that data transfer costs are out of the control of the consumer – which could mean higher bills or in some cases even runaway bills.

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Channel 4 promotes Catch-Up service with Breeze Tech Bluetooth Marketing campaign

87,000 programme clips are downloaded in a single week, raising awareness of channel4.com/watchonline
London, 20 June 2008—Advertising agencies OMD UK, Posterscope, 4Creative and Bluetooth marketing company Breeze Tech have carried out a week long campaign for Channel 4 in five major London stations as part of the promotion around their Catch-Up service on channel4.com/watchonline, offering consumers new content each day from the previous day’s viewing. The campaign aimed to demonstrate how watching Channel 4 can now be completely at the viewer’s convenience as Catch-Up allows viewing of programmes for up to seven days through online streaming video.Channel 4’s objective was to extend their promotional campaign to outdoor by offering actual programme content to consumers. Breeze Tech’s media servers located in Titan Outdoor’s station were selected as an effective route to Channel 4’s target demographic. Channel 4 recognised the value of the opportunity to interact with the commuter audience on a daily basis throughout the week, and the ability to measure the impact of the campaign was a key deciding factor.
All detectable handsets in the Bluetooth zones were offered a clip from the previous evening’s viewing, which quickly transferred to the phone once the download was accepted by the user. Different content was offered each day, including clips from The F Word, Peep Show and River Cottage Spring. Across a single week in five major London stations, 87,000 downloads were recorded.
Steve Forde, Marketing Manager, New Media at Channel 4, commented, “We were looking to raise the profile of channel4.com/watchonline through a high impact campaign. Providing free content over Bluetooth rapidly achieved our objectives of raising awareness of this service, attracting viewers and highlighting key programmes. Working with Breeze Tech has allowed us an excellent level of interaction with our target audience.“
James Davies, Board Director of Posterscope, added “The success of Bluetooth marketing is very much a function of the quality, value and relevance of the content on offer, and the 87,000 downloads Channel 4 achieved clearly demonstrates that there is a demand from consumers for such mobile content.”
Gregor Isbister, Breeze Tech founder, said “We are delighted to work with a major broadcaster such as Channel 4 and help them to reach out to their target audience. When advertisers are looking for a campaign which will increase brand recall and bring them closer to their audience, Bluetooth marketing is the ideal solution.”
With a Bluetooth campaign, all downloads are completely free to the consumer and the service is entirely opt in. Content can be in the form of video clips, ringtones, music tracks, images or text such as contact cards. Individuals can keep the content on their phone, forward it to friends by Bluetooth or transfer it to a PC. Breeze Tech’s technology ensures that all content is formatted to suit any type of handset and provide the best user viewing experience.
For more information contact Greg Isbister or Adrian Hands at Breeze Tech on +44 (0)20 7421 2591 or by emailgisbister@breeze-tech.co.uk,ahands@breeze-tech.co.uk
ABOUT BREEZE TECHBreeze Tech is the world leader in Bluetooth marketing solutions. Our solutions enable brands to interact with their target market by delivering rich digital content directly to mobile phones. Our media servers are ideal for venues where people gather and “dwell” in certain places for a period of time such as stations, airports, music festivals, exhibitions and retail outlets. Breeze Tech technology allows a wide variety of rich content to be offered, including video clips such as film “teasers” or interviews, ringtones, wallpapers, contact cards and exhibition information guides. Features of Breeze Tech technology includes the unique ability to distinguish static targets from moving ones (dwell vs move), functionality to allow consumers to opt in or out of receiving content, fully networked content management with changes as frequent as the client requires and real time reporting for measuring campaign results.

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Nissan launches Bluetooth proximity marketing campaign with Boomerang Media and Hypertag

A Hypertag is short-range device that is used to send information to mobile phones via Bluetooth.What is proximity marketing?Proximity marketing is the ability to push content or coupons to mobile devices via Bluetooth. A hypertag will push out the messages in the local proximity and anyone with Bluetooth turned on can accept the receipt of these messages.What is Nissan doing?Nissan has created a new campaign for the new Qashqai model. The campaign will run in London and there are 80 Bluetooth Hypertags in bars and cinemas. The Hypertags are situated in the Boomerang Bluetooth network. This is the largest Boomerang Bluetooth campaign that has been created by Manning Gottlieb.
From the press release:Rachel Harker, co-founder of Hypertag, said: “This deal makes brilliant use of the network of Hypertags installed in Boomerang sites. These locations are generally high dwell-time areas and so rich content such as video is a real draw for consumers in these venues. Proximity marketing has the ability to reach out and touch consumers in places and times that other media cannot reach – Nissan have recognised this with what is a hugely innovative campaign.”

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Bluetooth proximity marketing and mobile barcodes: Gavitec & Wayin & Brandscape

In South Africa, one of the leading markets of Bluetooth technology, Brandscape (brandscape.co.za), Wayin (wayin.co.za) and Gavitec (mobiledigit.com)have launched a Bluetooth instant prizes services. Basically the offer is around Powerade’s Pick n Pay Argus Expo stand.
What and How?Basically promoters wear t-shirts with Hypertags that transmit content via Blueetooth. Then consumers get mobile barcode coupons that can be scanned at the Argus Expo Stand and users can win hot prizes.
From the press release
Gordon Parkin, Creative Director at Brandscape says: “This is the perfect mechanic to ensure that Expo visitors make a stop at the Powerade stand. It also allows the brand to penetrate the consumer’s personal space and utilize the billboard space of the future: the mobile handset.” All interactions are logged, and prizes are given out according to a closely monitored database, ensuring effective use of prizes.
What we think?Bluetooth use in Europe is dire. In South Africa and Australia its hot because of the climate and space in the respectful countries. But adding Hypertags to t-shirts is innovative and something to think about at concerts or the London/ New York marathon. This could be huge and finally make proximity marketing a success globally. Not forgetting the mobile barcodes either!

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Netsize and AIRTAG announce first integrated mobile marketing solution for point of sales

Netsize, a leading mobile commerce and communications enabler, and AIRTAG, the first provider of contactless marketing solutions announced the availability of a mobile marketing campaign solution for brands & retailers.
Based on AIRTAG PAD contactless solution and Netsize mMarketing mobile campaign management, the solution enables consumers to opt-in easily for the retailer's mailing list and mobile services.
"We are very proud to demonstrate the first integrated mobile marketing solution that uses contactless opt-in," said St?phane Roder, Group Marketing Director, Netsize. He added, "We strongly believe that consumers are now ready to use their mobile phone in their shopping experience. Contactless technology, such as NFC and mobile marketing, enables retailers to strengthen the link between brand, physical store and consumer, driving revenues as well as customer satisfaction."
The AIRTAG PAD is the first contactless multimedia terminal integrating all card technologies (Barcode, magnetic, chip & contactless smart card) and all mobile technologies (NFC, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, 2D barcode) enabling retailers to provide all their customers with interactive marketing services at the point of sales.
"Using AIRTAG PAD, retailers easily enrich their customer database thanks to effective opt-in management for SMS and email campaigns. Because it uses 3G wireless connections, it can be quickly integrated into an existing point of sale infrastructure," said J?r?mie Leroyer, co-founder and CEO, AIRTAG. "The integration with Netsize mMarketing provides retailers with a complete and 100% integrated customer relationship solution for multichannel promotional campaigns."
Thanks to Netsize mMarketing, retailers can use the mobile to inform, interact with their customers, and optimize the use of this channel for best results. Retailers can manage opt-in mailing lists, and launch marketing campaigns in a few clicks, sending formatted text, mms, or mobile internet pages. The detailed dashboard enables them to manage and monitor campaigns effectiveness instantly.
The solution was adopted by Reebok for the launch of the "Your Move" community offer in December 2008.
Netsize demonstrates the integrated Netsize mMarketing - AIRTAG PAD solution at GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009, Barcelona, 16-19 February. The Netsize booth is located in Hall 2, stand 2 B57.
About NETSIZE
Netsize is a leading mobile communications and commerce enabler. Netsize solutions include Mobile Messaging, with SMS and MMS delivery in 200 countries; Mobile Payment through operator-based billing (Premium SMS, MMS, & WAP) in 23 countries; and Mobile Content Management platforms with publishing & editing tools to manage messaging services and mobile Internet portals. Netsize manages more than 60 million mobile transactions per month for 800 customers worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies. With 200 employees in 10 offices worldwide, Netsize provides both robust technical infrastructure and marketing expertise to support this successful deployment on a global scale.

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AdMob and MADS Announce Global Strategic Partnership, Innovative Mobile Industry Leaders Plan to Accelerate Mobile Advertising

MADS, Europe's premier technology leader in delivering highly targeted mobile advertising campaigns, today announced plans to enter into a highly strategic partnership with AdMob, the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace serving more than 4.6 billion mobile banner and text ads per month. Through this partnership, AdMob will offer MADS European network of premium publishers and operators the ability to seamlessly monetise their inventory via mobile advertising. The MADS Ad Server platform allows publishers and operators to directly source their inventory from media agencies and ad sales partners - and optimise campaigns across a variety of mobile channels. The partnership with AdMob now allows MADS clients the ability to integrate ads directly from the AdMob marketplace, resulting in compelling and high value monetisation.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands (PRWEB) February 11, 2009 -- MADS (http://www.mads.com), Europe's premier technology leader in delivering highly targeted mobile advertising campaigns, today announced plans to enter into a highly strategic partnership with AdMob (http://www.admob.com), the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace. Through this partnership, AdMob will offer MADS European network of premium publishers and operators the ability to seamlessly monetise their inventory via the mobile marketplace.
"The AdMob-MADS strategic alliance unites two innovative, mobile advertising leaders and will help to grow the mobile advertising market," states AdMob's Vice President & Managing Director of EMEA, Thomas Schulz. "AdMob (http://www.admob.com) serves billions of targeted ads on the mobile Web and in applications every month and our new partnership with MADS will ensure it's even easier for advertisers to reach their target audience."
The MADS Ad Server platform allows publishers and operators to directly source their inventory from media agencies and ad sales partners - and optimise campaigns across a variety of mobile channels. The partnership with AdMob now allows MADS clients the ability to integrate ads directly from the AdMob marketplace, therefore delivering compelling and high value monetisation.
"The MADS (http://www.mads.com) network of operators and premium publishers currently generates over 300M ad requests per month in Europe alone. This inventory can now be sold into the AdMob marketplace," adds Ashu Mathura, CEO and founder of MADS. "This is a landmark for MADS as we are forging a unique partnership marrying MADS premier ad technology platform with the world's leading mobile advertising marketplace."
About MADS
MADS (http://www.mads.com) enables advertisers to reach the perfect audience at the perfect time with the perfect message - anywhere! MADS powers the full mobile advertising value chain, enabling operators, publishers and advertisers to deliver highly targeted campaigns to mobile consumers. The MADS ONE product suite includes: ONE for Operators, to create, manage and monetise mobile inventory; ONE for Agencies, to plan, book and optimise campaigns; and ONE for Advertisers, to track real-time campaign performance analytics and reports. MADS ONE unlocks powerful new revenue streams for operators and publishers across all mobile channels including: mobile internet, SMS and MMS push/insert, mobile video, mobile games and applications, idle screen and ring back tones. MADS enables advertisers to deploy dynamic, interactive, highly targeted mobile ads to consumers with the same confidence and control as online ads.
MADS currently processes over 300 million ad requests per month in Europe, and is the mobile advertising platform of choice for more than 150 operators and publishers across 15 countries. MADS ad-enabled operators include KPN Netherlands, and Vodafone operators in the Netherlands, Romania, Hungary, New Zealand and Greece amongst others. MADS was founded in 2006 and is a privately held company based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Visit http://www.mads.com to learn more.
About AdMob
AdMob (http://www.admob.com) is the world's largest and highest quality mobile advertising marketplace, serving more than 4.6 billion mobile banner and text ads per month. Incorporated in April 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile Web and enables publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. AdMob makes it easy for publishers to monetise their mobile traffic and for advertisers to target and reach customers on the mobile Web in more than 160 countries.
AdMob has been named a 2008 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, one of Wired.com's 2008 Companies to Watch, and VentureBeat's MobileBeat 2008 Best Overall Mobile Startup / Best Mobile Infrastructure Company. To learn more about AdMob, visit http://www.admob.com/.

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Mobile Internet Usage on WiFi Widespread Across The US According to AdMob January 2009 Metrics Report

AdMob, the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace, today highlighted widespread mobile Internet usage on WiFi in the United States and strong growth in Western Europe in its January 2009 Mobile Metrics Report.

Consumer usage of WiFi to access the mobile Internet is widespread across the US. The West and Northeast experienced heavier WiFi usage by population than the South and Midwest in January 2009. The states that generated the most WiFi traffic are California with 18 percent, New York with 14 percent, and Texas with eight percent.
Other highlights from the January 2009 report:
· Worldwide requests increased 8 percent month over month to 6.8 billion, led by double digit growth in Western Europe and Asia.
· Traffic from Western Europe increased 132 percent in the last year to total 550 million requests in January 2009, with Spain and Italy growing the fastest.
· The iPhone is now the number one device by usage in Western Europe with 21 percent share of total requests. This strong share reflects dramatically higher mobile Web and application usage by consumers and AdMob's strength on this device.
· Nokia and Sony Ericsson are the number two and three manufacturers in Western Europe, with 22 percent and 17 percent share, respectively. Nokia continues to dominate the smartphone category with 11 of the top 15 devices.
· Windows Mobile has 5 percent share of market in Western Europe with only one device, the Samsung i900, in the top 15. Worldwide the Windows Mobile OS has 8% share of smartphone requests.

Visit AdMob's Metrics Report site (http://www.admob.com/metrics) to access the full January 2009 report, view past reports or to sign-up to get email notification when future reports become available.

AdMob stores and analyzes handset and operator data from every ad request in its network to optimize ad serving. Each month, the Mobile Metrics Report aggregates this data to provide insights into major trends in the mobile ecosystem.

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Siano Launches Low-cost Mobile TV Chip

Siano Launches Low-cost Mobile TV Chip
Siano Mobile Silicon, which makes Mobile TV chips, has announced the launch of a new, low-cost, multi-standard Mobile TV receiver chip, the SMS1140 - and the opening of new offices in Shenzhen in China.Siano says the chip offers a substantial price reduction compared with all existing market solutions, and supports the major global Mobile TV broadcasting standards, including DVB-T, ISDB-T and T-DMB. According to Siano, the chip enables consumer electronics manufacturers to upgrade every portable device that has a colour screen with a high performance Mobile TV feature, at a minor impact on the overall bill of materials.Siano adds that the SMS1140 opens up new market opportunities within the consumer electronics industry, particularly given the rising demand for Mobile TV convergence amongst PC makers, navigational device manufacturers and other entertainment device suppliers. By establishing a local presence in Shenzhen, Siano can directly market the SMS1140 from the heart of the world's consumer electronics capital. “So far, the reality in portable TV has been such that device makers either had to compromise on cost and get a quality receiver chip, or compromise on quality and pay less,” says Siano CEO, Alon Ironi. “The SMS1140 combines both state-of-the-art reception quality of the three most popular DTV technologies worldwide, at a groundbreaking price, opening up new commercial opportunities for Mobile TV within the consumer electronics industry.”

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Vodafone to Offer Microsoft Online Services

Vodafone to Offer Microsoft Online Services
Microsoft and Vodafone Group Plc have entered into an agreement under which Vodafone will offer businesses a single communications and collaboration solution composed of fixed and mobile voice and data, customer equipment and handsets, and Microsoft Online Services. Hosted by Microsoft and available through Vodafone in this offering, Microsoft Online Services delivers enterprise-class communications and collaboration software as subscription services to businesses of all sizes, including:
Microsoft Exchange Online for e-mail and calendars through the PC, phone and browser
Microsoft SharePoint Online for portals, collaboration, search and customized team sites
Microsoft Office Communications Online for instant messaging and presence
Microsoft Office Live Meeting for webconferencing and videoconferencing
Microsoft Online Services are available today in the US and will be available in other markets in the first half of 2009. Vodafone will initially offer the combined solution in Germany and Spain, beginning later in 2009. Following the German and Spanish launches, Vodafone will offer the solution in additional markets.“The demands on our customers are changing dramatically in today’s complex business and economic environment,” said Vodafone Group Global Business Services Director, Tom Craig. “By combining Vodafone’s fixed and mobile communication services with Microsoft Online Services, we can provide all the elements of a fully hosted communications solution, delivering the real benefits of agility, flexibility, productivity and choice that our customers are demanding.”With the Microsoft and Vodafone offering, business customers will be able to take advantage of Microsoft Online Services and Vodafone’s voice and data services in one, easy-to-manage solution. The fully hosted Vodafone and Microsoft services will, the companies say, help reduce routine maintenance and management tasks, allowing IT staff to concentrate on more business-critical objectives. Customers will be able to take advantage of the range of services offered, with one bill and one provider, making the experience fast, easy and effective.Vodafone will support the customer directly, while Microsoft will host Microsoft Online Services in its datacenters. “Today’s announcement is a significant step forward in our partnership with Vodafone,” says Martha Béjar, Corporate Vice President of the Communications Sector at Microsoft. “Through our work with Vodafone, we’re aiming to provide solutions for a growing number of businesses that are looking for new ways to control costs and do more with less, without impacting the productivity of their people, their most valuable asset.”Microsoft and Vodafone intend to continue to grow the partnership through future collaboration and development that will yield business solutions and capabilities that integrate Vodafone Voice Services and Virtual PBX, which will ultimately provide a fully converged fixed and mobile communications solution for businesses.

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Reliance Opts For Flytxt Neon

Leading Indian telco Reliance Communications, has deployed Flytxt’s ‘Neon’ mobile marketing software platform on its network. Neon features a sophisticated mobile CRM database and all the mobile applications required to conduct large-scale mobile customer engagement programs.With Flytxt Neon in place Reliance Communications will be able to leverage its existing business data and boost voice and VAS revenues through intelligent mobile marketing.Reliance Communications is a heavy user of mobile marketing and advertising, both for its own products, and for other companies. More than 50 well known brands in a number of market sectors, including FMCG, Finance, and Automotive, have benefitted from mobile marketing solutions on the Reliance network. Reliance has also won many awards for these initiatives, including the Cannes Lion in 2006, a Mobile Marketing Association Award in 2007, and a TM Forum Excellence Award in 2008.“Implementation of Neon System will give us a competitive edge in stimulating brand awareness and driving sales by reaching out to millions of customers in a cost effective manner through targeting,” says Reliance Communications Head of VAS Business & Marketing, Krishna Durbha.

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Report Analyses Impact of Downturn on Mobile Music

Juniper Research has published its report, ‘Mobile Music: Videos, Streamed, Full Tracks, Ringbacks, Ringtones & Downturn Analysis 2009-2013 (Fifth Edition)’, which looks at the mobile music market, offering strategic analysis and market breakdown across each of the key market segments, and assessing the impact of the current and future global economic downturn, with forecasts across eight key global regions until 2013.These include mobile music user numbers; mobile music service downloads (average and total number); the price paid for mobile music service (average and total); mobile music revenues & ARPU; and mobile music advertising revenues (scenario-based). The report examines:
What strategies should operators, vendors and aggregators employ to maximise their respective returns in the mobile music sector?
What are the prospects for the rental music market?
Are there further opportunities for growth in the ringtone market?
To what extent are current music content retail prices sustainable?
What impact has 3G had on the mobile music market?
What are the major hurdles to greater adoption of mobile music?
How has the mobile music value chain developed?
Who are the major players in the mobile music market?
With 70 forecast charts and tables, the report includes an analysis of the collapse of the ringtone market and detailed discussion of the various music delivery business models. It also profiles key players within the mobile music services market, including major record labels, operators, aggregators, handset vendors and applications providers. The report also considers the impact the iPhone has had on the market, as well as the various billing models for mobile music services and a number of strategic recommendations for network operators and vendors.The report costs £1,750 for a single-user PDF or hardback copy, £2,500 for a 2-5 user PDF licence; or £3,750 for an enterprise-wide PDF licence.

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