Who's Afraid of VoIP?
The potential challenges VoIP is going to face:
1. Govt wants to tax, but there is no way they can figure out how to Tax this. At threat is their huge influx from taxes on Voice Calls.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Product Review Cisco IPCC Enterprise
Cisco IPCC Enterprise pricing starts at about US$1,000 per agent and increases depending upon options and configuration
Cisco sells IPCC worldwide, but to date has found its greatest success in North America and in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. Although Cisco does not break out sales of individual products, it is estimated that about 20 percent of its approximately 1,700 installed IPCC systems are IPCC Enterprise -- the remainder being the more affordable small and mid-size contact center-focused IPCC Express
Cisco's IPCC Enterprise contact-center system is designed for contact centers with 150 or more agents
IPCC's outbound dialer supports preview, progressive or predictive dialing. IPCC's remote-agent functionality supports soft phone, screen-pop, and third-party call control. Cisco 7960, 7940, and 7910 IP phones are supported for use with IPCC Enterprise
Cisco sells IPCC worldwide, but to date has found its greatest success in North America and in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. Although Cisco does not break out sales of individual products, it is estimated that about 20 percent of its approximately 1,700 installed IPCC systems are IPCC Enterprise -- the remainder being the more affordable small and mid-size contact center-focused IPCC Express
Cisco's IPCC Enterprise contact-center system is designed for contact centers with 150 or more agents
IPCC's outbound dialer supports preview, progressive or predictive dialing. IPCC's remote-agent functionality supports soft phone, screen-pop, and third-party call control. Cisco 7960, 7940, and 7910 IP phones are supported for use with IPCC Enterprise
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Friday, August 20, 2004
Are Your Customers Lost in Translation:: Making Localised Websites
Are Your Customers Lost in Translation%3F
Essentially map everything to a DB ID. so for example phone is mapped to ID 91...and now ID 91 is translated to the language of the user. So if the user searches on phone in his language, you convert it to your ID and then use that ID to search...
Essentially map everything to a DB ID. so for example phone is mapped to ID 91...and now ID 91 is translated to the language of the user. So if the user searches on phone in his language, you convert it to your ID and then use that ID to search...
Yahoo joins Google. Starts Official Blog
Blogging is changing the way Companies are communicating to the outside world. And it is catching up.
Official blogs are:
1. Not a(n official) PR exercise. Not owned by marketing.
2. Mostly unregulated regarding the content.
3. An effective channel of communication aimed at the Company Watchers, and the customers.
4. A very effective tool for customers to give feedback on the product.
The value proposition is that suddenly you have not just the PR folks, but potentially all the employees writing about the company.
Check out how Google, Microsoft and now Yahoo are harnessing the power of blogging.
http://www.google.com/googleblog/
http://ysearchblog.com/
http://channel9.msdn.com/
A news article on Google's Blogging http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3352181
A news article on Yahoo's blogging: http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3397261
Regards
HimS
Official blogs are:
1. Not a(n official) PR exercise. Not owned by marketing.
2. Mostly unregulated regarding the content.
3. An effective channel of communication aimed at the Company Watchers, and the customers.
4. A very effective tool for customers to give feedback on the product.
The value proposition is that suddenly you have not just the PR folks, but potentially all the employees writing about the company.
Check out how Google, Microsoft and now Yahoo are harnessing the power of blogging.
http://www.google.com/googleblog/
http://ysearchblog.com/
http://channel9.msdn.com/
A news article on Google's Blogging http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3352181
A news article on Yahoo's blogging: http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3397261
Regards
HimS
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Trend in hosted Contact Centers
destinationCRM.com%3A Salesforce.com Integrates with White Pajama
1. In March Sales force partnered with White Pajama to offer Contact Center on demand
2. In Jan, Sibel bought ineto to offer contact center on demand along with its upshot edition.
All the contact center on demand solution work over VoIP. So the idea is to offer conact center on demand using VoIP.
1. In March Sales force partnered with White Pajama to offer Contact Center on demand
2. In Jan, Sibel bought ineto to offer contact center on demand along with its upshot edition.
All the contact center on demand solution work over VoIP. So the idea is to offer conact center on demand using VoIP.
Hosted solutions will not cannibalise on-premise deployments, but will open new markets : Siebel
destinationCRM.com%3A Siebel Acquires a Hosted Call Center Company: "Rudin does not expect existing licensed customers to abandon their existing on-premise environments for the hosted model%3A %22If I look at what happened with Siebel OnDemand hosted space%2C then the answer is%2C it will affect things very little. We just haven%27t seen any cannibalism of on-premise solutions because of OnDemand solutions. This will open up new markets for Siebel.%22"
destinationCRM.com%3A Contact Centers Begin the Switch to IP
destinationCRM.com%3A Contact Centers Begin the Switch to IP
1. Corporate VoIP market is expanding.
overall corporate spending on VoIP technology to rise from an estimated $1 billion this year to $5.5 billion by 2008.
2. Datamonitor, the global market for contact center component technology will grow to $5.1 billion by 2008, up from $3.6 billion in 2003. The report, entitled "Contact Center Component Technology to 2008," notes that "over the next five years...IP will overtake [time-division multiplexing] in the contact center."
3. the expansion of the "virtual contact center" may be the new vanguard
4. Existing deployments are also in the way. "Five to seven years ago there was a huge investment in contact center and CTI technology," Barr says. "And most of that stuff's depreciated by now. People have a pretty big investment in those [systems]. We're just getting to the point where those are being amortized. The pain threshold is disappearing."
1. Corporate VoIP market is expanding.
overall corporate spending on VoIP technology to rise from an estimated $1 billion this year to $5.5 billion by 2008.
2. Datamonitor, the global market for contact center component technology will grow to $5.1 billion by 2008, up from $3.6 billion in 2003. The report, entitled "Contact Center Component Technology to 2008," notes that "over the next five years...IP will overtake [time-division multiplexing] in the contact center."
3. the expansion of the "virtual contact center" may be the new vanguard
4. Existing deployments are also in the way. "Five to seven years ago there was a huge investment in contact center and CTI technology," Barr says. "And most of that stuff's depreciated by now. People have a pretty big investment in those [systems]. We're just getting to the point where those are being amortized. The pain threshold is disappearing."
Three compelling reasons for moving to VoIP
destinationCRM.com%3A 2004%3A The Year of VoIP
1. Move agents from office to home
2. The CTI integration is very messy
3. Switches are expensive
1. Move agents from office to home
2. The CTI integration is very messy
3. Switches are expensive
Mobile Marketing%3A WHR R WE NOW%3F%2C Part 2
Mobile Marketing%3A WHR R WE NOW%3F%2C Part 2
By Zachary Rodgers | June 28, 2004
Read part one of this story.
If you've seen any mobile marketing case studies at industry conferences, chances are they were pretty flashy. The wireless medium still occupies a science fiction-like fascination in our imaginations, and agencies are exploiting that fascination for utmost PowerPoint impact.
Robert Greenberg, chairman and CEO of R/GA Digital Studios, recently presented a mobile campaign for client Yahoo! that let people use their phones to play a racing game on a billboard in Times Square. A recent campaign from Nike sent phone users on a text-enabled scavenger hunt through the streets of Manhattan.
But beneath the veneer of flashy wireless implementations is a growing body of mobile marketing campaigns that, while perhaps more mundane, are also more reliable in terms of reach and ROI than their übercool counterparts.
What's Black and White and Read All Over?
While the creative possibilities are certainly more limited with SMS than with picture messaging or branded multimedia content, it's often the best bet for marketers eager to tap the huge reach available through wireless.
"There's a lot that you can do [with rich content], but you're not going to get a very large market. The addressable market gets really small, particularly as you try to do anything fancy where you need to take advantage of specific handset features," said Avi Greengart, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
The audience for SMS, on the other hand, is vast, numbering approximately 38 million in the U.S., according to Enpocket's Mobile Media Monitor survey. Greengart encourages marketers to use it as their wireless reach channel of choice.
Plus, Enpocket CEO Jonathan Linner says, the ROI on text can't be beat: "The ROI effectiveness of SMS is greater than any other [wireless channel]. You may pay .03 per message on SMS, while you need to pay considerably more to download a video, for example."
While campaigns with wild creative ideas, such as those trialed by Nike and Yahoo!, are often exciting for brands to try in the fetishized wireless space, they also tend to be complicated and lack a clear ROI.
"The results of these are very good, but the number of people who participate may be lower. Up to half of companies will choose a creative treatment in the U.S. which we will guarantee them will perform worse and be more expensive [than a tried and true campaign]," said Linner, who believes this predictable attitude is ultimately detrimental to mobile marketing, and to brands.
"People who do things that are more difficult are less likely to continue using the medium," he said. "If an agency says, 'We're going to do mobile, and we're going to do it for Coke,' they're going to want a very creative idea. They want the execs at Coke to be very excited, and they want to show the client that they're creative. When the results come back, they may not be so good. The agency will then be less likely to do something new, because Coke will want to see the previous results before signing off on something else."
Lars Becker, chairman and cofounder of Flytxt, is more accepting of the flashier campaigns.
"I think you need the fancy stuff to grab people's attention and push the envelope a little bit and consider experimenting," he said. "I think you need to keep on innovating and looking for new concepts. It's still quite a young and immature industry. Also, these campaigns help the industry from a PR perspective. They keep mobile marketing on the minds of the industry."
Specific Strategies
Whether marketers go with tried-and-true SMS or something fancier, engaging people in a conversation with a brand can be tricky. Most campaigns now are using many media to incentivize users to text in and start the relationship -- hence the proliferation of SMS sweepstakes, quizzes and voting on TV shows and product packaging.
"We're seeing a lot of cross-technology campaigns that use SMS to get in the door and from there urge people to download a graphic, ringtone or game," said Mobliss CEO Brian Levin. "We're finding the best success integrating mobile into an overall brand campaign." (Mobliss is a particularly strong presence on television, enabling voting on FOX's American Idol and The Jury.)
On-pack promos may be a familiar sight by year's end. AT&T Wireless has launched two major SMS short code promotions on Kellogg's cereal boxes and McDonald's to-go bags nationwide.
"After teaching America how to send text messages through our sponsorship of American Idol on FOX, we're turning our focus from prime time to meal time, and leading the evolution of mobile marketing in this country," an AT&T Wireless exec boldly claimed.
The emergence of five-digit short codes, which can now support cross-carrier campaigns, has also played an important part in streamlining SMS mobile campaigns. Wireless users find it easier to remember and text in to a short number that can be easily translated into word form. Universal Television, for example, launched a text-and-win promo using the number 94335 (WHEEL) during the airing of reality show "The Fifth Wheel." Mobliss and other marketers affirm short codes are getting easier to deploy, and more popular with advertisers.
List Rental and Privacy
Third party list rental is a somewhat dubious option for those desperate to advertise on phones. While it's becoming more commonplace -- mostly through user opt-ins from popular mobile communities such as Upoc -- experts say marketers are wise to doubt how well young consumers grasp what they've agreed to when they give consent to get offers from unknown vendors. Better to build an in-house list, or to build campaigns that are 100 percent user-initiated via calls-to-action in other media.
"In a lot of cases, the people who opt in to receive third party messages as part of a community service don't really understand what they're agreeing to," said Mobliss' Levin.
Indeed, privacy and permissions concerns will only grow from here.
Take the new SMS evidence in Kobe Bryant's trial: The judge last week asked AT&T Wireless to produce text messages four months after they were sent and deleted by the plaintiff in the case... and the company was able to do so. The remarkable thing here isn't that the outcome of a celebrity trial may be influenced by text messaging (though that is interesting), but rather that carriers keep data that long. If every SMS is similarly stored in a carrier database, the implications for consumer privacy are potentially huge (Though Sprint and Cingular have since said they don't keep deleted data). How is that data used? How is it protected? The answers have implications for marketers as well as basketball players.
Surprises like this one reflect how young mobile messaging is, despite recent steps forward in the marketing arena. We've only just begun to understand what works, what doesn't work, and the issues marketers may face as they look to take advantage of the medium.
By Zachary Rodgers | June 28, 2004
Read part one of this story.
If you've seen any mobile marketing case studies at industry conferences, chances are they were pretty flashy. The wireless medium still occupies a science fiction-like fascination in our imaginations, and agencies are exploiting that fascination for utmost PowerPoint impact.
Robert Greenberg, chairman and CEO of R/GA Digital Studios, recently presented a mobile campaign for client Yahoo! that let people use their phones to play a racing game on a billboard in Times Square. A recent campaign from Nike sent phone users on a text-enabled scavenger hunt through the streets of Manhattan.
But beneath the veneer of flashy wireless implementations is a growing body of mobile marketing campaigns that, while perhaps more mundane, are also more reliable in terms of reach and ROI than their übercool counterparts.
What's Black and White and Read All Over?
While the creative possibilities are certainly more limited with SMS than with picture messaging or branded multimedia content, it's often the best bet for marketers eager to tap the huge reach available through wireless.
"There's a lot that you can do [with rich content], but you're not going to get a very large market. The addressable market gets really small, particularly as you try to do anything fancy where you need to take advantage of specific handset features," said Avi Greengart, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
The audience for SMS, on the other hand, is vast, numbering approximately 38 million in the U.S., according to Enpocket's Mobile Media Monitor survey. Greengart encourages marketers to use it as their wireless reach channel of choice.
Plus, Enpocket CEO Jonathan Linner says, the ROI on text can't be beat: "The ROI effectiveness of SMS is greater than any other [wireless channel]. You may pay .03 per message on SMS, while you need to pay considerably more to download a video, for example."
While campaigns with wild creative ideas, such as those trialed by Nike and Yahoo!, are often exciting for brands to try in the fetishized wireless space, they also tend to be complicated and lack a clear ROI.
"The results of these are very good, but the number of people who participate may be lower. Up to half of companies will choose a creative treatment in the U.S. which we will guarantee them will perform worse and be more expensive [than a tried and true campaign]," said Linner, who believes this predictable attitude is ultimately detrimental to mobile marketing, and to brands.
"People who do things that are more difficult are less likely to continue using the medium," he said. "If an agency says, 'We're going to do mobile, and we're going to do it for Coke,' they're going to want a very creative idea. They want the execs at Coke to be very excited, and they want to show the client that they're creative. When the results come back, they may not be so good. The agency will then be less likely to do something new, because Coke will want to see the previous results before signing off on something else."
Lars Becker, chairman and cofounder of Flytxt, is more accepting of the flashier campaigns.
"I think you need the fancy stuff to grab people's attention and push the envelope a little bit and consider experimenting," he said. "I think you need to keep on innovating and looking for new concepts. It's still quite a young and immature industry. Also, these campaigns help the industry from a PR perspective. They keep mobile marketing on the minds of the industry."
Specific Strategies
Whether marketers go with tried-and-true SMS or something fancier, engaging people in a conversation with a brand can be tricky. Most campaigns now are using many media to incentivize users to text in and start the relationship -- hence the proliferation of SMS sweepstakes, quizzes and voting on TV shows and product packaging.
"We're seeing a lot of cross-technology campaigns that use SMS to get in the door and from there urge people to download a graphic, ringtone or game," said Mobliss CEO Brian Levin. "We're finding the best success integrating mobile into an overall brand campaign." (Mobliss is a particularly strong presence on television, enabling voting on FOX's American Idol and The Jury.)
On-pack promos may be a familiar sight by year's end. AT&T Wireless has launched two major SMS short code promotions on Kellogg's cereal boxes and McDonald's to-go bags nationwide.
"After teaching America how to send text messages through our sponsorship of American Idol on FOX, we're turning our focus from prime time to meal time, and leading the evolution of mobile marketing in this country," an AT&T Wireless exec boldly claimed.
The emergence of five-digit short codes, which can now support cross-carrier campaigns, has also played an important part in streamlining SMS mobile campaigns. Wireless users find it easier to remember and text in to a short number that can be easily translated into word form. Universal Television, for example, launched a text-and-win promo using the number 94335 (WHEEL) during the airing of reality show "The Fifth Wheel." Mobliss and other marketers affirm short codes are getting easier to deploy, and more popular with advertisers.
List Rental and Privacy
Third party list rental is a somewhat dubious option for those desperate to advertise on phones. While it's becoming more commonplace -- mostly through user opt-ins from popular mobile communities such as Upoc -- experts say marketers are wise to doubt how well young consumers grasp what they've agreed to when they give consent to get offers from unknown vendors. Better to build an in-house list, or to build campaigns that are 100 percent user-initiated via calls-to-action in other media.
"In a lot of cases, the people who opt in to receive third party messages as part of a community service don't really understand what they're agreeing to," said Mobliss' Levin.
Indeed, privacy and permissions concerns will only grow from here.
Take the new SMS evidence in Kobe Bryant's trial: The judge last week asked AT&T Wireless to produce text messages four months after they were sent and deleted by the plaintiff in the case... and the company was able to do so. The remarkable thing here isn't that the outcome of a celebrity trial may be influenced by text messaging (though that is interesting), but rather that carriers keep data that long. If every SMS is similarly stored in a carrier database, the implications for consumer privacy are potentially huge (Though Sprint and Cingular have since said they don't keep deleted data). How is that data used? How is it protected? The answers have implications for marketers as well as basketball players.
Surprises like this one reflect how young mobile messaging is, despite recent steps forward in the marketing arena. We've only just begun to understand what works, what doesn't work, and the issues marketers may face as they look to take advantage of the medium.
Mobile Marketing%3A WHR is US NOW%3F%2C Part 1
Mobile Marketing%3A WHR is US NOW%3F%2C Part 1Mobile Marketing: WHR R WE NOW?, Part 1
› › › Insights
By Zachary Rodgers | June 21, 2004
You know a nascent medium has gone mainstream when it's introduced as evidence in a celebrity trial, as has just happened to SMS in the United States. Kobe Bryant's defense team recently introduced "highly relevant" text messages sent by the plaintiff shortly after the athlete allegedly assaulted her. It's the first time in memory SMS has made the U.S. tabloids.
This interesting twist is unlikely to do much to advance the cause of mobile marketing, but it does suggest the U.S. wireless market is catching up to its elders in Europe and Asia, where SMS has long made headlines.
Mobile messaging is now commonplace in the States, and it's not going away. That marketers have started to recognize this is reflected in the new SMS and branded entertainment campaigns that are launching every day. Just today, AT&T Wireless, fresh from its success in the "American Idol" arena, announced marketing deals with Kellogg's and McDonald's.
The growing momentum of the medium makes this a good time for a primer on the devices, the companies and the strategies that are powering today's mobile campaigns.
Phones Usurp the Data Crown
That mobile marketing means reaching people on their phones wasn't always obvious. Not long ago, it was all about PDAs.
Marketers have for several years successfully targeted PDA-owners with interactive campaigns resembling traditional banner deployments more than anything else. Not long ago, these campaigns were held up as the shining examples of "mobile" marketing, whereas marketing to phones was considered a dubious venture at best -- in part because of small, black-and-white screens and phones with limited computing ability. Now, the fate of pure-data devices (and the campaigns run in them) is questionable in an age when voice and data can easily coexist in one handset -- a handset with a bigger color screen and enhanced computing abilities.
As smarter phones proliferate, the market is experiencing a weakened adoption of handsets that lack voice capability. IDC and Gartner both predict worldwide sales of PDAs will remain flat at about 10 or 11 million devices a year for the next few years. Sony recently said it's scaling back its Clie line of handhelds in the U.S., and will ultimately phase it out entirely. Last year saw the shuttering of Mazingo, a company that designed video for PDAs. And formerly PDA-focused content provider AvantGo has realigned its strategy around the ubiquitous mobile phone.
It's understandable things should shift in the direction of phones. Jupiter Research numbers PDAs in the U.S. at 14 million, versus approximately 160 million wireless phones, according to Enpocket. That means 53 percent of the country's adult population is carrying around one of these devices.
The growth of smarter phones, in the U.S. and the world over, has naturally drawn marketers to the mobile medium. In certain countries, such as Japan and the U.K., wireless marketing has become commonplace. As Jupiter Research analyst Avi Greengart puts it, "You can't pick up a U.K. magazine targeted at anyone under 50 without seeing [ads inviting readers to text]."
Advertiser pick-up has been slower in the U.S.
"I think the general consensus of people in the U.S. a year ago was that mobile marketing is Europe, and we're not Europe," said Jonathan Linner, CEO of mobile marketing firm Enpocket. "The attitude was that it wouldn't catch on here, that the U.S. was very different from the rest of the world."
Yet after the abortive attempts to jumpstart the American mobile marketing scene, wireless evangelists are finally reporting successes here. Enpocket says it is running approximately 30 wireless campaigns a month in the U.S. -- some national and some international. ClickZ obtained similar numbers from marketing firm Mobliss.
Enpocket's recent Mobile Media Monitor survey backs up these reports with convincing usage numbers. It found that 2 percent of U.S. cell phone users have texted to a number on product packaging, 1.3 percent to an advertisement, 1.6 percent to a TV show, 1.1 percent to a magazine and .7 percent to a radio show.
"In Europe we're seeing a lot of great campaigns, the results of which are constantly making their way over here," said Brian Levin, CEO of wireless entertainment and marketing firm Mobliss. "Brands now feel they have to get into wireless."
Major advertisers to invest in wireless include Coke, Levi's, the U.S. Air Force, McDonald's, Doritos, Volvo, Fox, Universal Pictures, Expedia and, it would seem, half a dozen beer brewers. The list is getting longer all the time.
The British Invasion
U.S. mobile campaigns are frequently run by British companies that have set up operations here: companies like Acotel; Flytxt, now officially operating out of an office in Seattle; and Enpocket, a U.K.-founded firm with a hand in regional markets ranging from Japan to Finland. Homegrown players M-Qube and Mobliss are two exceptions to the "outsiders rule" rule. (But then, Mobliss was just acquired by a Japanese firm focused on branded wireless content.)
The British and Japanese bring a deep knowledge of what has worked and what hasn't in more advanced mobile markets. Conventional logic says the U.S. is two years behind Europe and four years behind Asia, and therefore experienced multinational marketing firms are better positioned to lead the U.S. market than are American startups, which lack the benefits of experience. These companies are also very hungry to start selling in the U.S., which represents a much larger pie than their native markets, in terms of marketing dollars.
Yet the influx of British and Japanese brainpower is a somewhat bitter pill for American agencies, which have tended to lead innovation within emerging media channels. According to some, this has created occasional problems for the pushers of mobile marketing services, since interactive and traditional agency heads at times almost seem upset not to have pioneered the medium.
"Traditionally, the U.S. leads most media. In this medium, because it didn't lead it, you almost felt a pushback from agencies. When you'd go and talk to them, they were almost unhappy at the advances in Europe and Asia," said Linner.
That reticence has been steadily overcome, however, as marketers let their media strategies (and budgets) give way to the reality of vast SMS and mobile data use. So what sorts of campaigns are marketers trying, and what's working best? Part two of this story will address these questions.
› › › Insights
By Zachary Rodgers | June 21, 2004
You know a nascent medium has gone mainstream when it's introduced as evidence in a celebrity trial, as has just happened to SMS in the United States. Kobe Bryant's defense team recently introduced "highly relevant" text messages sent by the plaintiff shortly after the athlete allegedly assaulted her. It's the first time in memory SMS has made the U.S. tabloids.
This interesting twist is unlikely to do much to advance the cause of mobile marketing, but it does suggest the U.S. wireless market is catching up to its elders in Europe and Asia, where SMS has long made headlines.
Mobile messaging is now commonplace in the States, and it's not going away. That marketers have started to recognize this is reflected in the new SMS and branded entertainment campaigns that are launching every day. Just today, AT&T Wireless, fresh from its success in the "American Idol" arena, announced marketing deals with Kellogg's and McDonald's.
The growing momentum of the medium makes this a good time for a primer on the devices, the companies and the strategies that are powering today's mobile campaigns.
Phones Usurp the Data Crown
That mobile marketing means reaching people on their phones wasn't always obvious. Not long ago, it was all about PDAs.
Marketers have for several years successfully targeted PDA-owners with interactive campaigns resembling traditional banner deployments more than anything else. Not long ago, these campaigns were held up as the shining examples of "mobile" marketing, whereas marketing to phones was considered a dubious venture at best -- in part because of small, black-and-white screens and phones with limited computing ability. Now, the fate of pure-data devices (and the campaigns run in them) is questionable in an age when voice and data can easily coexist in one handset -- a handset with a bigger color screen and enhanced computing abilities.
As smarter phones proliferate, the market is experiencing a weakened adoption of handsets that lack voice capability. IDC and Gartner both predict worldwide sales of PDAs will remain flat at about 10 or 11 million devices a year for the next few years. Sony recently said it's scaling back its Clie line of handhelds in the U.S., and will ultimately phase it out entirely. Last year saw the shuttering of Mazingo, a company that designed video for PDAs. And formerly PDA-focused content provider AvantGo has realigned its strategy around the ubiquitous mobile phone.
It's understandable things should shift in the direction of phones. Jupiter Research numbers PDAs in the U.S. at 14 million, versus approximately 160 million wireless phones, according to Enpocket. That means 53 percent of the country's adult population is carrying around one of these devices.
The growth of smarter phones, in the U.S. and the world over, has naturally drawn marketers to the mobile medium. In certain countries, such as Japan and the U.K., wireless marketing has become commonplace. As Jupiter Research analyst Avi Greengart puts it, "You can't pick up a U.K. magazine targeted at anyone under 50 without seeing [ads inviting readers to text]."
Advertiser pick-up has been slower in the U.S.
"I think the general consensus of people in the U.S. a year ago was that mobile marketing is Europe, and we're not Europe," said Jonathan Linner, CEO of mobile marketing firm Enpocket. "The attitude was that it wouldn't catch on here, that the U.S. was very different from the rest of the world."
Yet after the abortive attempts to jumpstart the American mobile marketing scene, wireless evangelists are finally reporting successes here. Enpocket says it is running approximately 30 wireless campaigns a month in the U.S. -- some national and some international. ClickZ obtained similar numbers from marketing firm Mobliss.
Enpocket's recent Mobile Media Monitor survey backs up these reports with convincing usage numbers. It found that 2 percent of U.S. cell phone users have texted to a number on product packaging, 1.3 percent to an advertisement, 1.6 percent to a TV show, 1.1 percent to a magazine and .7 percent to a radio show.
"In Europe we're seeing a lot of great campaigns, the results of which are constantly making their way over here," said Brian Levin, CEO of wireless entertainment and marketing firm Mobliss. "Brands now feel they have to get into wireless."
Major advertisers to invest in wireless include Coke, Levi's, the U.S. Air Force, McDonald's, Doritos, Volvo, Fox, Universal Pictures, Expedia and, it would seem, half a dozen beer brewers. The list is getting longer all the time.
The British Invasion
U.S. mobile campaigns are frequently run by British companies that have set up operations here: companies like Acotel; Flytxt, now officially operating out of an office in Seattle; and Enpocket, a U.K.-founded firm with a hand in regional markets ranging from Japan to Finland. Homegrown players M-Qube and Mobliss are two exceptions to the "outsiders rule" rule. (But then, Mobliss was just acquired by a Japanese firm focused on branded wireless content.)
The British and Japanese bring a deep knowledge of what has worked and what hasn't in more advanced mobile markets. Conventional logic says the U.S. is two years behind Europe and four years behind Asia, and therefore experienced multinational marketing firms are better positioned to lead the U.S. market than are American startups, which lack the benefits of experience. These companies are also very hungry to start selling in the U.S., which represents a much larger pie than their native markets, in terms of marketing dollars.
Yet the influx of British and Japanese brainpower is a somewhat bitter pill for American agencies, which have tended to lead innovation within emerging media channels. According to some, this has created occasional problems for the pushers of mobile marketing services, since interactive and traditional agency heads at times almost seem upset not to have pioneered the medium.
"Traditionally, the U.S. leads most media. In this medium, because it didn't lead it, you almost felt a pushback from agencies. When you'd go and talk to them, they were almost unhappy at the advances in Europe and Asia," said Linner.
That reticence has been steadily overcome, however, as marketers let their media strategies (and budgets) give way to the reality of vast SMS and mobile data use. So what sorts of campaigns are marketers trying, and what's working best? Part two of this story will address these questions.
This Week%27s Agenda%3A SMS SOS%3F
This Week%27s Agenda%3A SMS SOS%3F: "There are still hurdles. Though European carriers share SMS messages seamlessly%2C U.S. carriers don%27t work and play well together. Some SMS messages can take days to reach their destinations."
Study%3A SMS Marketing to Take Off
Study%3A SMS Marketing to Take Off: "Mobile marketing might be a relative non-entity in the U.S.%2C but it%27s posed to rival the present businesses in Europe and Asia within four years%2C according to a recent study by Jupiter Research.
However, by 2006, wireless marketing in the U.S. will match both Europe and Asia, with the growth driven primarily by campaigns launched by consumer packaged goods producers and fast food restaurants"
However, by 2006, wireless marketing in the U.S. will match both Europe and Asia, with the growth driven primarily by campaigns launched by consumer packaged goods producers and fast food restaurants"
SMS research
Enpocket - Mobile media%2C technology and consulting services %28SMS%2C MMS%2C 3G and WAP%29
A potential partner/competitor in US
A potential partner/competitor in US
Mobile Phones Move Beyond Voice
Mobile Phones Move Beyond Voice: "Enpocket currently estimates mobile phone penetration at 53 percent of the U.S. adult population."
Mobile Phones Move Beyond Voice
Mobile Phones Move Beyond Voice: "Enpocket currently estimates mobile phone penetration at 53 percent of the U.S. adult population."
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