The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is repositioning to enhance the its effectiveness at the global, regional and national levels, and to create additional membership benefits.

The MMA says the repositioning is based on a global maret assessment, and on feedback from a survey of members and non-member companies, across four regions, representing all players in the mobile marketing value chain. The objective was to identify ways that the organization could evolve to better meet members’ needs and provide greater visibility for the mobile marketing opportunity.

The repositioning also acknowledges the changing face of mobile marketing. “In its formative years, the MMA placed great emphasis on helping build a global industry, creating standards and guidelines to support the growth of a new industry,” says Federico Pisani Massamormile, the MMA’s Global Board chairman and interim CEO.

“In many ways, the need to act as evangelists for the mobile channel has evolved into to a need to get brands and agencies to increase spend on a channel they’re now aware of. Marketers understand the need to include mobile in their plans, but still need support to find the right role for mobile in the marketing mix. We aim to make mobile an indispensable part of the marketing mix.”

The repositioned MMA will concentrate its efforts on what it believes to be the five building blocks of the industry. It says it will:

• Promote the channel, the industry and individual member companies to brands and agencies in order to create more commercial opportunities for its members, demonstrating that membership creates a competitive advantage for companies.
• Educate brands, agencies and consumers about the full scale and scope of the mobile marketing channel, highlighting its advantages and benefits.
• Measure, by creating and developing authoritative measurement, metrics and insight into the size, growth, trends and effectiveness of mobile marketing.
• Guide, by continuing to create and develop guidelines, best practices and standards designed to ease the planning, purchase and implementation of mobile marketing.
• Protect the opportunity by representing the industry before regulators and legislators and by managing industry self-regulatory programs to maximize public and industry confidence in mobile marketing, lower barriers to entry and minimize non-economic costs of doing business.

“The MMA recognizes that the mobile marketing industry has evolved and therefore have refocused our efforts to meet member demands,” says Paul Berney, MMA CMO and managing director for EMEA. “This refocus on the five building blocks gives us greater clarity around the products and services we need to provide members to support them and to provide even more benefits.”

The MMA has also unveiled a new visual identity at the MMA Forum, which is taking place today in Sao Paulo.