So that’s it, summer is officially over, the kids are all but back at school, and within days, the supermarkets will be clearing the shelves for the Christmas displays. But things have been anything but quiet in the mobile marketing world over the summer period. Time then, for a recap of what’s been happening these past few weeks…
There was plenty of activity on the campaign front. In Germany, YOC and Coca-Cola launched a mobile campaign for Coke’s Fanta brand, offering consumers free talk time, texts and downloads by texting in a bonus code found on promotional packs of Fanta.
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola Great Britain released the results of a mobile coupon campaign which ran in the UK during May and June, powered by digital voucher company, i-movo. The campaign gave away hundreds of thousands of bottles of Fanta, Sprite and Dr. Pepper, using secure digital vouchers delivered to mobile phones. Over 200,000 free drinks were distributed to almost 100,000 consumers, over the course of the 8-week campaign.
Another company celebrating the power of mobile marketing was live music restaurant group, Bistro Live. It released the results of an SMS campaign devised by Text Marketer, that aimed to increase bookings at its three venues. One campaign targeted 10,500 customers and resulted in 280 bookings, generating a spend of over £8,000, against a campaign cost of just £472. That’s what you call ROI.
No doubt encouraged by figures such as these, high street retailer Faith appointed Mobile Interactive Technology (MIT) to power SMS marketing campaigns to its opted-in database of 50,000 customers.
MIT also found time to team up with sister company 4th Screen Advertising to launch what the companies claim is the UK’s first premium Ad Insertion platform, allowing MIT’s messaging clients to monetise trailing ‘white space’ at the end of MIT SMS messages. Key benefits of the Ad Insertion Platform include real-time SMS advertising; an online tracking and reporting interface; and full text length parsing to maximise the range of advertising messages
Also active in the mobile advertising space were mKhoj, which announced a rebrand to InMobi to coincide with its European launch, and Buongiorno Marketing Services UK, which unveiled a Mobile Advertising division, representing premium inventory for publishers across Europe. Buongiorno Mobile Advertising will brands pan European planning and buying capability with local expertise via its international network, from a central London sales hub. In Pakistan, meanwhile, Warid Telecom announced a partnership with UK-based mobile media company 3rd Space to provide ad-supported mobile content for its 18 million subscribers.
Social networking was in the news, as UK mobile network Orange unveiled Social Life, a mobile social networking aggregator which brings together activity on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo in one place. Accessible from Orange’s mobile Internet portal, Orange World, Social Life allows customers to view and post updates and get in touch with friends and family across all three social networks at the same time, through a single log-in.
And finally, mobile transaction network mBlox rolled out a cross-operator Free to End User (FTEU) message service in the US. mBlox’s FTEU service enables businesses to communicate with consumers using SMS text messages which are entirely free of operator charges to the consumer. Describing it as a “ground-breaking business model for the US mobile messaging industry”, mBlox says that FTEI will allow content and service providers to absorb the cost of the messages on behalf of the consumer.
Not bad for a month when half the industry was on a sun-kissed beach or in a rain-drenched tent, depending on how their business was faring. Expect an even busier month in September as things return to normal. As ever, you know where to look to keep up with all the latest news.

David Murphy
Editor