Mobile Marketing Forum, Barcelona: more hard edged info please and input from consumers

by: admin Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Rating: looking back angers

Here we are, almost at the end of the conference with Incentivated’s Robert Thurner doing what he does so well – a snappy, informative presentation. There have been a number of them over the last couple of days, but there have also been some that rely on the ‘wow’ factor of what you can do on mobile – this not the right forum to impress the uninitiated; everyone in the room gets it already. Whether it’s down to laziness or a lack of anything solid to say, you KNOW who you are.

I am also sick to death of people looking back and comparing it to where we are now. We know all that stuff, we’re not 21. We lived and worked through the Internet becoming a mass medium and are not yet senile. I think I’ll vomit if I have to sit through another folksy look-back over someone’s career in this sector as a metaphor for how it has evolved. Evolution is clearly not entirely about the survival of the fittest.

I’d like to have heard from Google, which apparently is a member of the Mobile Marketing Association, but a silent one – presumably it just absorbs info and doesn’t give any away? Apple doesn’t think it needs to be here and I haven’t met a single media buyer or planner. Perhaps most importantly of all, where are the consumers with no vested interest? To some extent, this gathering is the industry talking to itself, as though repeating certain mantras will make them come true.

I know, I know, it’s early days and an immature market. I accept that the MMA is doing a very good, tough, job and, unlike many events, at least there is a good scattering of operators here. We’d all have liked to have heard more from Blyk about its new business model though.

Above all, mobile campaigns’ performances can be measured. The industry needs to exploit this and move, as Robert has just said, beyond advertising being about presence and interactivity to generating sales – and not just from downloads. That’s so Mobile 1.0 and you know what I think about looking back.