Mobile Marketing Forum: Carey Bunks SVP Yell.com Mobile
I met up with Carey Bunks SVP of Yell Mobile at the Mobile Marketing Forum and I told him that his presentation that he had given had been a bit basic. I said that he had focused on the ODP when at a marketing event perhaps he should have focused on the potential and the future.
He smiled at me and thanked me for my comments. He then offered me a more in-depth preview of Yell and a live demo. I gladly accepted and we spent 15 minutes together huddled over a Blackberry an N95 and two cups of tea.
Carey started off with a technical overview of Google Maps and where the competition was in the value chain in terms of Cell ID and Google Maps. I asked him if that was a model that could be replicated. He said, yes and then he whipped out his phone to show me a live demo of a the Yell service. I said, I have seen something really similar before and then it came to me - mobilePeople. He said, mobilePeople created the application but there were an arsenal of improvements on the way.
He told me some secret information that I can’t mention - but he did say something very interesting. He said, that Yell owned the advertisers and would be very hard to beat in the UK mobile market. He said that it would be virtually impossible for any other location based service to match or improve the Yell service - because the ad funded model is biased. When users have demands they want the first or nearest place and not the sponsored one.
Moreover, a sponsored only service would frustrate the market and that is where Yell’s competitive advantage would shine. That is also a reason why the directory market in mobile remains untapped and why Yell is the convincing leader.
Crikey. It’s funny how a presentation often doesn’t do justice to the mobile application and the reason why live demos are the vital.
What we think?
I do like the Yell application - it had evolved greatly since I first reviewed it nearly a year ago. But what excites is the cell ID. If Yell starts offering similar services to the UK market it will remove the demand for GPS devices and make location an overnight reality.
Related News:
Leave a Comment