Mobile Viral Marketing: An Event Waiting to Happen
By Tony Davis, Executive Chairman, Cascada Mobile

The explosive growth of mobile devices from niche to mainstream in recent years has resulted in increasing interest by marketers in this lucrative market.

Mainstream marketers are only beginning to explore options in mobile. While the most common mobile marketing campaigns use SMS, in Europe and Asia numerous brands are also known to provide mobile content and applications to customers. This encourages customers to interact directly with traditional marketing campaigns and extends brand reach. SMS and MMS coupons, logos, ringtones and branded games and applications are all used to various degrees depending on the campaign and desired result.

As the capabilities of devices in the market increases, it makes sense to take a more serious look at branded games and applications as a marketing vehicle. The improved user experience and interactivity provided encourages a much more engaging relationship.

However, running a mobile campaign is not an easy task for anyone used to the openness and general homogeneity of the browser-based Internet. The fragmentation of devices and the closed nature of the carrier networks, at least in North America, requires a considerable learning curve for the uninitiated. Carrier, industry association and government-instituted restrictions on marketing campaigns can create roadblocks and hoops through which marketers must jump. From the consumer perspective, these restrictions are not a bad thing - unlike the Internet, every activity in mobile costs subscribers money and protecting the market from unwanted charges has merit.

Viral marketing has considerable value in the mobile market as it takes advantage of the inherent nature of cell phones as communication vehicles, enabling people to share information and content within circles of friends and colleagues. By adding a viral component to branded applications, marketers can significantly expand campaign reach.

An Untapped Market

The opportunity presented by mobile marketing is exceptional – especially when considering analysts estimates that by 2009 the global wireless market will top 2.3 billion subscribers [source: In-Stat].

For brand managers, reaching a fraction of those global users is a dream come true, especially since the majority are consumers with disposable income and comfortable sharing information of interest with friends and business colleagues.

A survey by SKOPOS on behalf of I-Play however, reveals that only five percent of consumers have downloaded any game to a handset, while only thirty percent of mobile subscribers are aware games can be downloaded to mobile phones.  The same research also states that the majority of subscribers that have never used a mobile application would download content if a friend recommended it. 

With this type of research, it is clear to see that consumers require simplicity when deciding to embrace new technology for the first time.  It also illustrates the tremendous potential for mobile viral marketing. 

Mobile devices represent a potential gold mine for marketers with an opportunity to engage both customers and prospects on an ongoing basis. Marketers are just beginning to explore the opportunities that are available to them. Mobile coupons, branded games and shortcode contests are only the beginning.

Roadblocks on the Path to Revenue Generation

The advantages of direct access to something as intimate and connected as a consumer’s cell phone are great.  There are, however, a few regulatory and carrier imposed hurdles to rolling out viral marketing programs. These hurdles range from incompatibility of devices to licensing fees and geographical limitations for content delivery. There are also concerns that ‘cross-pollination’ between various carriers and the devices that each offers would entail costly infrastructure upgrades, to which few are willing to commit.

Mobile viral marketing does, however, have the potential to overcome one key challenge that marketers faced when embracing the Internet as a marketing channel for the first time in the mid to late 1990s.  Companies that tried to use e-mail with any level of success were constantly challenged to find the appropriate balance between value to the recipient and pure marketing (or spam). While carriers and government bodies have already created strong policies against mobile spam, information that is referred by a colleague or acquaintance through viral mobile marketing may not fall into this category.  Customer privacy is however, a critical consideration and must be taken into account by marketers to ensure that mobile viral marketing does not run the risk of an early demise as the result of a few ill-considered missteps.

Delivering on the Opportunity

The mobile world remains a virtually untapped marketing territory. And although downloading of mobile content has been slow so far, this promises to change in the near future. 

When the technology becomes available to enable the seamless sharing of content across devices and carrier boundaries, marketers will be able to push product and/or messaging to an unprecedented number of users, at relatively little overall cost.  This will create opportunities for limitless exposure of a product or brand across consumer networks.

In addition, organizations such as the MMA and others are taking a proactive approach in finding business and technology models that address such critical areas as consumer privacy and protection, monetization of carrier networks and access to customers by marketers, among other regulatory/logistical hurdles.

The Bottom Line

The concept of viral or peer-to-peer marketing has been proven to be highly effective in achieving a critical mass for top selling brands. With the right technologies and systems in place, there are no limits as to the revenue this type of model can generate in the mobile world.  

When things go bad, before you blame the system check who was put in charge (and by who) to run it !

Psychus

You can find a good definition of viral marketing here.

I would like to focus on an example of viral marketing, that I had the fortune to experience in my youth.

My father, professor Nicolas Hontzeas, after having performed as violinist for the Canada Symphony Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony orchestra amongst other symphony orchestras (and having been a contributing member of Mikis Theodorakis’ and Manos Hajidakis’ Mikri Orchestra Athinon or in English, the Small Athenian Orchestra back in the sixties), and having taught for a while music in the University of Regina, opened the very first oversees branch of the National Hellenic Conservatory of Music in Montreal Quebec (it was located between 1975 and 1983 at the corner of Park Avenue and Fairmount Street in Montreal).

Having started with only a loan of 1000 dollars Canadian (which were lent to him by Mr. Spiros Papathanakos who was then the owner of Electra Furniture in Montreal Park Avenue; a great friend; I still keep in touch with his nephew Don who is like a brother to me and a succesfully wall street asset) professor Hontzeas offered the Montreal Greek community a serious option regarding hellenic folk music and classical music.

His first student, was a lad of Cretan descent named Kyriakos who wanted to study the accordion.

Kyriakos’ family were overjoyed at Kyriakos’ progress that they, by word of mouth, promoted their son’s progress to their closest kin, who came in as students (little Manos and the lovely miss Olga) and they being satisfied continued to promote their musical accomplishments to their friends.

Eventually, between 1975 and 1983 more than 20,000 students subscribed to musical studies at the National Hellenic Conservatory of Music (Montreal) including Leon and Tommy both now extremely succesful in their fields. In addition, the Conservatory’s folk orchestra contributed to a number of Canadian events including the 1976 Olympic games and received very favorable reviews as well as the documented thanks of the Quebec provincial and Canadian federal governments. The National Hellenic Conservatory of Music also kept a permanent staff of (in addition to professor Hontzeas) 7 qualified teachers and offered musical education of all instruments (except the Harp), Solfege,  and Harmony. Professor Hontzeas had also advanced degrees (from the National Hellenic Conservatory of Music Athens) in Counterpoint and Fugue (which he had studied under  Leonidas Zoras; a close family friend and a monument of Greek serious music).

When professor Hontzeas decided to close down the conservatory and move back to Greece, students kept on coming for enrollment and he had to turn them away (most of them were channelled to the McGill conservatory including the students that were still part of the National Hellenic Conservatory (Montreal) who wanted to continue their musical studies). Indeed before closing down the Quebec provincial government had offered professor Hontzeas the option of expanding into the French parts of Quebec, since Quebequers are known to excel in the violin (and also have a unique rich cultural heritage which includes music) and since the violin was one of the principal instruments taught at the conservatory (being professor Hontzeas’ principal instrument;he was a violinist and a first one at that having studied in Odio Athinon (Athens Conservatory) under the great Filoktitis oikonomidis), and in addition the government offered the option of subsidizing the conservatory so that extra french canadian teachers could be hired (professor Hontzeas was fluent in both English, and French). In addition a number of business people offered to buy the conservatory from professor Hontzeas since it was a succesful business with strong potential.

Professor Hontzeas due to the fact that he wanted to return to Greece, refused both offers sticking to the premise that he wanted to be remembered as the sole owner of the conservatory, and to keep his and the conservatory’s good name.

What made the National Hellenic Conservatory (Montreal) so succesful?

First of all there was a target market (the Greek community of Montreal who were eager to teach there children music, most of all greek music). Second a government that supported the arts, minorities and education (both the Liberal governments under Robert Bourassa/Prudhomme and the Parti Quebecois under the legendary Rene Levesque/Godin were strong supporters of both minority rights and the arts). Third, a quality offering that left the customer more than content and this quality offering was promoted by the students/parents themselves by word of mouth. Not one dime was spent on media promotion; there was no money to spend on such luxuries. Finally, a very pleasant environment that promoted teamwork and learning. Indeed when the conservatory closed down, tears were shed by staff, students and the local municipality.

So, if you’ve got a product and you feel there’s a market for your product, and you know its a good product, try it out first in your company with your employees and if goes well with them then you can be sure that sooner or later word of mouth will reach your customer base. They can after all trial your product at your premises…

ask Google !

Thanks Elina,

Beijing Olympic Gardens

Nice touch, China…

We need to remember, that when assessing any system, we need to review the marginal benefits vs the marginal costs and then the net result determines whether the system is working or is apt for reholstering.

Siemens and General Electric, are two corporate giants unique to the world of business and the market economy.

Chances are from the minute you wake up, when you flip the switch and turn on the light bulb, when you put the coffeepot on the stove, when you walk to your garage and turn on your car and open the electric garage door, or when you go down to the station and take the train, I can guarantee you that a large subset of the products and tools you use are made by one  (or both) of these companies.

Indeed,   Siemens and GE prove and support the overwhelming success of the capitalist (or market economy) system. They have made a difference in the way we live by facilitating and making it more efficient, and have provided tools for the betterment of our living standards.

Lets take communications.

Aside from our basic fixed telecom system (a remarkable achievement and the largest machine in the world!), we now have the uncanny ability to go anywhere in the world and stay connected through mobile communications (and this is nothing, you should see what’s coming our way…).

I mean, if you’re stranded in the middle of the 635 east freeway between Fort Worth and Dallas, at 2 am in the morning, it takes a push of button to get help.

Try that ’bout 40 years ago.

So the social benefits that have been offered by company greats such as AT&T (now Alcatel Lucent) and Motorola the creators of the cellular concept,by the great Bell Labs (the transistor, the laser/maser), by  LM Ericsson , by Nokia - Siemens, etc… must never be underestimated and taken for granted.

Now of course there’s abuse; I mean power has a tendency to intoxicate people (we are all humans after all; God is infallible) and people tend to abuse positions.

 Marx in his immemorable monument of a book “the capital” states that Capitalism has inherently the seeds of self destruction built within. Since power tends to intoxicate, greed takes over and people start misbehaving. One problem arises when these same people aside from indulging in their greed, also destroy the social (job loss, company closure, theft leading to destructive consequences for the corporation, the shareholders and the employees) and physical environment around them.

This issue, commonly referred to as the principle agent problem does not have at this point in time, a solution. The same applies for any person in power including political, corporate, religious etc.. This is an age old problem that was first addressed by Plato (I don’t remember in which dialogue) : “Who will watch the watchers“.

This problem applies to any human system not just capitalism. I mean we are dealing with people, not God, and people have weaknesses and are imperfect (the author of this blog even more so!!).

In the last thousand years or so, we haven’t as humans been able to come up, practically, with a better system than the market economy. This may not be necessarily good because as Voeblen stated a couple of years ago, the market system may, if left unchecked, eventually lead to economic chaos.

but that’s all we have for now… 

So yes there is hunger, yes there is inequality and injustice, yes were fuckin’ up the planet and yes there are wars.

But there’s less hunger than 100 years ago, there’s more awareness regarding the rights and responsibilities of all humans under the sun, and were learning how to take care of mother earth. So yes, things will get fixed both in the short and long terms.

There’s more people studying and education (and with  the power of education comes social responsibility) is making its way to the most difficult parts of our world.

Girl in Damascus studying while selling sweets

And if we’re better than our fathers, our kids will be   better than us and they’ll be able, through the net, to talk directly with their peers in the remotest parts of the planet.

No one wants a barren, wasted planet.

Global genocide

So don’t knock the system unless you’ve got something better to replace it with.

I haven’t seen any such thing yet, and believe me I’ve been around.

My God, they’re playing The Dark Knight at the theatre next to my house.

I mean, my hero, the Masked Manhunter, the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the BatMan is coming at a theatre near me.

Neat.

So mateys, hoist yer sails and its off to the Pirate Bay;

we have a rendezvous with The Dark Knight !!!!

The Bat Man

Hrisopigi Devetzi (Χρυσοπηγή Δεβετζή) scored another first by jumping 15,22 metres (triploun :triple) passing again the current world champion ,cuban Sabine.

 Hrisopigi (Χρυσοπηγή) before liftoff.

The scores are as follows :

Devetzi (Hellas) : 15,22m

Sabine (Cuba) : 15,15m

Hrisopigi Devetzi ( Χρυσοπηγή Δεβετζή) at touchdown