WOMMA Home / The WOMMA Word / November 2007 / WOMMA/Summit - Day 2: WOM Everywhere: Can Mobile Drive WOM?

WOMMA/Summit - Day 2: WOM Everywhere: Can Mobile Drive WOM?

This session seeks to answer how mobile devices can drive advocacy, action and conversational marketing.

Moderator: John Bell, Managing Director/Executive Creative Director 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR

Panelists:

* Kevin Granath, VP, Ansible Mobile
* Felicia Hill, Engagement Marketing, Virgin Mobile
* Scott Kelliner, Manager, Sugar Mama program, Virgin Mobile
* Chase McMichael, CEO, UnBound Technologies

Points of note:

* There is tremendous growth in the use of mobile technology in social media - in Japan a phone can be used to make purchases, t-shirts list numbers to text to take certain actions, and much more

* Diverse usage - everyone is engaged, with significant variations by market within the U.S and the European Union

* As many as 10% of mobile subscribers create/share content, with a 96% annual growth in photo messaging and a 137% growth in video messaging since '06

* Kelliner says Sugar Mama is based on an exchange between watching short online spots, rating them and providing feedback, and receiving a minute of airtime in exchange for a minute of the mobile engagement

* Hill said that two years ago, Virgin Mobile created a month-long text-based story (160 character limit) about a homeless youth that was considered a success, considering that participation wasn't free

* McMichael said that enabling users to use short codes across carriers was an important marketing development

* McMichael said that UnBound Technologies was able to map SMS usage to who messaged whom and through that see consumer affinity, which helped identify influencers and thus enabled being able to incentivize them

* McMichael said that viral widgets are mobile and are going to

* Granath notes that mobile extends the potential for WOM on a 24-hour day consumer basis (e.g. in the morning for getting news, at home in the evening for getting TV and movies information/interaction)

* How comfortable are customers with paying for participation in SMS campaigns? If the value proposition is strong, people are willing to pay.

Add the First Comment

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

Your URL:

Your Comment:

Your comment may need to be approved by the site owner before it can be published. We appreciate your patience. Please note that in the interest of full disclosure, we do require all posters to include their full name with their comments. Thank you for joining the conversation!