One of the recurring themes at MobHappy is the slow death of traditional interruptive marketing, where people are forced, by various means, to stop what they are doing to listen to a marketing message.

Of all the techniques practiced, there can be few more interruptive marketing methods than telephone marketing - where someone phones you while you’re having supper to woodenly read you a script about one of their double glazing “consultants” being in your area and would just love to visit and tell you all about their products.

So it’s hardly surprising to anyone that the UK’s Telephone Preference Society (TPS) has reached the 10 million mark (via Brand Republic, free reg required). The TPS, despite its euphemistic name, simply allows people to opt out of all telephone marketing calls.

To put this into perspective, there are about 22 million households in the UK, which means that nearly half of them have expressed this preference now. I will qualify that slightly by saying that you can also opt out mobile numbers and I don’t have any information on the split, though I will ask and write an update if the info is available. Gut feel says it’ll be a fairly small number though.
UPDATE: It is actually only 3.3% of the file, so the argument holds. Phew!

A further interesting little nugget in the same article is that a recent Mori poll found that awareness of the TPS had risen to nearly 50%. Spelling this out, it means that practically everyone who knows about it, registers.

This is clearly a big worry for outbound call centres, who were recently outraged when BT started to actively promote their Privacy Service, which includes a big plug for the TPS. Registration has indeed increased following BT’s initiative, which seems to be supporting the theory that everyone who finds out about it, joins.

A nice bit of additional irony to consider is that the TPS is paid for by the direct marketing industry themselves - there’s no government subsidy or anything. Therefore, the industry is facing rapidly increasing costs in the face of a rapidly decreasing pool of customers it can piss off approach - and I assume rapidly decreasing profits. There must come a point (maybe two years away) when the economics dictate that this is a dead industry.

So if you run an outbound call centre, you really should change your model pretty quick now. The writing is on the wall - people don’t like your service and feel so strongly about it that they’ll overcome their natural inertia and do something about it.

For other traditional marketers, it’s also a clear indication of the way the winds are blowing in modern marketing. People don’t want to be interrupted anymore and your only hope is engagement marketing - a term you’re going to hear a lot more in the future.

One of the supposed motivations for Vodafone’s massive buying spree a few years back was so it could build the biggest economy of scale in the industry, and get the best prices for network equipment and handsets through common sourcing. Another was so that it could take innovations in one country and apply them around the rest of its networks. This was the case with Japan, where Vodafone used the J-SKY content system of J-Phone (now Vodafone Japan) as the basis for its Vodafone live! platform.

But James Enck points out how the company was touting at its recent analyst day that it can innovate in local markets with services and offers to meet particular cultures or needs (like what’s happening in Africa and other emerging markets), using its success in Egypt as an example.

While Vodafone may be doing well in that emerging market, its long-running struggles in Japan are well documented. One significant factor in its downturn was that Vodafone tried to push foreign handsets with subpar features there, and failed badly. So while Vodafone says it can tailor innovation in Egypt, its Japanese operation languishes after the home office tried to fit it with a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Perhaps Vodafone’s learned from its Japanese experience and is giving its local managers more autonomy. But, in a sign that old habits die hard, it continues to eye acquisitions.

Via Tom Hume is a review of the recent Mobile Content World conference on Mo:Life. Tom points out two juicy bits from the lengthy review, which has a pretty comprehensive explanation of how the advertising industry, by and large, doesn’t get mobile at all.

To sum up Jason Wilson’s three main points: the ad industry doesn’t get it; they don’t know what to do; this upsets them. “The naff and/or derivative nature of much of what was forwarded as innovative mobile campaigns underscores the structural problem the advertising industry is still encountering vis-à-vis media which don’t allow them to simply pump ads through to the audience,” he adds.

Anybody that follows the mobile industry needs to be pretty adept at deciphering doublespeak (and a well-tuned BS detector helps too). But this quote is off the charts. Gizmodo points out how a Nokia spokesman explained the delay of the N91 music phone:

“‘The process of integrating Windows digital rights management solution into the phone happened faster than expected,’ the spokesman said. ‘We have therefore decided to delay the launch so that we can provide a better service.’”

Color me confused. Reuters has a little better one from somebody else, that pretty much sounds like it contradicts the first one: “What we basically decided is that we will postpone it a few weeks, push it out to Q1 and do this Microsoft DRM implementation solidly.” Hmm. That doesn’t really clear things up, either.

In any case, implementation of the Microsoft DRM is the sticking point. This is the DRM licensed in a deal announced back in February, a few months before the N91 was announced. It’s hard to believe Nokia’s had this much trouble getting the DRM to work on its Series 60 software, but if it is such a pain, why use it at all?

As Gizmodo also mentions, the pretty horrible reception the ROKR has gotten seems a more likely culprit. But if the N91 is as good as Nokia wants us to think, why not bring it out according to plan and essentially say “this is how it should be done”?

Image from Buzzword, the board game.

Paul Whitaker at MyPhoneRocks dot com highlights an interesting quote from Steve Jobs regarding the ROKR:

“We see it as something we can learn from. It was a way to put our toe in the water, and learn something.”

It’s really beginning to sound like the ROKR’s more about Apple feeling its way into the phone game than it is about Motorola creating a good device.

Om Malik links to the Microsoft press release announcing a new reorganisation at Redmond. Scoble has a bit more - especially in the comments.

While the announcement is suitably upbeat, as you’d expect, I think it does show that senior management know something is wrong, but aren’t quite sure what it is or what to do about it. The reorg establishes 3 divisions; Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division, Microsoft Business Division and Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division.

‚ÄúThese changes are designed to align our Business Groups in a way that will enhance decision-making and speed of execution, as well as help us continue to deliver the types of products and services our customers want most,‚Äù said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “By bringing together the software experience and the service experience, we will better address the changing needs of our customers‚Äô digital lifestyles and the new world of work.‚Äù

The mobile part, in case you were wondering, is in the devices bit - but they had to stick it somewhere, I guess.

This doesn’t seem to address how the world is fundamentally changing though; open source, thin client, web services, mobile - the combination being what I call Mobile 2.0, but many people still refer to as Web 2.0.

While Microsoft may be able to make faster decisions now, this doesn’t really help if their framework and strategy is fundamentally flawed. They’re not only paddling their canoe in the wrong direction - they’re paddling up the wrong river.

Trip Hawkins is a mythical figure in the video game business, having founded Electronic Arts more than 20 years ago. His latest venture is Digital Chocolate, which he hopes will become the EA of mobile games. I don’t pay a ton of attention to mobile gaming, but I find Hawkins’ thinking to generally be good stuff. He’s quoted over RCR News, talking about some new DC games that eschew fancy graphics and gameplay for social connection.

There’s a market for high-quality mobile gaming, just ask Sony. But as Hawkins points out, it’s probably not on the mobile phone. While it’s certainly possible to make some very graphically slick games on phones, the PSP, or whatever, is always going to be slicker. But the phone is still a relatively unique platform in that it offers a constant network connection, and that’s where it can make up the difference.

What Digital Chocolate’s thinking sounds like casual games meets multiplayer, and an interesting facet here is that these types of games probably won’t appeal to your hardcore 15-year-old boy gamer — but that’s sort of the point. These are the kinda of games that will have a much wider appeal. Flashy? No. Successful? I’d predict yes.

160 Characters posts the results of a survey that found just 17% of UK mobile phone owners use their devices for anything other than texting and calling — on a daily basis. Somehow that’s not as surprising as the headline made it out to be. In any case, the company behind the survey says “although the services may be clearly explained in accompanying manuals, users often do not understand the purpose of additional services and therefore do not feel any need to learn how to use them.”

Usability is a big problem, though I think they’re overstating the importance of the manual — does anybody read them anymore? The part to focus on there is “users often do not understand the purpose of additional services”. Part of that’s a marketing problem, where telecoms too often focus on marketing technologies rather than services, like MMS or WAP. But the real problem is that users aren’t being presented with a whole lot of data services and applications they find compelling. I’ll use of of Russell’s favorite examples here: video calling. Video calling’s failed to catch on, not because people don’t understand it, but because they’re not interested in it. And so it goes with many other services, particularly carrier-supported ones.

An operator should look at this figure and think, “gee, there’s a whole lot of room for growth there.” Then, they need to figure out how to make it happen — by creating a better ecosystem for developers and content providers.

As an aside, to lump daily SMS use in with calling masks its widespread use for data and services. Remember, it’s a platform, not just and application.

MobiTV have announced their subscriber figures, according to Moco News. Across a network consisting on a few US and Canadian carriers, and Orange in the UK, they’ve reached 500,000 people. If the average subscription price is $9.99, this is going to be quite a healthy income, especially given that it’s still early days.

Of course, in percentage penetration terms, this is still tiny and we also don’t know what kind of free and subsidised trial packages might be included. Plus it’s too early also to come up with any meaningful churn rates.

Personally, I’m extremely sceptical about subscription-based mobile TV as a business model, especially at the $9.99 level. But if they have the potential to attract and keep viewers in the millions, it’s not out of the question to see advertising subsidised services emerging.

The other element everyone always overlooks when thinking about new services and products is the percentage of people who say they’ll subscribe or buy, pointing to things like “only 25%” said that they will. The percentage isn’t actually that important (up to a point, obviously) provided that the ones indicating an interest really mean it and are really passionate about it.

As a parallel, if you do focus groups on new car design, you’d think that intuitively you be looking for a design that was liked by the most number of people. This is wrong. What you actually need is a design that is loved by 10% to 30%, with the rest feeling ambivalent or actually hating the car. It’s the people with the passion who actually will go out and buy your product.

Clearly MobiTV has a long way to go before it commands anything like 10% of the subscriber base as customers. But, if accurate, this is a certainly good start.

Me? I’m still wary about this service and business model (certainly at this pricing), but I could be wrong - there’s enough companies placing big bets against me, so maybe it has some kind of future after all.

Mocoblog points out some idiocy from Verizon’s SuperPages directory service: a press release announcing that Verizon Wireless subscribers — for 30 cents each — can get directory information, movie times and weather for casts via text message.

So, let’s just briefly review for those of us that have missed Google SMS, Yahoo SMS, 4info and all the other similar services.

Verizon Superpages SMS:

- phone directory information, movie showtimes, weather

- easy-to-remember shortcode (SUPER)

- available only on Verizon Wireless

- 30 cents per message

Google SMS:

- directory information, movie showtimes, weather, driving directions, stock quotes, product prices, dictionary definitions, Google answers, calculator, area code lookup, zip code lookup, Google search results

- easy-to-remember shortcode (GOOGL)

- available on all major US carriers

- free

As Mocoblog says, compared to the $1.50 or so a Verizon Wireless sub would pay for a 411 call, it’s a bargain. But this smacks of old-school telco thinking: sure, it’s great idea to have an inferior product, available to a smaller market, up against a far superior free one with wider availability. I guess they think Google’s one of those fly-by-night dot-coms that will be gone in a little while anyway.