Tomi Ahonen, a friend of MobHappy and mobile guru (see my interview here about his last book) has been waxing lyrically about LBM too, over at the Oxford Forum (free membership required).
Tomi is pretty dismissive about the traditional mall or High Street based channel, telling you about local deals. Up to a point, I agree with him, in that it’s only one aspect of what LBM is about and as I outlined in my post yesterday.
But he does give a vision about a scenario that would work, that I find convincing. Even more interesting for me is that his vision ticks off, one by one, the key IDEA elements that I identified as being vital to the success of an LBM campaign. Namely:
Information
Deals
Engagement
Advertainment
Over to Tomi:
Madonna performs at Yankee Stadium. She sells out the venue. All who attend, when they walk into the stadium get an MMS from Madonna, with her smiling on the Yankee Stadium stage, wearing this tour’s t-shirt.
She sends a custom ringing tone only available to fans who attended her concert. She sends a note thanking the fan [Engagement] for attending, giving a discount voucher [Deals]for her latest album (that the fan may forward if the fan has already bought the CD) and - here is the killer - she asks if the fan would like to join Madonna’s fan club for free, to receive future text messages and other communications from Madonna.
THIS is LBS advertising ! Only those who are inside the stadium get the ads, nobody on the outside. Only Madonna’s biggest fans have paid to get tickets to attend the concert. They will love it that she speaks directly to them. They will save these messages and ringing tones [Advertainment] and show to all of their other Madonna-fan friends who did not attend the concert. Look what Madonna sent me! And of course they all say yes to future direct marketing contacts by Madonna.
What happens six months later when Madonna releases her next CD? She sells it directly to these fans [Information]. How about her next concert tour? She sells out with one spam sms advertising the tickets to these hard-core fans.
Not only Madonna, but any bands, Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys, 50 Cent, Pussycat Dolls, whoever. Not only bands, but Football, Baseball, Rugby, Hockey, Formula One, Tennis what have you. Any event where the audience pays to attend, and it is held in a stadium. All of those will go to LBS advertising. It will be huge.
Only it won’t be the stupid walking on the street and suddenly your pocket beeps as the local grocer has milk on sale - type of LBS ads.
Since neither Tomi nor I read each other’s thoughts before we wrote our own, it’s interesting that we’re both on the same page - or certainly in the same chapter.
This is something publicity agencies are looking forward for some time now. The problem is that laws have to be made to allow this.
It not only must be, but should be, permission based. The scenario just has to start with a Call To Action on the ticket getting fans to sign up through a short code. A few more calls to action at the event will boost participation. It won’t be 100% but so what. Only those who want it, should get it.
Jonathan - sorry but this post was really a follow up to the previous 3 I’ve just written on LBM, when I made it absolutely clear that opt in was a pre-requisite to any form of mobile marketing.
I certainly wouldn’t condone anything that was spamming everyone in the vicinity and I’m sure Tomi wouldn’t either. The scenario I was thinking of assumed that prior permission had been granted before arrival at the venue ie at the time of ticketing. If people were told that Madonna wanted to send them a message on the night, I guess most people would sign up for it.
Russell
Permission and Preference based — absolutely! If I’m an Rugby, Football, Tennis, NBA, ESPN or MTV (premium?) info subscriber and I’m visiting a city were there’s a game or event scheduled that afternoon or evening (small venue or huge stadium) I definitely want a special offer or discount coupon delivered to be me (via my mobile device) based on my location. Tomi has it mostly right — but if I’m just walking down the street (Lactose intolerant or not) I’m still fair game to receive Location Based Marketing information and offers related to my location and declared preferences. In other words, if you’re gonna bug me, bug me about stuff I’m actually interested in — and if you’re bugging me about something I love, that’s happening near me in space and time — thank you!
Its interesting. UK law states that you can send one message unsolicited to someone if they are part of a group. For instance by sending a madonna related message to people in a venue going to see madonna is ok but not sending them something about Rolling Stones.
That single message is the only thing you can send like that you would then require some sort of action from the user to request more info or accept more message and spamming after that is fine - ofcourse if you keep offering them an opt out….
P
Pasa - thanks for the comment. What part of UK law permits unsolicited text messages like this? Would be interesting to find out and also what the rationale behind it was.
Russell
Hi Russell and fellow readers of Mobhappy
Thank you Russell for posting it. Yes, obviously I totally agree with the IDEA model and feel it can be tremendously successful, but not in that “first generation” concept, walking down the street or at the shopping mall, etc. But this “second generation” version of LBS spam ads, that it is tied to a venue where all paid to attend because they share the same interest.
I also posted about this at our common haunt - ForumOxford.com - where all readers of Mobhappy are most welcome to join us. We have in (addition to Russell and myself obviously) some 600 experts on mobile from over 60 countries talking about things mobile. Plenty of big name authors in mobile: Paul Golding, Ajit Jaokar, Mark Curtis, Alan Moore, plus all your favourite bloggers are there. If you haven’t joined - its free, will always be free as it is sponsored by Oxford University - you will need an “enrollment key” the first time, for which you can use the word “forumoxford”
(returning from the commercial break, to our regularly scheduled programming) Anyway, from that posting, I added the element that all professionals who develop mobile marketing campaigns, should adhere to. The concept you launch, should not be released to the public, until it is “sufficiently contageous.” This principle - coined by Fjord Networks CEO Mike Beeston - is the minimum requirement for any new mobile service, but in particular for any mobile marketing campaign. Sufficiently contageous means that the typical recepient of that service will like it so much, that he/she feels compelled to forward it to at least one further person.
Imagine yourself? How good does it have to be, that you feel moved to forward it to one of your friends. THAT is good enough. Not before. But when we reach that level, then the mobile marketing campaign (at least to its target audience) will transform from an annoyance to value. We WANT that kind of advertising.
Want an example? Stop over to ForumOxford ha-ha, where I write about the Nightlife Guide to the City, a mobile service launched in Finland a few years ago…
Russell (and Carlo) - keep up the excellent work, this is one of my must-read sites !!!
Dominate !
Tomi T Ahonen
blogsite http://www.communities-dominate.blogs.com
website http://www.tomiahonen.com