Kristine van Dillen joined the Mobile Marketing Association in 2008. In her role,Kristine facilitates the global initiatives of the MMA including coordinating and publishing guidelines,best practices and educational tools for mobile media and marketing. In her previous position as Director,Product Development at Vindigo,a mobile applications developer,Kristine managed the development of downloadable applications including MapQuest Mobile and MovieGoer. Prior to that,Kristine was working with Accenture in the Communications Industry business unit.
GPS Business News:Can you briefly introduce us to the MMA?
Kristine van Dillen: The MMA is a non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing. We have more than 700 member companies,representing over forty countries around the globe. Our members span out the whole mobile media ecosystem.
GPS BN:You will be speaking at the forthcoming Metaplaces conference about profiling and location-based advertising. What is the key message you want to convey to the attendees?
KvD:As a trade association our focus is on growing the mobile marketing and mobile advertising markets;to reach this goal we need to ensure that consumers want to engage with marketers which means a certain amount of restraint from the marketer’s side. This is why the MMA published a global code of conduct in July 2008 which has regular updates. The code has five pillars which are Notice,Choice &Consent,Customization &Constraint,Security,and Enforcement and Accountability. I will not detail each of these five categories now,but the whole idea is to provide mobile marketers with privacy principles.
KvD: Sure. If we talk about the “notice” category –which is informing the consumer about the terms and conditions of the marketing program –then a location-based ad program should clearly disclose for which purpose the location is used and captured. Now if we talk about the “security” category,the marketer should make sure that the user’s location is protected from unauthorized use,third party access,etc.
As you can understand the code of conduct is not detailing specific rules,it is much more a framework to self-regulate the mobile marketing industry and ultimately make sure that consumers are at ease with these marketing programs.
GPS BN: In terms of location accuracy and profile data what do you think is really needed by advertisers and what is not?
KvD: We have not yet set rules at that level. In an ideal world the consumer would know exactly the level at which he wants to share his personal information with a brand. The consumer should have full control of that. There are still questions in the market place about what information is very sensitive and what is not. And also don’t forget that local laws are still defining that.
What advertisers need in terms of location accuracy and profiling also varies from one campaign to another. For example the need is very different between a campaign in which the goal is to drive consumers into stores and another where the interaction is starting when the consumer is actually in the store. There are also campaigns where a marketer doesn’t need to retain information about the consumers,but there are others,like loyalty programs,where customer information is retained over time.
Continued…
KvD: I think it currently varies by region. But ideally the consumer should be the gatekeeper.
Consumers should have the choice and have the control over their location and the way they want it to be shared (or not) and displayed.
GPS BN:OK,but it does assume that consumers are aware of location technologies and mobile marketing which is far from being the case today. Don’t you think there should be more protection than that?
KvD: We believe that the very important point is that consumer should be made aware. In addition they should also be rewarded. What I mean by that is that they should be rewarded against the value of the information they provide.
GPS BN: Now let’s talk specifically about the business of location-based advertising:how far are we from making it a real business? Do you see a real interest from advertisers?
KvD: I believe we are still today at a very early stage in location-based advertising. I truly believe that advertisers are very excited to use the mobile as a marketing channel and know where that consumer is.
I am still waiting to see the market evolve and innovate though:we are only just scratching the surface today. I think there is much more to come.
GPS BN: In terms of adoption of mobile marketing and location-based advertising do you see a real difference between large and small companies?
KvD: The larger brands have more money to experiment with while smaller companies don’t. Smaller companies are looking for an immediate return on investment and proven marketing channels. Therefore mobile advertising and especially location-based advertising is less likely to be on their agenda.
GPS BN:And what about metrics for mobile marketing?
KvD: We are still at an early stage with mobile. Although there are easy to use metrics for display advertising such as impression and click through rate,for applications and messaging it is more difficult to define metrics. I have seen many,many things. For example in one Smartphone advertisement the metric was around how long the user shakes the phone for. This was the metric used because it was the most effective way to estimate the consumer engagement with the brand. For another brand the success was calculated on how much buzz they got about their mobile campaign in the media. So you see it can be very different. This is also why the MMA is working with other industry bodies to standardize metrics and practices;however it is going to be a while before we have a bucket of tools used by everybody.
Meanwhile we see more and more agencies including mobile as part of their marketing tools. For each budget and each campaign they are thinking about mobile as a de facto channel inside their marketing mix.
GPS BN: Thank you for your time!
KvD: You are most welcome.
Metaplaces will take place in San Jose,California on September 22-23,2009. GPS Business News is a media partner of the conference. Click here to learn more.