An Audience with a Mobile Evangelist

As a Strategy Consultant for Logica CMG in the Netherlands, he was instrumental in the creation of text voting. And as a Creative Group Head of ad agency JWT, he knows the big agency world. For the past four years, he has been evangelising the mobile channel, latterly in his role as an Associate Consultant in the TME (Telecoms Media and Entertainment) division of Cap Gemini. So Jim Brooks is perhaps uniquely placed to see how mobile is becoming integrated with other marketing media and channels. Brooks is unashamedly passionate about mobile as a marketing channel, so we caught up with him to find out where the industry is at and where it’s headed.

MM: Firstly, can you define what you understand by mobile marketing? 

JB: For me, things like text voting, text ‘n’ win and raw content like ringtones are out of scope. What’s in scope is brand advocacy, loyalty CRM, subscription, the areas where brands have traditionally used other channels.

MM: So when you talk about “evangelising” mobile as a marketing channel, what do you mean by that?

JB: On one hand, it’s looking at the way brands can increase their visibility and knowledge of the channel. Then it’s about educating the channel to speak the language and vocabulary of other media channels. Finally, it’s about helping a brand, like Peugeot for example, to create a mobile marketing example that they can talk about.

MM: Taking the first point first then, how do you go about increasing a brand’s visibility and knowledge of mobile as a channel?

JB: I come from an ad agency background, on the creative side. Now when a brand gives an ad agency a brief, the ad agency has a set of clear ideas as to what will do with that brief. So if it’s a £50,000 sports car, the agency already knows how to handle that account creatively, and which channels are best suited to effectively and efficiently reach the target audience. All media channels will add value and try to differentiate themselves through efficient measurement of the medium. So what I’m trying to do is to bring mobile up to the level of visibility and momentum that the ad agencies and media agencies expect to see.

MM: And how easy have you found that job?

JB: It’s been bloody difficulty, to be honest. Trying to evangelise among people in ad agencies is always difficult, because they are always sceptical of new channels because they do not know how to create and conceive into that channel.
The (network) operators have only ever been focused on their subscriber base and they see third parties as just a threat. So the value chain of ad agencies, internet, TV, satellite, aggregators, they are all there to be seen in a high level view of the visibility of brands, with mobile as latest addition, but without explaining how a media channel works, and, having selected it, how you get measurements out of it, is very difficult, because none of that has been available before, because the operators have been like a large billing engines. They have millions of subscribers, some they bill, some do top-up, but that’s about as far as they go.
With mobile marketing, I have tried to use my experiences in ad agencies and my knowledge of the mobile channel to bring the performance of that channel up to the requirements of the other channels.

MM: So is it getting any easier?

JB: It is, because when this new channel appeared, firstly, from a technical perspective, the operators throttled it, then the ad agencies throttled it. It’s just fortunate that VC (Venture Capital) funding found a place in companies like Flytxt and 12snap and Sponge to enable them to demonstrate to brands what mobile could do.
Brands are always adventurous, they will always try things out. They take money from other places and say: ‘What is this new channel, can it work for me?’ So they self-discover, and eventually, it reaches a tipping point, so we should thank the innovative adventurous brands who have grasped the nettle and the companies that used the VC funding to act as the mediator to provide the creativity and help to figure out what works on a mobile phone, because they are the ones that have stimulated it.

MM: So which brands are pushing the envelope in the mobile channel?

JB: McDonalds, Coke, FCUK, Peugeot, Argos, Gossard, there are lots of them out there. Most of the major brands have used mobile in a true marketing context rather than things like text’n’ win. They might have used text ‘n’ win as well, but they’ve used it to launch new products, as Coke has done, or in tie ups with film distribution like McDonalds.

MM: And do you think this impetus that there seems to be is here to stay this time round,  after the false dawn a couple of years ago.

JB: Yes, it will be sustained this time round. It happens inevitably in any new channel, it happened with the Internet. All new channels go through this pain. The channel gets discovered, gets excitable, the opinion formers wait until their level of knowledge reaches a point where they feel comfortable trashing it, then they come back and say it’s the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen. But the initial reaction is to say they don’t understand it so its rubbish.  Ask yourself: would an agency recommend a campaign today without a web element to it? I think not.  A lot of people ‘get’ mobile now, so I think 2006 is going to be a major tipping point for it as a marketing channel. I’ve seen surveys showing that  brands that get it and that are being provided with solutions are putting as much as 7% of their gross revenues into mobile, rising to 10-20% in the next 3 years, and that 80% of all brands will be using it in some way by 2008.

MM: So what does the industry need to do know to ensure it doesn’t drop the ball?

JB: It needs to consolidate the value chain. The agencies are picking up the pace now, so we are seeing the independent sectors of ad agencies like Ogilvy One that were set up to deal with new media channels, with guys like Rory Sutherland, and also JWT, McCanns, they are all beginning to embrace it in their new media and digital channel business.
We are seeing the aggregator taking over the role of enabler. Brand wants to reach every consumer with a mobile phone, so they see the networks as agnostic, so companies like mBlox and Mobile365 are enabling total distribution across all networks.
The agencies are also beginning to understand how to create in the channel. If I’m in an ad agency, I know why I would shoot on film rather than video, why I would use this director rather than that one, which illustration I would use in a 1200dpi colour magazine,  and which one if it was running in The Sun in black and white. I’m familiar with my channel to conceive and deliver in it. Up until now, mobile has still been spooky for them, the creatives have not known whether will this picture look great or not when it’s viewed on a handset. But that is starting to change.

MM: So where is the education coming from?

JB: There’s no-one really running lessons at Night School, it’s more an organic sucking blood out of the discovery path that’s happening, and this is what causes the pace and growth of any new channel. Look at the early days of the Internet. Spooky people got involved in web design, and excluded the creative side. When the creatives had a go, they found that what worked on one machine didn’t work on another. But now, most can create into a web portal

MM: So how long before mobile reaches the stage the Internet is at now?

JB: If I’m optimistic, 2006-07. If I’m pessimistic, 2008.

MM: Even if you take the worst-case scenario, that's still pretty encouraging.

JB: Oh yes, the growth is exponential. If you look at the Net, you could say its been going for 10 years, but it’s more like four or five years since people stopped rubbishing it. So if mobile marketing is in is fourth or fifth year now, I would expect to see brands like Coke and Peugeot saying they would not consider doing a campaign any more without a mobile response element being a significant part of it. I don’t think, in fact, that Peugeot would launch a small family car without a mobile response element because the launch of the 1007 was so successful for them. So I'm very optimistic about the prospects.

Jim Brooks was interviewed by Mobile Marketing Magazine Editor, David Murphy

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