Star Star Quality

US company Zoove has developed a new method for connecting consumers with mobile content using ‘StarStar’ dialling. Users dial ** and a code word (e.g **COKE or **PEPSI) to connect to a mobile Internet site and receive information on new products, download ringtones, or whatever the brand has chosen to offer. David Murphy caught up with CEO Tim Jemison to find out more.

MM: Can you tell us a little bit about the background to Zoove and StarStar Dialling.

TJ: We believe mobile marketing covers three areas. The first is mobile display advertising, and you have companies like Enpocket and Third Screen Media doing some great work here with the operators to facilitate ad serving to mobile web pages.
The second area is mobile search, including Google, Yahoo!, plus the mobile specialists like Jumptap, and the carriers’ white-label products.
The third category is mobile direct response, and we believe this is as large, if not larger, than the other two. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The majority of advertising is offline. Only 10% is online, and a small percentage of that is on mobile. So if you have traditional offline advertising, would it not be great to use mobile as a response platform?
Now a lot of people say we already have this and it’s working fine with SMS shortcodes. Well, we believe SMS is one way of doing it, but it’s not the optimal way. There is a huge hurdle in terms of spontaneity. The consumer needs to get in to the  messaging interface, then tap in the 5-digit code, then triple-tap the keyword, and then wait for a response.
Studies we have done in the US suggest that SMS is great for person-to-person messaging, but it leaves something to be desired when it’s used for mobile direct response. If I’m an advertiser, I have your attention for a split second, and if I want you to respond, I want to make it as fast and as simple for you as I can, and I want to offer the response mechanism to the broadest group of people I can. And while text is huge in Europe and Asia, it’s not as big in the US. And even where it is popular, text messaging and shortcode interaction tends to skew to a younger audience.

MM: Can you tell us more about the studies?
 

TJ: Sure. Six months ago we tested 600 customers in the US on their ability to interact with brand advertisers through mobile. We had four advertisers involved in the trial: Volvo, Royal Caribbean, Outback Steak House and CBS TV.
We asked the advertisers to create mock-ups of print, radio and TV ads and then we asked consumers to respond to the ads with the SMS text code listed in each ad. When we looked at how many people had successfully done it, we came up with average of 40% across all the media. Of those, for half of them in the 18-65 age range, this was the first time they had sent a text. And in many cases, it took them between one and two minutes to respond.
Next we had them watch the same sets of ads with the Zoove CTA (call to action)  which is dialable using just the keypad and the ‘Send’ button. It’s like dialling a phone number. Just Star, Star and a few digits, hit the ‘Send’ button, and then you can begin to interact with the brand marketer. We gave them a phone they had never seen before and asked them to watch the same set of ads and respond ‘Star Star Volvo’ etc. 91% of people could do it.
The Zoove solution took less than 10secs to respond and 91% managed it, compared with 40% with the shortcode, and when asked why, they said it was because if was faster, easier to remember, and just a simpler way of interacting. Direct response for mobile is enormous and it could be bigger if we made it easier, and that’s what StarStar technology does.

MM: Is it handset and operator-dependent?

TJ: It is network operator-dependent, and we have trials about to take place in Europe, probably in the UK, with T-Mobile and Vodafone, staring in the second quarter, and also in China, with China Mobile and China Unicom. The beauty of the system is, though, that it is handset-agnostic, because all the intelligence is on the network.

MM: So what happens if the phone is not capable of browsing the mobile Internet, or if the consumer does not have a data plan?

TJ: That’s not a problem, because we can sniff out the handset and the type of data plan. Almost all phones shipped in the last 36 months have a browser on them. Obviously there is an installed base that doesn’t, but that’s changing day by day.
But if you can’t browse the web, you will get a text message saying that your phone does not support web browsing, but if you want one that does, talk to customer services on this number.
If the consumer does not have a data plan, the thinking is that they would get a message that says that we know you don’t have a data plan, but that we’re going to give you a one-time taste of the mobile web.

MM: And what about the keywords that the consumer dials after StarStar. How do brands get hold of them?

TJ: They register the code with us and attach a destination to it and they, as the lessee of the code, can then change the destination as they like and point it at wherever they want consumers to go to.

MM: So are you expecting a landgrab?

TJ: We are. We are just about to announce s a global registry and domain name service with two major partners. The announcement will come just before CTIA in the US (27 - 29 March). We do expect a landgrab, because if you look at Dove candy bar and Dove soap, then numerically they spell the same thing. It’s the same for NBC, the broadcaster, and NBA Basketball.

MM: So how much does it cost to register a name, and how long do you get it for?

TJ: We have not publicly announced the cost yet, but it will be affordable. Our thinking is that the registration period will be for a year, until we assess the demand. When the year is almost up, there will be a window to re-register and if you don’t choose to, then the name will be available to anyone else who wants it.

MM: So where are you at in terms of rolling the service out?

TJ: In the US, we are running trials with Sprint and T-Mobile and we have one starting soon with Verizon. We are looking at a full rollout early fall. For the UK, the rollout will probably be by the end of the year, possibly earlier.

MM: And is there any cost to the consumer for the service?

TJ: Our thought is that it will be free, and then whatever the deliverable is back will be subsidised by the advertiser, so there would be no cost, unless you are actually buying something. It would operate like a toll-free number.

MM: And you’re confident this is going to be well received?

TJ: We are. It is very complicated to type in a URL on your phone. You are triple-tapping or even quadruple-tapping to get to a character. Once you go off the operator’s portal, typing a URL on a phone that doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard is a difficult thing to do.
There are also technical advantages over other short-form dialling codes, such as Pound codes. We use SS7 signalling rather than voice circuits, so it’s lighting fast, and it places no burden on the network. It is the fastest and most efficient solution for televoting. It has no impact on the SMSCs (Short Message Service Centres). 
Added to that, the reaction we have had from brands has been fantastic. Every brand and ad agency we have shown this to has said that as soon as we go live, they want to integrate into their mobile campaigns, because it’s far and away easier than anything else. Text works, but it only delivers a slither of the audience we can reach.
I know that some brands and agencies are also looking at image-based response, where you take a photo of something with the phone’s camera and sent it to an email address, or the Quick Response (QR) barcodes that link to the mobile Internet, but there are issues with these systems too. They are complicated, they don’t have a consistent interface, and also, they don’t work on cross-media campaigns. You can’t use a QR reader for a radio ad, and it doesn’t work very well for TV. SMS and Zoove codes have cross-media coverage, but when you weigh one against the other, Zoove is faster and easier.

MM: I can appreciate the appeal in the US, where consumers are not as keen on text, but what sort of a reaction do you think you will get in places like the UK, where consumers are text-mad?

TJ: We are currently doing the same study that we did in the US in the UK and Asia, and from the preliminary results we have had back so far, we expect to find that StarStar codes are faster and easier, and preferred, even by these text-crazy people, The Chinese are crazy about text, but China Mobile says the shortcode is a hurdle to interaction. It works, but not as well as they would like. Imagine being able to get to a mobile site on the Beijing Olympics just by tapping by ** 2008. That's the sort of thing we're enabling.