Mobile Publicist

David Murphy meets Alexandre Mars, CEO of Publicis-owned mobile marketing firm Phonevalley, and Head of Mobile of  Publicis Groupe

DM: So give us the low-down on Phonevalley if you would please Alexandre.

AM: We were founded in 2001, and initially, we operated only in France. Then in September last year, Publicis bought us to scale up their mobile presence, so now we are the mobile arm for Publicis Groupe, and we have offices in the US, Asia, Singapore, Russia and Europe, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We are the only mobile agency with a global reach, a real presence, with people in all those countries.

DM: And you believe thats important?

AM: Of course. Big clients need some global answers to their needs so even if you do work for local clients like EMI or Strongbow in the UK, there are others who want to engage with you on a global basis. Its a glocal strategy, with global reach but local expertise. So when we are working with global partners like Vodafone, Orange, Google or Nokia, its important that we also understand the differences between the UK and France for example, or between China and the US.

DM: What sort of differences?

AM: Its a question of understanding what will work in one territory but not in another. For example, we know that we can run MMS campaigns in France or Italy, but they will not work in the US. Usually, a WAP site is at the centre of things and its a question  of driving traffic to the site and understanding what is the best way to do this in each territory. Theres a certain amount of adaptation needed between different regions of the world, like the US and China for example, but not so much between different European countries. In terms of the destination mobile site, that will be quite similar, but what will differ will be the way we drive traffic to it. So we might use in-game advertising in the UK, but not in Italy, for example.

DM: So how many of the mobile campaigns you run would you say are global?

AM: It depends on the client. HP, Puma and Toyota are global, where they are launching the same products in several markets. Roughly half the campaigns we run are local, half global, and by global, thats not necessarily all around the world, but in more than five countries.

DM: And if you look at those Publicis Groupe companies, Starcom Mediavest, Leo Burnett and the rest, how aware are they of PhoneValley, that Publicis has this in-house resource at its disposal?

AM: The awareness is taking time. Its only a year since the acquisition so its to be expected. This is a people business, so you need to talk with all the CEOs for all the agencies and explain what you do, and you also need to find good people in all the countries. It is tough, but we are having some success. WPP have the same situation with Kinetic, and Aegis with Marvellous Mobile.

DM: And when youre building mobile sites, how often does the client want a permanent presence on the mobile web, and how often are they campaign-based?

AM: This is a discussion we are always having with clients. Up until now, they have  always been project-based, but this is just beginning to change. We say to them, it would be great to build this for the launch, but even better if we can maintain it afterwards. Some clients are just coming round to this viewpoint, but 90% of them are still very much project-based. This is really a consequence of the fact that mobile marketing and mobile advertising today is project-based. Its a conversation we need to keep having with clients. 

DM: Is it a source of frustration to you?

AM: A little, but for me, its more frustrating that for the last three years, everyone has been saying that next year will be the year of mobile advertising. This is where the frustration comes from. We need more clients to be aware of what they can do with mobile. We need to be honest and frank with clients and not oversell, and it is tough because even now, the clickthrough rates are so much better than on the web. But you hear so many different numbers from different people, so you need to be careful and realistic, and you also need to convince clients to release the numbers to the market. You need metrics.
Overall, Im optimistic though. We have flat-rate data, the iPhone raising awareness, everything is in place to have a real, big market with big brands spending good money.