Well to be honest I only have one of three required assets. The other two – great content and an audience – will take a lifetime to acquire.

If we look at the facts the message is clear. A UK study shows the following. In December 2007 57% of unique mobile internet users came from a carrier deck. 12 monts later in December 2008 the same number is 22%. I do not have numbers for 2009, but when I ask around today among carriers and others the reply is in the 10-20% range. So we have clear evidence that we are repeating the web journey from 1995 and onwards. Carriers still a very necessary part of the ecosystem, but now it is a game of online marketing that starts in the mobile. It will be a cut-throat game not for the faint hearted.

The shift now is away from technology lead to marketing lead in order to succeed. The biggest impact of these two is the responsibility and burden of marketing now falling heavily on the content provider. New skill sets and fresh cash to invest in marketing is needed. Many content providers are more geared as product development and product marketing outfits, not D2C powerhouses. This happens at a time then mobile advertising has pretty poor ROi in many channels and other marketing is expensive. CPO deals are not that common at the moment. In the near term it will put a strain on cash flow.

However this is a transition period. It will stabilise and long-term models and pricing in line with performance will prevail. In 24 months’ time we will see media driven models and conditions rule the mobile internet market.
The road to profitability hinges on mastering the challenge with small revenue streams and historical issues with consumer trust.

Revenue: Multi-line models required: Advertising, sponsorships, virtual goods, auction based ad systems etc. Paying for enhanced experience and more convenience for user.

Trust: Scams with everlasting subscriptions for ringtones etc still in peoples mind. Transparency and honest offers will be key for long term survival.

In 5 years we will have a new range of digital media houses/publishers and some of the old media houses will have made it through their cathartic journey from old media to new media. Wanna join the ride? It will be fun!

Well, most efficient markets are developed when companies can focus on their area of expertise and compete on fair terms. Search was never the reason mobile operators were created. Just like they were not meant to be media companies or game developers.

To be open and get a part of the apps pie mobile operators should focus on their core and unique assets. Most notably data traffic capacity would be key. A spot of harmonisation of interfaces and standards on top of that and we’re rocking.

Here’s a case from Sweden I have been part of myself as the advertiser. Publisher: Aftonbladet (largest tabloid in circulation and also top 10 in Sweden in terms of unique visitors on their mobile site). Initial offer: CPM 28USD list price. This was negotiated down to 4.65 USD. Negotiation tactics was mainly to say no and be slow in responding to emails. The campaign started but CTR was far below what the publisher had stated.  Break even would have been at around 2 USD. What can be done?  Devaluate entire inventory. Yeah, right. Like hard pressed media companies would do that. Prices will come down eventually when publishers get comfortable with long-term partnerships and yearly budgets from its partners instead of having to chase a multitude of advertisers for test campaigns at inflated prices.

The craft of susccessful ad campaigns is the same as for online advertising. It requires good analytics and close attention, adoptions and changes. Many versions of banners and copy, clear call to action, mix in many channels. Mono-channel campaigns can be a high risk. On the surface two channels might look very similar, yet perform very differently. Two operator portals with same placement of ads can be hugely different.

Search advertising in the mobile is coming of age. In many cases it has tremendous performance in CTR, but currently many markets have too low volume to be the main driver. However it is a growing force and it is good to start working this channel already now. Google seems to have somewhere above 5% of their searches from mobile devices now. This can only grow.

Business models are slowly becoming transparent and spreads the risks in a better way than CPM deals where you pay for a number of showings of an ad. This as opposed to the “Google-model” where you only pay when someone click on your ad. Even better, and common on the web are CPO deals where you only pay when you get an order/purchase/sign-up or whatever you define as the actual event where the consumer becomes valuable to you as an advertise. These type deals can ease the pain for advertisers and might be the road to build a steady volume of recurring ad buys in mobile channels.

Targeting can also be improved. Here the source of the targeting data can vary. If the publisher has data in terms of registration or profile data like age, gender and interestes etc. this can be fed through to the ad server in real time. More and more ad networks are capable to make use of this targeting data now. It is also an area for the mobile carrier to be part of the advertising value chain. They have user data as well that adds value at the ad serving moment. One is the position of the phone for instance. Other data are customer data and behaviour. This of course requires consent from the consumer to have its personal data used in this scenario. If benefits can be communicated properly to the consumer opt-in should follow.

There is a caveot with location and advertising. Location data is often touted as the holy grail of advertising. In many scenarios it is questionable. Just because O2 knows that my phone is in my pocket as I walk down Kings Road in London, they don’t know where my mind and body is heading. Is it the Starbucks on the corner? The Barclays bank branch office there? The Boots next to Starbucks or the H&M store across the street? Opt-in local advertising is one solution that might be more powerful. Sign-up with stores/shopping centers where you usually shop and get offers from them at an agreed frequency. This allows advertisers to run micro-campaigns with huge returns. The small independent watch store can target a campaign for a Saturday to sell 4 more watches and turn a profit on that. It also allows for flash campaigns – sell out of overstocked items. This last example fits well with the mobile loyalty club 2.0 presented in the post last Friday

Yes, we have heard it before: the mobile device is a personal portable billboard! But it is more than that. It’s a dialogue tool. It is not only the bearer of a digital coupon. It would be a shame to reduce the mobile to a direct response medil channel only. The retail industry has a great opportunity here. A  360 view is needed. If you weave several contact points and reasons for interaction with your customers into a mobile concept, there are opportunites abundant.

So here we go – a free concept for food retailer – a customer loyalty card in the mobile. Remeber, you read it here first.

Customer benefits are immediate and you will be a hero. No more card to remember and carry in the wallet. The phone is there already. The phone number is the unique identifier. As a member you get real value from day one: a starter package including access to a mobile service and app were adequate information, recipes and food tips live together with several dialogue channels with the store – local and centrally. The beauty is that you most likely produce much of this content anyway in a physical magazine and flyers.

Into this you feed in your featured items and discounts. See Whole Foods’ and Jamie Oliver’s iPhone apps for inspiration. Allow searches on produce so you can go shopping and in the store look up suggestions for what you cook based on those chicken filets you have at home in the freezer. Build in shopping list with various grouping options like, by aisle, by recipe etc. – Put barcodes on your shelves for customers with camera phones. They can then look up deep product info by scanning barcode with their own camera. If you are a chain have directions services using location data. If you run a bank like many food retailers in Scandinavia do allow banking and payment via mobile

Finally, yes of course coupons and direct mail type offers as well. They are after all transaction drivers. But now you can combine opt-in and develop this to suggestions based on what purchases the customers have made before.

With this interactive portable store card you have an entire platform for communication, information, sales but also feedback from your customers. A majority of your customers are happy to give you advice on everything from the store layout, your selection of baby food to the price of milk. Allow the creation of consumer groups and forums. Why not experiment with dynamic pricing to optimise your inventory or to drive stora traffic? Send out time sensitive price offers to your moble loyalty club members.

“Nice, who pays for this then?”, is your thought now. Your customer by shopping more and telling there friends about your great service and your suppliers. The latter already pay you for shelf space. The mobile is the digital shelf. The recipe and shopping list service and app is not expensive to build. You build it once and distribution cost is near to zero. Data fees is on the customer.

The main challenge to all this is the minds and set ways the marketing director and other decision makers in a project like this are stuck in. I am willing to run a set of workshops pro-bono with a top management team in any retail company just to get the ball rolling. Any takers or tips on people who should take this opportunity? Let me know.

That is if you made it all the way to the end of this post and is not already working on your mobile consumer club concept. If you want to make a difference you should be.