The MMA’s Mobile Marketing Forum series, held earlier this month in New York and of which 3Cinteractive was a corporate sponsor, is being roundly hailed as a success, generating unparalleled excitement, and engagement from the global mobile marketing ecosystem. The Forum was an official event of the 2010 Internet Week in New York, a week-long festival of events celebrating the city’s thriving Internet industry and community.
The Forum was held from June 7th through the 9th at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel. During the three-day event, Forum attendees heard from top industry experts on a wide variety of relevant topics, including notable keynote presentations from executives such as:
- Elizabeth Harz, the Senior Vice President for Global Media Sales at Electronic Arts (EA), who spoke about how mobile gaming accounts for more than 50 percent of all revenue generated from mobile applications;
- John Zehr, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ESPN Mobile, who detailed their structured user-generated content, a platform that allows fans or supporters of junior, amateur, and youth league teams to post the official records of these games;
- AJ Rhodes, Director of Mobile Strategy and Marketing for Disney Online, focused on how companies can reach consumers with premium branded content;
- Mike Steib, Director of Emerging Platforms at Google spoke on the future of mobile and Google’s predictions on the mobile trends that they believe will matter most;
- Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO/VP of Kodak, who gave a dynamic and energetic final keynote, based loosely around his book, The Mirror Test; and
- David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance, United Nations Foundation, on how the power of mobile is being used to help combat maternal mortality in the developing world.
In addition to the speakers featured above, 3Cinteractive’s John Styers, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Industry Relations was chair of the Reaching Consumers track, where he also presented the track overview. 3Cinteractive also sponsored the carrier panel, Enabling New Channels: Mobile Beyond Messaging. The mobile operators who were part of the panel spoke about how Fortune® 1000 companies are using mobile as a marketing and business solution, are enabling new services in the United States and what the operators are learning from their global counterparts.
This year’s Forum in New York brought together the industry’s best to discuss, learn, network, and engage. Aside from the great content and discussion came an outstanding networking opportunity. 3Cinteractive had a excellent chance to interact with clients such as Disney Online and ESPN. This year’s Forum emphasized the point that, while marketing and advertising clients often request iPhone® or other apps in first meetings, the reality is that most mobile marketing is run on SMS, MMS, or WAP as these provide the best reach to all consumers. It was clear from the presentations and discussions at the Forum that mobile applications are, in actuality, still a minor element for the premium smartphone segment.
We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming 2010 MMA Forums in Los Angeles on the 17th of November.
Dave Sitomer brings a wealth of experience in strategic initiatives and telecommunications to his role as 3Cinteractive’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. Dave’s responsibilities include identifying new markets and business opportunities globally, recommending and prioritizing potential investments, and providing guidance to budgetary, strategic, and operational planning processes.
Before joining 3Cinteractive, Dave was Vice President of Business Development, overseeing VeriSign’s communications portfolio. 
Prior to that he served as Vice President of Corporate Development at VeriSign, where he oversaw the negotiation, due diligence, and integration of eight acquisitions (of which four exceeded $250 million). He also served as Vice President of Corporate Development at Illuminet until its sale to VeriSign, and spent ten years at IBM in various positions. Dave holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Florida State University and an MBA in International Corporate Finance from Pace University, Lubin School of Business.
This year, the MMA Forum will feature speakers from across the mobile ecosystem, including Alcatel-Lucent, Best Buy, Kodak, Microsoft, Openwave, and the United Nations Foundation. The MMA Forum will also feature a Mobile Experience Lab, an interactive way for delegates to hear from the industry’s thought leaders, experience mobile campaigns firsthand, and interact with brands using mobile as part of their integrated marketing strategy.
The 2010 MMA Forum marks 3Cinteractive’s third year as speakers / sponsors and our fourth forum event overall. This year, John Styers, 3Cinteractive’s Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Industry Relations, is chairing Reaching Consumers, which is track two on day two (Wednesday, June 9th) of the forum. The Reaching Consumers track focuses on the following topic areas:
- Digital: The New, Empowered Shopper and the Experience
- Converting Prospects to Customers, Strategies for Mobile Commerce
- Ten Best Practices for Engaging the Consumer Through Mobile: The Industry Standard of Care
- Coke’s Under the Cap Promotion and Driving Consumer Loyalty
- Lessons Learned from the CDC’s Mobile Website, App, and Text Messaging Pilot
- $50 Million Raised and Climbing
- The View From Madison Avenue: How Brands and Agencies are Using and Spending on Mobile
3Cinteractive is sponsoring the Carrier Panel on track two, day two. The panel topic is Broader Opportunities of Mobile, Beyond the Messaging, Enabling Mobile Marketing and will be moderated by David Diggs, Vice President of Wireless Internet Development for the CTIA. The panel’s featured speakers are Stephanie Bauer Marshall of Verizon; Sam Hijazin, Head of Mobile Marketing and Advertising for Telcordia; Danielle Lee of AT&T; and Cindy Sullivan of Sprint.
The 2010 MMA Forum will prove to be an industry-shaping event, especially as recent global trends are changing the way we view mHealth and mobile giving — we hope to see you at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. If you haven’t registered for the event, you can do so through the Mobile Marketing Forum.
AT&T recently made auditing and monitoring policy changes to standard and premium campaigns.
Effective May 3, 2010, AT&T is implementing the following changes to its audit process:
- The scoring system that AT&T has used in the past for auditing will no longer be used. Instead a PASS/FAIL indication will be shown
- There will no longer be a “three strikes” process with regard to audits
- An audit will receive a FAIL if a customer-affecting or AT&T brand-affecting issue has been found during the audit, or if the issue breaks any of the MMA CBP guidelines. (A PDF copy of the guidelines is available for download here. Please note that you will need Adobe® Reader® in order to view the document)
- Root cause analysis (RCA) will be required for all failed audits. RCA will also be required for programs that generate over 25% refund rate
- Please be advised that IQ Quiz type-content will continue to follow the IQ Quiz Policy, dated December 2009
AT&T will continue to send feedback forms summarizing the failed audit; however, the following changes will occur:
- A failure in one or more criteria will result in a failed audit which will be considered an “escalation”
- All failed criteria must be resolved within five (5) business days
- AT&T will automatically check for compliance following Day 5
- Any escalation / failed audit not completely resolved will result in closure of the campaign. If a campaign is closed for failure, the customer will have 14 days to fix the issue or risk having the short code de-provisioned
- AT&T will indicate the reason for closure and change the campaign status
- No new subscriptions will be allowed immediately; however, existing customers will be able to retain their service
- AT&T will monitor activity for closed campaigns
- When a program failure is ‘resolved’, it can be stated within the RCA delivered to AT&T, which in turn will be reviewed for re-activation
- Failure to comply with this new policy will result in de-provisioning of the entire short code
Please contact your Account Manager or 3Ci Support if you should have any questions regarding AT&T’s changes to its audit process.
Throughout the Miami Dolphins’ Fins On The Clock draft event, our hometown team will be asking Dol-Fans to vote on a variety of questions about the Miami Dolphins, the NFL draft and general NFL topics. The Dolphins want your opinions! Take part via the Dolphins Draft Text Poll, powered by 3Cinteractive. All you have to do is check MiamiDolphins.com for the latest poll and then text in the key word shown on the Dolphins Draft Text Poll page to 36500 on your mobile device. You will receive back the current poll question. Just respond with your answer (A, B, C, D, or E) via text message. It’s that simple! Don’t forget, message and data rates may apply. Thanks Dol-Fans and GO DOLPHINS!
My Mobile Applications, a mobile messaging services company with one of the most reliable communications networks across North America and Latin America, has partnered with 3Cinteractive, an industry leading mobile technology firm, to provide businesses a high quality mobile messaging, short message service (SMS), Premium SMS, and multimedia message service (MMS) solution.
My Mobile Applications has selected 3Cinteractive to handle all of the aggregation and migration of all of their SMS in the United States on AT&T, Sprint-Nextel, and Verizon Wireless. This includes the processing of millions of messages using My Mobile Applications’ and 3Cinteractive’s services to deploy powerful and complex mobile messaging functions.
3Cinteractive is pleased to announce Chris Tranquellino as the newest member of our team. Chris brings his experience in product management, technology, application design, marketing and project management to his role as our Senior Product Manager.
Prior to joining 3Ci, Chris was responsible for mobile project and product development with Snackable Media. At Snackable, Chris was responsible for implementation of their consumer website service, mobile platform, and mobile billing integration with aggregators and carriers. He has a very strong understanding of carrier billing requirements, compliance, and transactions.
Prior to Snackable Media, Chris held senior product development and project positions with DayJet, Barnesandnoble.com, and DLJdirect.com. Please join us in welcoming Chris to the 3Ci family.
