With proliferation of mobile phones, it has become the medium of choice for marketers to reach consumers directly. But the mobile is a highly personal and intrusive device. Therefore, permission marketing becomes a necessity when using this medium. Regulatory measures like the DNC serve to enforce the permission marketing ideals.

In recent times, the mobile permission marketing ecosystem is coming together in India. There are various constituents of this ecosystem like publishers with pull or push based inventory, small and big advertisers, intermediaries like ad agencies and ad networks as well as the operators.

To discuss this evolution of mobile marketing, the October event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is being held on the topic “Permission Marketing Opportunities on Mobile”.

Agenda:

• Panel Discussion

- Rajesh Jain, MD, Netcore Solutions
- Ajay Vaishnavi, Director - Telecom, Indiatimes.com
- Vinod Thadani, Senior Director, GroupM Interaction
- Naveen Tewari, CEO, mKhoj.com
- Sanyog Jain, COO, 160by2.com
- Priya Gupta, CEO, SpotOn - Ad Network
- VeerChand Bothra, VP - Mobility Sales, Netcore Solutions (Moderator)

• Group Discussion
• Dinner

When:
Monday, 29th October
6.30pm - 9.30pm

Where:
Plateau Hall
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.

Sponsors:

Click here to register.

Joji Thomas Philip writes in ET that data compiled by TRAI reveal that SMS use has steadily fallen from September 2006.

• GSM operators have witnessed close to 9% drop in the outgoing SMSs during the Apr-Jun ‘07 quarter.
• An average GSM user now sends about 35 SMSs per month as compared to 39 during the previous quarter.
• GSM operators’ total revenue from SMS has now fallen below the 5% mark.
• During the Jan-Mar ‘07 quarter, GSM operators saw a 19% decline in outgoing text messages.
• Outgoing SMS per subscriber (for GSM) declined by 18.75% from 48 in Dec ‘06 to 39 in Mar ‘07.
• CDMA customers sent 20 sms during the quarter-ended June against 24 SMSs during the Jan-Mar ‘07 quarter.

Reasons attributed to the decline in usage and revenue are:

Upward revision in SMS tariffs by several GSM service providers. And rationalization of tariff plans, where many operators discontinued non-profitable SMS packages.

During the quarter, there have been tariff reports indicating reduction in the number of free and discounted SMS under various packs and plans, increase in the rate for SMS, restriction on the usage of free/discounted SMS on festival/customary days.

Steady increase in the minutes of usage. The average SMS usage is bound to fall as operators went rural because customers in non-urban areas are comparably less text savvy.

For GSM players, the average increase in outgoing minutes of usage (MOU) was 2.2% during the last quarter.

This may be good news for the VAS industry. Despite the dip in SMS usage, the overall VAS revenues is increasing every quarter.

SMS is no longer the single driving force behind VAS revenues — music, gaming and other applications contribute significantly

Vodafone, Reliance and Idea Cellular have launched new ad campaigns recently. After FMCG, the telecom industry has one of the highest ad spends in the country.

I searched YouTube for the ads and as always, you can rely on UGC.

I liked the Reliance and Idea ads. Unlike many of the sophisticated ads made by urbane admen which are sanitised to remove all cultural identities, they are very Indian - in their observations, subjects and treatment.

Reliance Mobile: Bol India Bol

Idea Cellular: Mobile Number as Name

Vodafone: Make the most of now

Announcing Barcamp Mumbai 2 (BCM2) at SOM, IIT Bombay on Sunday, October 14, 2007.
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2

The idea of a Barcamp is to turn the idea of a ‘conference’ on its head by removing all possible rules out of the way of a intense discussion. These are meeting places of people with great business ideas and ones with sound technical caliber where they ideate, discuss and brainstorm
on all the topics of common interest ranging from wildlife photography and venture funding to blogging and Flex programming.

Due to their widespread appeal and quality of discussion, Barcamps are increasingly being seen as hubs of technical entrepreneurship all across the world.

BCM2 is fast becoming a rage across the ecosystem with leading corporates like SUN and Nokia sponsoring the event.

The team of BCM2 has experience of organizing second, third and fourth Barcamps of Bangalore (4th Barcamp - July 28-29, 2007 - the largest in the world with 600 participants!) and the first Barcamp of Mumbai (July 2006) and multiple Barcamps in Pune.

Barcamps are free events - there is no entry/registration fee and you can register by simply editing the event wiki.
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2

Due to capacity constraint we might have to give preference to people who have registered, so it might be wise to register at the earliest.

Here is an idea for smaller operators like Tata, Idea and Aircel to churn high-ARPU customers away from the biggies.

Most the high-ARPU customers are with the biggies like Airtel, Vodafone etc., because these operators were early in the game and anyone who could afford a mobile phone three years ago should either be from a higher SEC segment or enterprise users.

Recent introduction of dual SIM phones in the market triggered this idea.
Here’s the proposition:

• Offer a dual-SIM phone which has high end features like music/video player, multi-megapixel camera, bluetooth, 3G etc. to existing customers of rival operators.
• If possible, subsidise its cost or make it a free trial for a limited period
• Offer a special plan which has lower call/sms rates
• The user of Dual-SIM phone will become accustomed to his new phone
• He will slowly start making calls from the new operator because its cheaper
• The usage will of new operator’s service will increase with a corresponding decrease in dependence on the old operator

Assuming that the value and service being offered by the new operator is indeed better than the old one, it at least gives a chance to the new operator and a convenient option to user who is fed up of his current operator without loosing his old number.

Also Read: Dual SIM phones ringing at last

Rediff reports that the two finalists of Indian Idol 3 drew a combined tally of 7 crore SMS votes between September 14, when the lines were opened for voting, and September 23, when the voting ended.

If we take the sms cost of each vote at Rs 3, the revenue generated via SMS during the nine days of voting would be around Rs 21 crore.

• 77 lakh votes per day
• 3.2 lakh sms per hour
• 5400 sms per minute
• 90 sms per second

Krishna Durbha, Head - Revenue and Marketing, Reliance Communications says:

“These programs are essentially about immediacy, People believe they are endorsing their stars; they also believe they have a voice in the outcome and that their opinion matters, and so they send SMSes favour of their favourites.”

The numbers are just mind boggling. Someone needs to do a study of the Indian Idol, Vote4Taj and other reality shows phenomenon in India.

If sms voting was allowed in Indian Goverment elections, we would have more than the average 50% voting and perhaps better elected representatives. But thats not possible.

I think there is an opportunity to start a not-for-profit democratic People’s Forum which allows online and mobile participation. The issues, voting and opinion can be aggregated on a independent platform (and yet emergent), making it a credible source. Media can then genuinely issue calls to activism on issues of importance. It will help in riddance of vote fragmentation and accusations of emotional manipulation towards earning revenues via SMS; also making the activism of some consequence.

Voice of India?