EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Paul Berney, CMO & Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association EMEA
When it comes to Mobile Marketing, Paul Berney doesn’t like to talk about technology. This at least was made clear at the start of this interview even though Paul is in the business of marketing to customers specifically using the medium that is mobile. I am assured that none of the challenges facing mobile marketing are technical and that most of the speakers at the Mobile Marketing Forum (MMF), taking place in London this week, have little or no experience in the mobile industry.
So if the challenges have not been technical, what are the key milestones that have been reached over the last few years, I put to him. “Three and a half years or so ago, we were asking why mobile, that’s no longer the case. There is now a willingness of brands to do more than test and learn. Mobile is still a relatively new channel, but companies are applying existing frames of reference. They are also starting to use what is different about this medium and not just using mobile as another tool for direct marketing.” What was clear as we heard one presentation after another is that through mobile, companies can learn who the customers is, find information about their location and what they are interested in.
But there are still challenges, and some fine tuning needed. “Location, permission based marketing and personalization are key,” he says. Companies know their market segments, but personalization on an individual level is the new challenge. With the information that companies have about their customers this is possible, but it is still trial and error when it comes to getting the products right. Also working with mobile operators and some vendors has been difficult. “The challenge for mobile operators is that they need to talk in the language of marketers. This is also the case for vendors.”
Location based services are still an up-and-coming trend. “Location based services have been around for a long time, but what else? If lBS is to succeed then it needs to be automated. I cannot see people checking into places all of the time – consumers will get tired of it.” There is potential for aggregated check in, where this takes place over a number of different social media, but the details of this and how to make the information useful for marketers have to be worked out.
At the MMF, there was series of presentations by large multi-national organizations such as: Coca-Cola, Unilever, The Economist, Google and many more. So when asked what the future for small and medium sized enterprises is when it comes to mobile marketing, Paul replied “there are now enough proof points to start mobile marketing somewhere else. The MMF is a ‘best of’ type of event, showcasing the best strategies and practices in mobile marketing and this can be applied elsewhere. We have now reached the tipping point and its time for mobile marketing to go beyond the large corporations.”
He emphasizes that this is a consumer led revolution. “They (the consumers) are well ahead of us.” Consumers want to be able to do more over their smartphones and tablets and this is evident from the success of the app market, but also from the emergence of mobile payments. “Once you make mPayments easy for consumers to use, the uptake will be huge.” When I asked when he expects us all to be using our mobile devices to make payments, he replies, “sooner than we all think, maybe 1 to 2 years. There are currently a lot of players in the market, but as the leaders start to emerge, mass market adoption will take place.”
