CANNES, France-An industry group of marketing executives announced an effort to drive consumer uptake of new mobile applications.
The Chief Marketing Officer Council announced it formed the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME), which is expected to comprise 200 mobile technology companies including wireless carriers, handset manufacturers, technology companies and Internet portals. FAME will team with the council to promote the use of new wireless data services and gather marketing information to guide marketing campaigns.
“We see FAME as an ideal complement in the marketing arena to the acceleration of standards activity we’ve been driving from a technical perspective,” said Bill Gajda, chief marketing officer of the GSM Association. “At the 3GSM World Congress we announced initiatives to drive down the cost of handsets for the emerging markets and to better integrate messaging services in the developed markets.”
The move builds on efforts initiated at a wireless marketing symposium held last year, when executives from Intel, Visto, OpenWave and others identified issues surrounding usability and the user experience as key obstacles to increasing wireless adoption rates. Initial membership in FAME is free, and vendors are invited to join sponsored programs to increase adoption rates of wireless applications.
