Jonathan Ellis
KUCHING: Whilst discussions on mobile strategies grew intense during the MMA Conference in India, chief executive office Jonathan Ellis of TheTMSway Ltd (TMS) left a notable message that might leave brand marketers with an alternative solution regarding mobile.
Speaking at the inaugural ‘Mobile Marketing Forum’ in Delhi, Ellis emphasised that amid the increasing adoption and proliferation of mobile devices, the real revolution was actually coming from the traditional media.
According to Ellis, mobilse should not be used as a standalone medium. Instead, it needs to be positioned at the heart of any traditional media plan by brands.
By enabling the offline media to now become an ‘interactive touch point’, mobile could help brands and media owners alike understand how consumers interact, when they interact and most importantly from which type of media they interact from.
“The collection of these metrics and pieces of data enables brand to understand more fully the effectiveness of their offline marketing strategies, it said in a press release yesterday.
Recent data from The World Bank revealed that there were 6.1 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, which constitutes 75 per cent of the world having access to mobile phones.
Ellis further outlined that any brand today could interact and tag their traditional media to help drive consumers on mobile towards a simple and real time brand experience. Real time is the key and advertisers needed a device agnostic solution to ensure scale.
“However, interactivity has two serious factors that brand marketers must consider before entering into any integrated mobile marketing strategy,” he added.
According Ellis, SMS solutions faced the complication of data ownership and QR codes’ lack of standardisation, mass adoption and create consumer adoption confusion.
“Where TMS can help brands achieve scale is via the simple fact that a TMS shortcode can be seen, read, heard or even recommended by the consumer – an offline 2 online solution for today’s generation of connected devices,” he said
Ellis revealed that the simple evolution of the SMS shortcode system put an end to these said barriers. TMS could generate brands an infinite number of TMS shortcodes which they ‘tag’ their media with.
“TMS then provides brands with device agnostic campaign sites which are built to engage the consumers. Via a simple call to action, brands then instruct consumers to interact by entering the branded code into the search.
“Finally, to further understand the effectiveness and performance of their media, brands can access metrics and consumer opt-in data collected in real time via the TMS platform,” he concluded.