Mobile Groove

Appearing to pop up out of nowhere, Pinterest has become the third largest social network on the planet. As I shared the value of co-publishing (shameless plug alert!) with you in my last MobileGroove column, my hope is that you are already happily pinning away all of your photo- and video-based marketing content onto your brands’ boards on Pinterest. But, how do you Pinterest-ize your other content? That is, marketing content that isn’t “visual”, but is nonetheless valuable to comm…

How and why should brands and marketers take advantage of the unique characteristics of mobile to connect with us at the moments we need them most? Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group, a leading integrated advertising and marketing communications agency, tells why marketers need to think beyond reaching a target audience.

As Rory sees it: The real power of mobile is context. It allows brands to interact with people during  target moments (I need something now), target moods (I want s…

In brief: An analysis of what Blyk’s partnership with Vodafone Netherlands really means, an exclusive Q&A with Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, and some big questions mobile operators can’t ignore: Why is advertising the major revenue source for every mass media except mobile? And how do operators plan to compete with media and Internet companies to capture the most value in mobile media?

It’s been a bit quiet at MSG as I finalize the plans and partnerships that will transform MSG into a media company and lay the groundwork for an ambitious mobile marketing publishing project that has already earned the endorsement of several major industry organizations. (More in a press release soon via RealWire, a global news release distribution service and MSG partner that, like the online media industry that is its focus, is always-on, always-connected and always professional, which is why I can recommend them so highly.)

But I couldn’t end the week without posting an analysis of the exciting (but not unexpected) news from Blyk, combination mobile engagement media company, mobile advertising startup and MVNO, that it had signed an deal with to roll out its branded service in partnership with Vodafone Netherlands and to share revenues with the operator.

Connect the dots, and Blyk has executed on the game-changing strategy that Antti Öhling, Blyk co-founder and CEO U.K., outlined in May in this exclusive Q&A. In it he provides solid logic for “making the switch” from MVNO (a model he called a “proof of concept”) to youth engagement media. The reasons range from scale and speed (both accelerated through partnership with operators) to the ones that matter most to advertisers: reach and engagement.