By Adam Wakefield
The forum was opened by managing director for the MMA in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Chris Babayode, who noted that the MMA is the only trade association globally focused on mobile marketing.
He was proceeded by Unilever CCM director of Africa, Enver Groenewald, who delivered the key note speech. Groenewald said mobile is in elite company as it is a “seismic” event in the life of the world that propelled it forward, including the discovery of fire, the invention of the Gutenberg press, and the internal combustion engine.
“If we look at what I call the ecosystem around mobile and the interaction between business, brands, and people, the one thing beyond any argument is mobile disrupts, mobile disaggregates,” he said.
“Mobile disrupts, disaggregates, empowers, enables,” he said,
“If we can’t understand that the name of the game is disruption, then we will be a brand seeing our market share being fritted away by companies coming out of nowhere because they could.”
For Groenewald, there are three simple rules of thumb that allow for the construction of strategy for mobile, being:
- The big dogs don’t rule;
- Stop, collaborate, listen; and
- Content is king, context is queen.
After Groenewald, CMO of Nando’s,
Doug Place, took to the floor, focusing on how mobile marketing is still marketing, even though it is being done on mobile.
“The consumer is in charge. You are no longer the media owner. It’s very easy to be bewitched by this measurability. But, actually, for most South African brands, and most brands in the world, there are more customers than there are people interacting with your brand in a digital context,” he said.
Millennials, the market segment that advertisers want to reach, don’t really exist with the term, more a “useful buzzword to describe youthful people”. At a qualitative level, they’re largely the same as other generations.
“There is this massive difference between media and marketing but if you take a look at the general content most brands are putting out there, there is a massive misunderstanding between media and marketing,” Place said.
Media is the race track, not the race car, and you cannot compensate for poor marketing regardless of how innovative it might be.
“Get your marketing right before you decide on your medium. You will never solve a marketing problem through medium. It’s about having a product with a relevant point of difference,” he said.
A well-positioned brand is always going to outpunch novelty media.
After Place’s talk, it was BBM senior vice president, Matthew Talbot, who spoke about how messaging is one of the few things that people do more than social networking.
Messaging is now entering other markets and services such as offline and online payments, top-ups, shopping, and other activities “across a whole ecosystem”.
“BBM is going exactly the same path. We’ve already started this process,” he said.
After Talbot, it was the panel discussion on the art of possible in mobile. It featured Liquorice founder and CEO, Miles Murphy, as moderator; Facebook Africa regional head Aiden Baigrie; inMobi head of sales in Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Andy Powell; and head of sales Africa at Opera Mediaworks, Andrew Kramer.
Topics discussed included mobile being seen as a powerful marketing medium in its own right, how to convince CMOs and decision makers that mobile is the way to go, why mobile will be the exciting medium to market in going forward, the rise of video and native, how clicks are not a sign of intent to purchase but rather behaviour, and how mobile and traditional media can complement one another.
Millward Brown’s Monique Claassen followed where she spoke about the importance of video in mobile.
Last but not least was Babayode, who pointed to the real potential mobile has for businesses, as long as they put enough ad dollars behind it for it to reach its full potential. If not enough money is put into mobile marketing, and with mobile being the future, your business is missing an opportunity.
It was an engrossing afternoon for those present, highlighting the importance mobile plays in people’s day to day lives. As its influence continues to grow, marketeers, advertisers, and businesses need to get on board, otherwise they will get left behind.