MobilePedia: World Class Mobile Marketing from Latin America

This week I attended the 2009 Latin America Mobile VAS Forum in Miami (June 8-10), with the participation of analysts, technology vendors and operators.

The global economic downturn is, not suprisingly, on everyone's mind. This topic kept coming up repeatedly and the attendance to the event, about half of what we saw in previous years is also an indicator of the tough times we face. However, it was encouraging to interact with technology vendors and operators who remain optimistic about the future.

In the next weeks I will add more posts about this meeting and the discussions I had both with operators and technology vendors.
This week, I want to share my thoughts on a presentation by Marcelo Castelo of the Brazilian Agency F.biz. Marcelo's presentation, titled "The Mobile as a Mass Media Channel With Internet Characteristics: The Possibilities of the Mobile Marketing" focused on case studies in mobile marketing from Latin America.

The case studies shared by Marcelo show how Latin America is doing world class mobile marketing. What I find in these case studies is a no nonsense approach to marketing in which the mobile device is integrated into the marketing strategy as a mass media channel and as an element of the marketing mix. Marcelo's vision is integrating this channel to the marketing strategy, leveraging the different capacities available (SMS, web access) and its uniqueness, which is user interactivity:

• “Nestlé Torce Por Você”, an SMS campaign for Nestlé with soccer idol Pelé as spokesperson. Consumers receive a code with the purchase of R$7,00 (approximately US$3.60) of Nestlé products which they send via SMS for a chance to win a prize. This campaign integrates all the elements mentioned above: user interaction, SMS for mass market reach and use of different media includes including advertising in magazines, newspapers and TV for consumer awareness.
  
• “Petrobras Mobile Racing”, this campaign for Petrobras (Brazilian Oil Company) was launched for the Salão do Automóvel (Automobile Showcase) and uses a different approach and different mobile device capabilities than the previous example: mobile games downloaded via bluetooth.

Marcelo shared many other interesting case studies, which are available at http://www.mobilepedia.com.br/. Please note this site and all information is in Portuguese. I will stay in touch with Marcelo to share more information in the near future.