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This week’s roundup focuses on insights from the Mobile Marketing Association’s recent London Forum.

Mobile Marketing provided a quick summary of the London Forum as events were wrapping up. Editor David Murphy quoted the MMA’s Paul Berney: “The time for evangelising the mobile channel is past. It’s time to educate and execute. We have moved from why to how.” He went on to note that in spite of compelling examples from leading brands, advertisers are still having problems justifying budget for mobile. His advice? “Companies doing great stuff on mobile [need] to keep banging home the same message – that it works.” In the end, their success will prove the case.

One company that has embraced mobile is Coca-Cola. In fact, they’ve been actively engaged in mobile marketing for years. The MMA London Forum provided David Murphy with an opportunity for a little one-on-one with Coca-Cola’s Jude Brooks. In this Mobile Marketing video, the two discuss the brand’s different activities in the mobile channel.

The MMA and research partner Lightspeed Research presented Forum participants with results from research on European exposure and response to mobile advertising. The study showed that “on average, 45% of consumers noticed mobile advertising and of these, 29% responded to it.” Furthermore, “once people have responded to a mobile advert over a third (39%) continued on to make a purchase.” According to MMA vice president of market intelligence, Peter A. Johnson, “an advert delivered via the under-hyped opted-in SMS turns out to be the most likely to open a consumer’s wallet.

Writing for Mobile Commerce Daily, our friend and colleague Peggy Anne Salz provides an extensive report on Forum proceedings. Echoing Paul Berney’s comment, Peggy writes that the MMA’s “emphasis on strategy, tactics and – above all – analytics comes at a critical juncture in the evolution of the MMA and reflects a new phase of development in the mobile marketing industry.” Mirroring this shift in the industry, Peggy reports, the MMA “has moved from explanation to execution.” She goes on to explore the Association’s new mission, to develop “a very well-defined, industry-accepted currency that the technologies execute against.”

Peggy’s article moves on to review several key contributors to the MMA Forum, including GS1 MobileCom, Best Buy, Marks & Spencer, and Optism. The article references the Market Advantage Youth Lab research conducted by Alcatel-Lucent for Optism. Here and elsewhere Peggy noted the emphasis on permission and preferences – concepts that ran “like a leitmotiv through the two-day event.” Peggy’s article is a great read for everyone, even those who were lucky enough to attend the Forum!

To close, we look at a recent article in eMarketer that provides stats that underscore mobile consumers see value in advertising. Specifically, a recent InMobi and comScore study reported that, “Of the nearly 4,400 US mobile phone users surveyed, 38% felt mobile ads “serve an important purpose,” while an additional 25% stated they are getting accustomed to viewing mobile ads.” How well an ad is received will, of course, depend on the perceived value for the consumer. A recent Nielsen study confirmed that “ads that were more customized and relevant to their interests and location got a better reception from consumers, and also made them more inclined to respond.”

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