Archive

Youtube has again an excellent example of virality, 2.0 and consumer power: United Breaks Guitars. A singer flied by United Airlines and his guitar was broken. Months he tried to get compensation without any results. Finally he made a song and put it to Youtube. And in two weeks 3.7 Million people saw the video. United offered a compensation, but he refused to take it anymore. A good example that web and mobile really empower consumers. And it is more and more important for companies to understand virality and how to live with communities.

An interesting interview with Turkcell, known to be one of the most innovative mobile operators in the arena of mobile marketing, has been published by Mobile Marketing Magazine’s David Murphy. The full interview can be read here and we’ve summarised some of the key points below. Turkcell believes that mobile operators are not doing enough to cash in on the promise of mobile marketing, and believes it has carved a unique opportunity for itself by using the most innovative mobile marketing strategies out there, in a proactive manner.

Some of the highlights of its strategy are:

-Turkcell has built a database of 7.6 million opt-in subscribers which is actively used for mobile marketing, and it is revenue generating
-Quoting directly from the article, Turkcell’s Melis Turkmen says, “this is one of the largest databases of its kind in Europe, possibly in the world, and we know a lot about them, including their location, demographics, and their data usage that we target subscribers accordingly”
-Turkcell has managed to build this database with low level incentives for subscribers (e.g. 20 credits for 10 texts)
-They run campaigns both for Turkcell’s own marketing and for brands such as Pepsi
-Turkcell estimates that in 2009, there will be $91 million (£55 million) of revenues from mobile marketing in Turkey, of which they will take a 70% share
-The Tone&Win campaign has won awards around the world for its success. With this campaign, subscribers use an advertiser’s jingle for their ringback tone and obtain credits for doing so

We advise that you read the full interview as these innovative strategies are exciting. That link, again is here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/2009/07/smooth-operator.html.

Xtract’s view on this is that Turkcell has done a commendable job implementing mobile marketing and it has all started with the ability to target subscribers based on real data patterns. One of Turkcell’s new ideas is to use mobile marketing for market research, so research companies can take short surveys of very targeted people via mobile rather than calling them and bothering them with a phone survey – and perhaps calling people that aren’t relevant. This is yet another example of how using advanced targeting of mobile subscribers can be a win-win situation for the operator, the third party and the subscriber.

Our deal with the Finnish mobile operator DNA has been covered in Mobile Marketing Magazine. Check it out here.

The text of the article is below.

July 06, 2009
Xtract Secures Finnish Deal

Xtract, which develops ‘social intelligence’ software, has revealed that Finnish operator DNA has deployed its ‘Social Links On-Demand’ solution, bringing the benefits of its targeted and personalised marketing offering to DNA’s 2.4 million subscribers.

Social Links On-Demand is a new delivery channel for Xtract’s flagship solution Social Links. According to Xtract, it helps operators to gain a three-dimensional picture of its subscribers for use in more targeted marketing. Social Links analyses behavioural, demographic and social network data from subscribers in an anonymized form, thus protecting privacy.

Social Links On-Demand’s key components include social network analytics; data warehouse/storage; database maintenance; and infrastructure services such as virus protection and firewalls. Operators can revolutionise strategies such as churn management based upon the service’s three-dimensional subscriber profiling, says Xtract.

“This is a revolutionary solution for customer insight,” says DNA’s Head of Business Intelligence, Jarkko Utriainen. “It helps us increase our marketing efficiency by harnessing the viral effects within social networks. At the same time, deploying the solution as an on-demand service that is hosted by Xtract saves us cost, resources and time in implementation.”

Helsinki, Finland and London, England – 1 July 2009 – Xtract, the pioneer in social intelligence, announced that the Finnish operator DNA is deploying its newly launched Social Links On-Demand solution. DNA will have the advantage of utilising Xtract’s sophisticated targeting technology, as a service, for effective marketing. This means that DNA’s 2.4 million subscribers will enjoy the benefits of targeted and personalised marketing delivering the right advertising and marketing messages to the right people in the right context.

Jarkko Utriainen, head of business intelligence at DNA says: “This is a revolutionary solution for customer insight. It helps us increase our marketing efficiency by harnessing the viral effects within social networks. At the same time, deploying the solution as an on-demand service that is hosted by Xtract saves us cost, resources and time in implementation.”

Xtract CEO Timo Laaksonen says: “Operators need to make their marketing messages and methods less about ‘them’ and more about the subscriber. With Xtract, campaigns become more engaging, spreading through the operator’s subscriber base virally. Offering social intelligence as a service means lower initial costs for the operator, getting it up and running more quickly, and enables using the service flexibly wherever marketers are based.”

Social Links On-Demand is a new delivery channel for Xtract’s flagship solution Social Links. It helps operators gain a unique three-dimensional picture of its subscribers for use in more targeted marketing. Social Links analyses behavioural, demographic and social network data from subscribers in an anonymized form thus protecting privacy.

Social Links On-Demand key components include: social network analytics, data warehouse/data storage, database maintenance/filing, and infrastructure services (virus protection and firewall). Operators can revolutionise strategies such as churn management based upon the service’s three-dimensional subscriber profiling.

Xtract press contact
Emily McDaid
emily@hatch-pr.com
+44 7748 6333 55

DNA press contact
Helena Melamies
Helena.Melamies@dna.fi