By Frederick Saurat
A vision on how the mobile marketing using TMS can make the traditional media measurable and interactive in the next decade …
In parallel to the launching of our TMSfactory platform’s version 1 and the positive result of our road show in New York and Los Angeles where TMSfactory was introduced to media such as WSJ, ESPN, and Fox. And following a presentation I did at the 2009 New York Venture Summit I tried to evaluate, while on flight back to Hong Kong, some potential and high profitable ways our media to mobile platform can offer to help expand small and large businesses and I’m now putting my reflections together in this post.
Considering the fact that our platform allows real time interactivity between media (offline and online) and consumers using the mobile medium as “1 click” bridge, and the fact that TMSfactory serves a complete supply chain that enables the development of mobile business covering the creation of rich mobile contents optimized for all mobile operating systems. Including the localized distribution of mobile offers in 160 countries with Telco’s neutral solutions, the management of mobile users’ data, and a cutting-edge mobile payment solution. I really think that the following industries and business can be disrupted in the next decade….
1. Local marketing. TheTMSway is currently providing “self service”, marketing tools allowing small businesses to go mobile anywhere in the world with a complete chain of essential services (content creation, distribution, data management and payment solution) accessible in one place. At the same time the local outlets of some of the largest retailers in the world can use the TMS RTI (TMS code & search) technology as well to deliver real time promotions. As an example, using TMS a retailer can send customers news alerts about special offers, sales, new merchandise, store hours, or events. International companies that operate through hundreds of locale stores can do and apply the same method to deliver targeted and localized offers.
Recently, HP has launched a million dollar marketing program in Asia wherein the company is executing a “media to mobile” campaign using TMS offline widgets (TMS code and search) and online widgets (TMS web banners with SMS box) in order to establish a database of subscribers for its “HP good deal message alerts”.
The local-hyper marketing aspect of the TMSfactory platform opens the opportunity to move billions of dollars of business to and from retailers based on targeted marketing. Using the TMS tools, companies can engage into first-rate conversation with consumers via message alerts, particularly in times when prices drop a few dollars. TMS users, on other hand, can choose to follow local businesses and companies subscribing to promo and “good deal” message alerts as diverse as the local stores or McDonalds. The TMSfactory has definitively the potential to deliver substantial amounts of business to retailers across the mobile channel.
2. Outdoor Ads. This advertising medium is seen everywhere in the world due to simplicity and relatively cost-efficient production. In fact, current estimates of worldwide outdoor advertising sales reaches $30 billion annual revenues. However, one of the weaknesses of traditional media, such as billboard advertising and newspaper display, is the ability to measure its impact within a specific region. TheTMSway, for this reason, improves the potential of outdoor media through the revolutionary use of real time “TMS code and search” technology (internal code name: TMS RTI for Real Time Interactive) that enables the opportunity to establish a measurement tactic out of an immeasurable medium. The TMSfactory services, through its real time interactivity, leverages an impulsive response from the new generation of the world’s digital consumers.
TMS can determine localization; and thru this concept, if a TMS user sees an advertisement for a Toyota (TM) car with an invitation to enter the TMS code (TM 123 134) into the TMS Search, this leads him to access a web page of local dealers in a specific region. Toyota, using the TMS technology, can track the location of the TMS user hence inviting him to claim some promotional items from Toyota’s local showrooms within a specific region. Similar principle applies to newspaper displays, print ads, and classified ads. Some display ads have coupons but the opportunity for newspapers to gather real time reactions from consumers through TMS RTI helps a hard-to-measure medium become interactive. This implies a new huge potential source of revenues for newspapers introducing the online Cost per Click (CPC) business model in offline ads business… and this is exactly what the WSJ has started to understand and evaluate after my presentation.
Also the fact that the newspaper can distribute mobile coupons in real time multiplies the number of coupons which can be distributed as by definition a print coupon can be used once but at the same time the readership of a newspaper is always based on an average of more than one reader per copy…
TheTMSway endeavors to activate the offline media (such as print, OOH, etc) and to provide measurement tools that support the efficiency of this new marketing approach. If the use of these tools and services succeeds, they will completely change the marketing methodology and advertising investment which companies aim to achieve from outdoor media. “Just imagine the introduction of the CPC online model in offline media … it’s just a revolution…”
3. Data mining. Collecting data to help monitor the behavior of consumers towards a product or service is among the most expensive activities of large companies. The TMSfactory platform provides access to mobile user’s data management and analytics that can automatically organize and store data from all activities involving the mobile offers and target consumers. The collection of data includes monitoring from the device used, surfing activities, promo clicks, polls, downloads and purchases/orders, among others.
4. Large media companies are already using the TMS interactive media to mobile services as a way to alert people anywhere in the world via mobile messages about breaking news and featured news. TV5Monde, WSJ, Star TV, ESPN, Eurosport and a few others are starting to use the premium services of TheTMSway to benefit from the Telco’s neutral mobile platform to, on one hand make their media (TV or Print) interactive in real time and on the other hand to distribute Multimedia web magazines via message alert on mobile devices of subscribers in 160 countries. In this domain, with its worldwide mobile internet approach, TheTMSway disrupts deeply the existing model edited by Telco’s in terms of distribution (using SMS as a free vehicle to distribute content “On demand”) and monetization (the media receives the majority of the revenues “Telco free” from the users subscriptions).
The SMS message alerts provided by TheTMSway contain tiny clickable URL’s which can be used to provide a feed of content, video (downloadable or accessible in streaming), or audio files. In other words news, sport magazines, movie trailers can be distributed “On Demand” to hundreds of thousand of people worldwide via simple clickable message alerts (which can include some localized ad coupons). The same holds true for newspaper editorials which become interactive in real time offering access to multimedia complementary files updated in real time. TV5Monde, the francophone Channel with 180 millions worldwide subscribers, has already begun to take advantages of this by distributing a daily breaking news magazine with a news feed based on (5 to 10) 3 min. videos. This also gives media an advantage as they can access audiences in real time for breaking news.
This new cutting-edge “Content on Demand” distribution service on mobile devices provided by TheTMSway in +160 countries invites a huge new source of revenue for media and high value content owners. With a subscription based on $4 to $8 (based on weekly or daily alerts) per month ($50 to 100$ per year) the platform’s potential (that represents few hundred million in new revenues) is no doubt an opportunity to boost annual returns for media like TV5Monde, WSJ, or content owner like Manchester United…
5. And what about “VAS On Demand” (Value Add Services) which can also be distributed in +160 countries Telco’s free by the TMS platform. For example we are analyzing a specific service that helps farmers from all over the world acquire instant access to weather forecasts and analysis within respective areas. By subscribing to TMS mobile alerts, farmers can monitor the weather conditions within their local areas.
6. New social media, using TheTMSway tools, have the opportunity of extending the promotion or display of its content to the mobile channel in real time. The aggregator of targeted news and the providers of users generating content (UGC) in social networks, like MySpace, can send alerts to audiences via mobile messages which redirect the receivers to the mobile multimedia contents. This TMS concept enables an artist to promote his music via MySpace by creating a mobile database of fans which he can use to send out regular multimedia newsletters to promote or sell his work.
7. The use of TMS tools for “micropayments” or “payments for services” is already kicking off in its early stage. The mobilized age for money exchange, payment transactions, and the pricing of goods and services is a good start of a large independent economy now emerging on TMSfactory platform. One already tested mobile payment model is our TMSPayWorld which allows consumers to sign up and place cash into their TMSPayWorld accounts via online payment services like PayPal, local partners (like China post offices), or from friend’s cash transfer. Having an activated TMSPayWorld account enables consumers to enter a product or services’ TMS code to TMS Search to launch a mobile payment transaction in real time. Let’s take a kid playing an online game as an example. Using his internet-enable mobile phone, he can purchase a weapon or life by entering the weapon’s TMS code into his mobile using TMS Search engine to launch the transaction. Once the transaction is accepted, a confirmation code prompts the kid to use his purchased good/s. Real time is the key element.
8. The TMSPayWorld service will be also used inside communities for money transfer and in emergent countries we can imagine that a person can enter in a small shop and check on a “TMS Transfers” wall sticker associated with a TMS code. Entering the code in TMS search, the person will be able to activate a “reload service:” giving cash to the store owner to receive, in return, money in his TMSPayWorld account. In other words, TheTMSway with this simple payment solution using mobile internet can become the instrument of a worldwide peer to peer payment model… no need for electronic POS solution anymore…
9. The commercial sector will not be the only part of the enterprise landscape that will be affected by TheTMSway services. Large Government agencies can use the TMS tools to disseminate and communicate emergency notices to the public fast and easy via message alerts. …The TMS 911 code is coming soon…
10. Philanthropy “as business” use of TMSfactory involves hosting a platform for social fund-raising and donation for a cause. The TMSPayWorld can accommodate fund-raising donations using mobile and a TMS code to launch a cash transfer. Furthermore, political and cause-oriented groups can use the services for the circulation of mobile newsletters and message alerts to the entire community members. The TMS services also open an immense and useful method for local communities to voice their opinions in response to public polls posted in offline media. This offers an opportunity of having a quick access to thousands of reactions gathered from critical and opinionated questions.
11. I will finish with something about Product tracking: The TMS RTI (Real Time Interactive) service which provides a TMS alphanumeric code that offers access to mobile content via TMS search, can become an interesting tool for companies or institutes who want to track products using the ID numeric code of the 1D barcode printed on a product packaging to be used as a TMS code …and associated to mobile info (site) accessible in real time on mobile.
The access to Internet on Mobile will completely change the way we access and use the web and the “real time” factor will become one of the keys to connect the 4 billion expected users worldwide. TheTMSway has on one hand the objective to disrupt definitively the actual mobile business rules edited by the Telco’s during the last decade and on the other hand will change, as a consequence, the way we live and interact with media. We (all the TMS team) really feel the excitement that “TheTMSway” can have a significant role in the actual transformation, taking the TMSfactory platform to its leap of becoming one of the biggest platforms in the next decade.
successful campaigns are built on the understanding that the mobile channel isn’t homogeneous. Instead, savvy brands and marketers know that it’s actually a set of options, each with its own strengths and considerations that must be factored in to ensure a maximally effective campaign.