Mobile tips from Unilever, AXA and The Weather Channel: Insights from the MMA EMEA Forum 2013

Joseph Clift
Warc

There was no shortage of grand claims about the power of mobile marketing at the MMA EMEA Forum, organised by trade body the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and held in London in November 2013.

Greg Stuart, the MMA's global CEO, welcomed what he termed the "age of mobile", the coming of which can be illustrated by a battery of statistics, including the standout finding that the average user looks at his or her mobile device 150 times a day. The MMA's own polling suggests 74% of brand owners see mobile as core to their marketing strategy. "There's never been such a pervasive channel for marketers," Stuart said. "There has never been anything close to this before."

But according to Andrew Walmsley, a director at mobile agency Fetch, many brands have not responded effectively to this societal shift. He listed a legion of common failings exhibited by mobile campaigns, including the placement of unreachable QR codes on roadside billboards, annoying "clutter" where brands listed their official accounts in the final frame of their TV ads and poorly thought-through moves onto new platforms like Vine, the video-sharing app.