Being direct... AdVantage Aug 2005
Looked Underneath a New Technology Rock Yet?
We live in a time where new stuff is being launched into our worlds on almost a daily basis ...
but do we really take the time to consider the human-interface and marketing opportunities opened up by these new technologies?
One of the things which I do for fun (now that I have got to that stage of my life when fun has finally begun to be more important than survival) is to watch for the evolution of new communication technologies, and to try and predict the role which these may (or may not) have on the future of business communication.
About 3 years ago, it was with relative confidence that I decided to invest a little money in a company that recognised a business opportunity to use GSM cell-phone Short Messaging Services as a channel to encourage two-way conversations between companies and their customers. This interested me personally because most others in this industry seemed to only focus on mass-market applications like ring-tones, logos and premium-rate competitions.
One of the great benefits of representing our German partners here in South Africa is that we get to travel to Berlin each year for the International Distributors Conference, held over 3 days during the first week of June. Before leaving for Germany this year, I promised the editor that I would try and provide some feedback on the conference content (obviously as non-commercially as possible) as part of my next column, so that ADvantage readers would have an opportunity to share in some of the new developments now taking place in this arena.
Our conference primarily concentrated on enhancing our understanding of the software that facilitates SMS traffic/information/content between Networks and Consumers, as well as between Enterprises and their Personnel. We also saw a couple of neat case study presentations that demonstrated successful applications by clients from across the world. The two that I would like to mention here today are for a major UK motor manufacturer - BMW (UK) Manufacturing Ltd, makers of the new Mini, and for an American manufacturer of microprocessors, but at their plant in Germany. We have been requested not to publish the latter's name for embargo reasons, so of course I comply.
BMW (UK) employs some 9000 people in the UK with around another 11000 employed in its 156-strong dealer network representing the BMW and MINI brands. One of the most simple and economic ways of exchanging information between all these people is via the GSM network, and using SMS. The client's requirements included being able to communicate with any employee from a desktop to mobile phone; send business-critical alerts in cases of IT failure or should a production-process downtime occur. A further requirement was to automatically escalate messages to another person, should the first person not respond to the system within a given time-frame. Our messaging tool can do all of this as well as to keep a full database of message content and the delivery notifications that drive the escalation process. An important benefit of this server gateway is that it increases the level of communications to (and the mobility of) all employees.
A major manufacturer of computer chips and microprocessors needed a cost-efficient and modern communication solution to replace their aging pager system. This system needed to be able to communicate with any or all of their 3000 employees. The most obvious route to go was the GSM network, as most - if not all - of their employees already owned mobile phones, and the company thus avoided having to outlay huge amounts in mobile hardware. They wanted to be able to send messages to employees away from their desks, but also be able to send SMS's as e-mails and vice versa. The system allows all of these capabilities including a web-portal interface for setting up applications and for registering users and escalation chains. A 'white' list of registered mobile phones ensures that employees do not use the system for their personal messages.
The point of these two examples is to demonstrate that software now exists that enables the set up and management of two-way conversations between employees of an enterprise (in a closed environment), or even between companies and their customers. Perhaps to whet your appetites a little too - we saw a great demonstration of MMS combined with image recognition software called ERSP-Vision. It can be used in many different ways. For example:
Tourists visiting a town can use their cell phone camera to take a picture of a landmark. This is sent via MMS to a short code number that routes to a server which matches key points on the image with an image database in order to identify the landmark. Once identified, information about the landmark (historic or geographic) is SMS'ed to the original sender of the MMS image, in the language of choice. It is not difficult to see an opportunity for using a similar application to distribute marketing/pricing information about selected products. This is a great example of putting the customer in control of obtaining required commercial content.
Finally, we were shown a few movie posters advertising various new releases. Take a camera shot of one of these, MMS it to the short code shown on the poster itself, and you will receive a trailer of the movie in question downloaded to your phone. It is quite possible to do the same with advertising content. It may well provide an opportunity for a newer 'soft-sell' form of commercial content, made specifically for download to mobile phones - and promoted via various print and broadcast channels.
I hope that I have been able to give you a sense that there is more to SMS than just TV voting or Premium Rate content downloads, even though these generate huge revenues for the mobile networks. There is a whole gigantic opportunity just waiting for some creative minds to work on ways to use these new technologies - to do some perhaps 'different' things!