AMEX Honors Admin. Professionals on LinkedIn

April, 2011

AMEX is running a sweeps on LinkedIn to gift Administrative Professionals with AMEX gift cards. Formerly “Secretary’s Day”, the “Administrative Professionals Day” is celebrated on Wednesday, April 27. Companies can nominate their favorite Administrative Professional on LinkedIn, then ask connections to also nominate the same person. The Administrative Professional with the most nominations will win a $2,500 AMEX gift card, while 100 others will win $25 gift cards.

Visa Enters Geolocation Mobile Marketing

April, 2011

Visa has entered the geolocation mobile marketing market and positioned itself as a direct competitor to Foursquare, Groupon, and even eBay.  Visa has launched a new mobile marketing service that allows retail stores to send text messages to consumers that are triggered by purchase habits logged on their Visa cards.  Consumers must opt in to the program online and provide their phone number and credit card information.  Anytime a consumer swipes their Visa card to make a purchase, that data is logged and scanned to see if they are eligible to receive any offers or messages from nearby retailers.  Consumers are eligible for offers if they meet pre-specified criteria such as shopping in a certain zip code, shopping during a certain time of day, or purchasing certain items (i.e. gas, groceries, clothes).  Retailers pay to be a part of this service and can outline the criteria the consumer must meet in order to receive their offers.  The offers are texted to the consumer’s phone and can be presented at the cash register to redeem. The service is free for Visa card holders. This move by Visa to enter the mobile marketing market comes after major new market entrances by giants such as Foursquare, Groupon, and eBay.  Foursquare recently partnered with AmericanExpress during South By Southwest to offer exclusive deals for AmEx holders unlocked by Foursquare checkins.  Groupon and eBay both recently purchased smaller companies specializing in mobile deals unlocked by location based software.  For more information see Ad Age.

Redken Helps Salons with Mobile App

April, 2011

Redken is trying to engage their customers on all channels. They made the mobile apps “Color Me Mobile” and the “Stylist network.” The Stylist Network helps stylists find hair color formulas, has a timer to prevent over-processing, and ask advice from other stylists. Redken also launched a mobile site that lets consumers find their closest Redken salon, lets stylists access brand information on exclusive salon programs on success, and more.  These efforts let the salons access the company’s online community and further engages Redken with salon professionals.

Google To Add “+1″ Button

March, 2011

Google has announced its plans to launch the “+1+ button, it’s answer to the Facebook “Like” button.  The +1 (plus one) button will be available for search results through the site (places, shopping, web results etc) as well as for individual pages.  When a user clicks the +1 button, they are giving their “stamp of approval” and recommendation for the link.  Soon, users will begin seeing what sites their friends and contacts have +1′ed through Google.  Google believes that this new feature will be wildly popular among users since it will give them suggestions from their friends for items throughout their web experience.  Google also believes that this feature will increase qualified site traffic for companies who add the +1 feature to their page since they will be able to increase the drive to their page through qualified recommendations from user’s contacts. Companies can work with Google Web Developers to add the feature to their site.  For more information, see the announcement by Google.

Unsocial Helps Support Business Networking

October, 2010

Unsocial is a new social site for business men and women t0 help them find networking connections nearby. Users can sign up and log in via LinkedIn. Once they sign in, they can add in pertinent business information to help them find connections within their industry. Currently, the site is only active in San Francisco, but Unsocial is aiming to launch in additional cities in the near future.

Velti Buys Mobclix

October 2010

Velti, a mobile marketing agency based in London, recently acquired Mobclix, the largest mobile ad exchange network. Mobclix is a platform that allows app developers to bid for spots along with their ad networks and ad inventory and target people based on gender, location and age.

2010 Valentine’s Day Mobile Marketing Guide

February, 2010

Clickatell, a mobile messaging solutions company, published their “2010 Valentine’s Day Mobile Marketing Guide” for businesses hoping to capitalize on the money spent during the holiday. Bizcommunity.com reports that over 1.06 billion text messages were sent last Valentine’s Day and that the average amount spent this holiday will be around $103 on Valentine’s Day merchandise. Pieter de Villiers, Clickatell CEO states, “This Valentine’s season, the most popular forms of social media, SMS and Facebook, will help retailers generate more awareness and buzz about brands, products, services, and special offers instantly and effectively.”

UPS Mobile Shipping

December, 2009

United Parcel Service is targeting small businesses with a free, new app for BlackBerry that allows users to ship and track packages while on the go. The app also calculates shipping rates and estimates the amount of time parcels will be in transit. Additionally, consumers can use their BlackBerry contacts to print package labels and give each package a “nickname,” so they don’t have to remember long tracking numbers.

MyScreen Creates Ads for Minutes

December, 2009

Mobile technology company MyScreen, brings mobile ads to smart phones in exchange for minutes. The company is now focusing on CPG with redeemable coupons that consumers can now use to obtain free minutes from their cell phone carrier. The new technology is a utilization of two other technologies: mobile coupons & mobile carrier incentives. Visit the MyScreen website for more information.

HootSuite Twitter App

December, 2009

HootSuite is targeting businesses who utilize social networking with plans to release an iPhone app. The service, already available online, is an essential marketing tool that allows companies to manage Twitter accounts in convenient columns that track statistics and monitor what people are saying about your brand. HootSuite also enables its users to schedule Tweets for later and tracks Tweets that have already been sent.

Google “Local Business Center”

December, 2009

Google is targeting small business owners by allowing them to post coupons on mobile web Google searches. Businesses can upload the offers via the Google “Local Business Center,” which consumers can obtain on the  business’ “Place Page.” Shoppers can then redeem their coupons by simply showing them to the cashier at point-of-sale.

Comcast Mobile Campaign

October, 2009

Comcast targeted its core consumer with a B2B  mobile campaign on the Newser iPhone app. Comcast ran a series of banner ads, in which consumers could click to be directed to a landing page with a list of the cable company’s services with a click-to-call function.

MoLoRewards.com

October, 2009

MoLo Rewards is targeting advertisers with a mobile coupon service. The coupons can be downloaded and redeemed by the use of Near Field Communication technology, which allows the offer to be transfered from the phone to the cash register simply by holding the mobile device in the same proximity.

Google Rich Mobile Ads

October, 2009

Google is targeting advertisers by offering richer ads for smartphones with HTML capabilities like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android-based phones. While other smartphones are only able to display basic text ads, the higher-end phones are able to display images and more characters. Although users of these high-end smartphones make up a small portion of the U.S. population, advertisers believe that the users are more engaged because their screens appear similar to a PC. Currently, 20% of the population uses some form of a smartphone and the demand is estimated to increase as much as 10% in 2009.

ChaChaCoupons.com

October, 2009

Mobile Q&A company, ChaCha, is targeting local retailers with a new service that allows consumers to search mobile coupons by various criteria including latest offers, business type or neighborhood. The offers can be redeemed by printing them off, entering in a promotional code at checkout or texting to an in-store printer. The service launched in Indiana this week and will expand to 20 markets this year.

Sendster Text Marketing

September, 2009

Sendster has introduced a low cost SMS text message system targeting small businesses in the UK. The service will allow businesses to send out notifications to their consumers about events and offers. Each business can create its own web page on Sendster where its customers can go and opt in to receive texts.

SAP AG

August, 2009

SAP AG, a software company, is targeting early adopter business executives with banner ads on top business and technology mobile sites. The ads link to SAP AG’s mobile site, which contains video ads and more information about the company.

Get Married Goes Mobile

August, 2009

Get Married, a wedding resource magazine, is bringing print to mobile by allowing advertisers to use 2D barcodes to connect consumers to mobile content. Readers simply download an application and snap a picture of the barcode to link to WAP sites, SMS texts, videos or other content. The magazine branded the barcodes by altering the bars to look like their signature heart.

Russell Investments Mobile Ads

July, 2009

Russell Investments is targeting financial professionals with clickable banner ads strategically placed in mobile apps like Investmentexecutive.com and finance-investissement.com, which allow users to monitor financial and economic events.

Auto Driveway Notifications

June, 2009

Auto Driveway is a vehicle relocation service provider that now provides en-route notifications, dates for pick-up and links to registration via SMS texts and emails sent to their customers’ phones. This service is intended to facilitate communication and eliminate some of the stress between staffs of companies that manage pick-ups and deliveries.

mBlox compensation texting

MoVoxx, Kadoink, Jingle Networks and Pudding Media present a way to get more core consumers to engage in text promotions. Texting in which advertising covers the cost of standard text messaging rates allows consumers access to brands on an unlimited basis. The advertising is suited based on: What the device is being used for, location, age, gender, DMA, and even behavioral data.  This would encourage consumers to send text-blasts to other consumers with the incentive of free messaging services.