MMS -Not yet main stream in Canada

An interesting article on Mobile Marketer about a BMW campaign in Germany really caught my attention today.

I read about many different mobile initiatives around the world and this one specifically caught my attention for one specific quote ” We did much more fancy things but we figured out that the more fancy an application is, the less traffic we get,” said Mark Mielau, head of digital media at BMW Germany.  The reason I find this particularly interesting is that in Germany and with the BMW campaign, going back-to-the-basics of mobile is going with an campaign that users MMS and asks the users to interact with multimedia via their mobile phone.  As basic as this may seem to many throughout the world, MMS and multimedia on mobile phones is a new area to Canadians.  Adoption is still low and many mobile users do not yet know how to send or receive MMS communication.

A campaign such as the one by BMW in Germany may not have the desired results in Canada due to the late adoption of MMS.   For us here, going back-to-the-basics is using SMS and texting campaigns.  This can be highly lucrative for marketers if targeted appropriately.  Further, marketers have the ability to build mobile SMS communities so that future loyalty and communication could be routed to customers via their mobile phones.  The use of SMS is more readily understood and adopted than more “Fancy” campaigns using web and mobile applications at the current time.  Mobile web and applications and more “Fancy” mobile initiatives are not off the radar however and in fact they are on the horizon…..it’s just a matter of time before mobile users adopt these technologies and take full advantage of what the new mobile world has to offer.

With Valentine’s day just around the corner, many people are finding creative ways to say “I LOVE YOU”. E-cards have been around for many years but the new trend throughout the world is what I’m calling “m-cards”.  Mobile MMS messages that send a personal greeting to your loved one.  The old saying goes ” a picture is worth a thousand words”. With the growing popularity of MMS messaging, m-cards are the future of card giving..the green-way to express your emotions. UK based company Sharpcards is doing just that.

http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/2009/02/sharpcards-gears-up-for-valentines-day-surge.html