Being my first Mobile Monday event, I did not know what to expect, but I was definately not disappointed. The theme of the event, the first for 2011, was entitled “Mobile in Retail”, and took place at the The Baron in Bryanston. A total of 170 people registered for the event.
On arrival at the venue, I was presented with my name tag and shown upstairs. I was one of the few females present and definately one of the youngest in the crowd of well dressed business men and executives. A very different type of crowd from the 27dinners that I attend regularly.
I managed to find a few familiar faces (namely @cynicalgrinch, @tinahe and @justinleephotos) and was presented with a welcome drink, was sponsored by egrips.
The first speaker for the evening was Clayton Hayward who presented his mobile startup called Mobicover. By partnering with large insurance companies, including Alexander Forbes and Liberty Life, Mobicover aims to provide insurance, life cover and funeral policies, amongst other services to the lower LSM market in South Africa.
The next speaker was Candice Goodman, recent winner of an MMA global award. She introduced the concept of the mobile phone as being the remote control of the customer and gave examples of how to use SMS and USSD to interact with customers and built customer relationships.
Baron Marshall who works for Mortimer Harvey, was speaker number three. He demonstrated the use of mobile sites and applications by means of two case studies.
The first case study was their strategy for LG and the launch of their mobile phone called the Chatterville. This involved the use of both a mobi site and a flash based website. They also incorporated the use of an online dictionary for chat shorthand. The success of this campaign was measurable.
The second case study was for Doritos Collisions. The basis of the ad was to compile a movie clip and upload it – completing 1 of 3 starts to an advert. A number of film schools were approached before the competition kicked off and this was included as part of their portfolio work. A total of 97 video clips were created and uploaded. The campaign made use of a number of channels including a mobi site, website and Facebook. The success of this campaign was also measurable.
Mike Joubert, editor of Techsmart magazine, presented the Mobile Gadget spot, as the forth and final presentation of the evening. This was by far the most interesting. He spoke about some of the latest trends in the industry including: Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities in mobile phones, improvements in processing power in mobile phones and the resurgence of 3D. Watch this space!
All in all a fascinating and fact filled evening. This will definitely not be my last!
