It's all fun and games until someone trips over 5 million subscribers

If MobiThinking's "Insider's Guide to mobile Web marketing in India" is accurate, 90% of the country's mobile subscribers have voted for a reality show-based contest via SMS. Half of them subscribe to regular SMS jokes, and nearly as many use their phones to get astrology or sports information. This is pretty remarkable in a country where many development organizations are struggling to achieve scale for their mobile-based health, agriculture, and education programs.

Writing for the GSMA recently, Kristen Roggeman pointed out that there is an obvious demand for entertainment among mobile users in both rural and urban India. She describes an innovative marketing effort by Hindustan Unilever (HUL), whereby mobile phone users make a missed call and receive an automatic call-back with 15 minutes of radio programming. The service now has 5 million subscribers and sends out 25,000 hours of programming every day. HUL has now dropped traditional radio marketing from its advertising mix. The hunger for entertainment is not unique to India. In Brazil, The most popular apps are for music, entertainment and navigation, followed by photo, video and social networking. In Nigeria, the national brewery ran a spectacularly successful SMS marketing campaign inviting 18- to 25-year-old men to attend music concerts. The ads had a response rate of more than 30% and a click-through rate of almost 9%. And in the US, drug makers and insurance companies are developing game-like apps that give points and gifts for sticking to drug regimens. (Failing to follow drug prescriptions is estimated to cost US employers, insurance companies and health providers around $200 billion a year.)

Development organizations might take note: even for the poor, entertainment is a central aspect of mobile phone usage. Mobile devices are quickly supplanting radio and television as the main conduit for personal entertainment in developing countries. Integrating entertainment - music, games, sports, movies, and contests - into dry but useful information campaigns is a viable way of extending the reach and impact of programs. Also, strategic partnerships (e.g., with sports, music, or media groups) could help defray the cost of promotion and generate buzz. Development organizations hoping to capitalize on soaring mobile penetration rates frequently devise SMS-based outreach programs. Making them more fun will require a little "outside the box" thinking, but it could be rewarded by increased awareness, adoption, and effectiveness. 

Excellent resource on mobile money

by Karen Coppock
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The GSMA just launched its 2010 Annual Report on its Mobile Money for the Unbanked initiative. This report is an excellent resource on the current state of mMoney initiatives across the globe, which a particular focus on initiatives rolled out in emerging markets.

Why is this important? More than 2.7 billion mobile phone subscribers across the globe now have access to mMoney services (key clarification - access to mMoney service does not necessarily equate to using it). All of the top eight mobile operators have some type of mMoney service or initiative and a total of 60 mMoney services are offered to subscribers around the world. A few years ago M-PESA seemed to be the only game in town, this has changed significantly and all indications are that mMoney is here to stay.

The report sheds light on several key topics:

• regulatory questions
• building, managing and incentivising mMoney agent networks

It also fleshes out case studies on:

• Zain Zap
• Different approaches to achieve scale: True Money and M-PESA 
• Philippines experience with mMoney - one of the pioneers in mMoney 

Thank you GSMA for another informative report on the state of mServices around the world.

Mobiles & Women: A Global Opportunity report launched!

\by Karen Coppock
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Vital Wave Consulting's CEO, Brooke Partridge, along with the GSMA's CEO Rob Conway and Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women all spoke at the official launch of the Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity launch this evening in Barcelona.

The Women & Mobile report is the first comprehensive view of women and mobile phones in the developing world. It starts by noting that a woman is 21% less likely than a man to own a mobile phone in low and middle-income countries. This translates into 300 million fewer women than men own mobile phone in these countries. If this "gender gap" were to be closed, mobile network operators would earn $US13 billion in incremental revenue each year.

The report segments women into five main demographic groups (Women at the Base of the Pyramid, Women in the home, Women in School, Career Women and Rural Women that Work) and characterizes their mobile phone ownership usage, barriers to adoption and preferences. It also includes ten case studies highlighting the strategies and tactics that both mobile network operators and non-profit organizations across the globe are implementing to increase the usage and impact of mobile phones around the world.

Over the next five year, 2 out of every 3 new mobile phone subscribers are likely to be female..that fact alone should motivate mobile phone industry players - and development community - to understand women's usage (and barriers) of mobile phones. This report is an excellent primer to the topic.