Passionland

Around 3 months ago; I’ve heard that Indonesia Central Bank (BI) had (finally) released a mobile payment regulation so mobile carriers can enable their customers to use their mobile phone as another official payment tools for any transaction (not just mobile contents).

Telkomsel is the first certified operator that has this service (launch around a month ago); but actually few years ago XL already tried to implemented it by a product called mWallet. Unfortunately, there they cant continue the product since there was no regulation about mobile payment.

How it works? Will it deduct my main balance or add my phone billing? NO with this mobile paymet product people will need to do a top-up for tCash account in appointed merchants then your phone become a ‘prepaid’/debit card –boring_stuff_end_here, click above image for more details :)–

It’s official that all mobile superiorities as a 7th mass media completely can also be enjoyed in Indonesia. Imagine; group of teenagers receive a promotion message about their favorite band concert in Jakarta. One of them have tCash. They can directly buy a concert ticket without need to run to the ATM and find a ticket box. –what a perfect world–

I believe there will be lot of ideas running around Octokers head…… :)
I’ve registered my number…. will share the experience later…..

meanwhile; please put up some relevant idea how we can maximize this…… will this new technology has a chance to grow in our market? what will be the best product to start?

.juicer

Some of you might have previous version of image above showing how people evolve. For me; image above will tickled me in a way that we actually going back to nomad because technology enable us to do so.

The difference between ancient and ‘neo’ nomad maybe only its tools and ‘know-how’. On ancient nomad, people will and always gather in groups, have their own sign/language, their own symbol, create their own currency (on bartering things) and their own unique habit (culture). All tools that used as means for their activities are simple, practical, and specific. Even, in some literature fashion also indicate their identity as a member of specific ‘ancient nomad’ groups (-although I’m still curious on how we can know how a pre-historic people dress-up-). Ancient-nomad will move places because many reasons included in this 2 groups; resource to support their groups and/or security.

‘Neo-Nomad’; will have all the social values had in ancient-nomad. Especially in Indonesia; I think Indonesian will be very easy to complete this sentence ‘let’s gather for ….”. We have community for almost every car type(even if it not a rare car), specific product from a brand - from id-mac, id-apple, ipod touch community, iphone, etc- , and specific sub-(sub-sub-…)group.

Thanks to technology, physical appearance will not be a mandatory; because we can have a ‘gathering’ in mailing lists, chat rooms, multiparties calling, and group SMS. Every participant can/want/need to be involved in decision making process; although most of the them never meet each other in person.

Demands (or dreams) to get more than what we have will always be there; either we need it or we want it. Started with a device that can only receive limited characters and a device that can exchange single duplex voice; now a device can do all things; text, voice, internet, music, photo, and ‘carry-able’.

Why we need it to be a ‘carry-able’ device? One of the reason is because we really want to take control on what we have, including our social networks / groups / community.

Technology shifted us to a ‘neo-nomad’ creatures.

1 million question: are we ready for this?

(warning; it might take some time for you to read this article. I was carried away….. :))

wikipedia says, mobile marketing is First, and relatively new, is meant to describe marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a mobile phone

Some corporate in Indonesia will refer it as SMS broadcast(90% of mobile subscribers in Indonesia have received at least 1 SMS promotional), sending unique number in some product packaging to special number and win a prizes :) (ok… I admit i’ve done it in my previous-previous job… because it was looked like a great idea; having a new revenue stream from corporate by selling the concept of “self funded promotional effort”). In short; like it or not it’s not a preferred extra service desired by a corporate although they know the potential of this new media.

Ok, so what’s exactly mobile potential anyway? These facts may support why marketing need to extend and explore mobile as a new media;

• Indonesia; 4th most populated country in the world has 20-25% of mobile penetration (compare with 8.9% -only- internet penetration) that will grow to 75% in 2015
• Average SMS traffic in Indonesia around ~300 million SMS/day (Telkomsel claim has 419 Million SMS/day in average every subscribers sent at least 10 SMS / day)
• People in big cities change their mobile phone in average once every 3 months; that make 90% of GSM handsets in Indonesia market already support GPRS/MMS unfortunately 95% GPRS/MMS supported handset users are ‘fake users’, meaning they don’t use their phone other than Voice and SMS :(
• SMS, still the sexiest product proposition for mobile carriers in order to increase activation rate targeted to youngsters
• 4 out of 5 people always carried more than 1 always-connected mobile phone (age 18-35)
• 3 out of 5 people sleep near their mobile phone
• 10% Promotion SMS (with interesting offer, e.g quiz with prizes, discount from well known brands) sent to mobile subscribers will get a response (2006)

Based on promising data above; I believe most of you will challenge it by asking “then why no body doing it…???” I’ll answer it by following reasons;

• Mobile marketing activities was started by Content Providers (CP)

(with all the respect to all mobile content providers pioneers that introduce ‘volume-game’ business in Indonesia :) ). Some mobile content business pioneers are already talked and executed mobile marketing by introducing ’self funded promotion’ (SFP) program. SFP was presented as a new way on ‘hard sale’ campaign activities in order to increase number of sales of a product by conducting a mobile contest or SMS quizes; how is it become a self-funded campaign? thanks to premium SMS. All SMS will be charged based on premium rate agreed by CP, mobile carrier, and off course corporate clients. The program is as simple as sending special number to specific short destination number/code (SDC) and will be charge more than regular SMS price (usually it’s Rp. 1000 - 2000 / SMS). Premium SMS revenue will be given to CP for funding the campaign (buy prizes, etc). What about the program promotion? it taken from budgeted promotion that planned to be executed within that budget year.

Depend on the cases and goal of the campaign; but most of the cases, campaign will be loose its own essence because CP will be calculating campaign program based on their nature of business; volume of premium SMS. Because some of the premium SMS revenue will be source of prizes fund.

If the goal is only for short term number of sales increase; I believe this will be the most effective program that can be done. Unfortunately; most of the participants are not brand’s target market. Even, in some of the SMS text program there always be a ‘quiz-prizes’ hunter, that join the program just for the prizes. As a result, there is no post promotion impact to the particular brand/product which wont represent corporate client’s goal. After few periods of programs; quiz prize hunters will find another programs that offer better prizes and programs will be subsidized (by CP, or sometime by client in order to save their image).

So, corporates then start to think it will be more efficient if they do the same program by traditional -send_to_po_box- way; because they can control end-to-end process and for them mobile will be less efficient because there’s no added value beside an ‘automation’ process of ’send PO.BOX’ way and it will only add unpredictable risk caused by low SMS traffic and some other technical problems.

• Stereotyping of mobile marketing and premium SMS by mobile subscribers

End user starts to view the type of ’send_unique_number’ campaign is another form of strategy done by mobile CPs or mobile carrier to increase their phone usage without any transparency related to drawing process, number of senders, and how’s their winning chance. It looks like from customer’s point of view a ‘who spend bigger money’ game. In some cases; it also encourage irresponsible party to ride on the campaign and create random fake notification via SMS about winner announcement.

Unfortunately; in order to get as many SMS volume as they can, some ‘naughty n opportunist’ CPs will make the program as subscription based program that ‘force’ customers to pay unwanted contents on daily basis. This case will cause brand owner will suffer and create unproductive impact to campaign goal.

• Privacy intrussion

This is another impression when I introduce ‘mobile marketing’ terms to corporates (at least some of clients that we’ve approached). Mobile marketing will be referred as SMS broadcast to random numbers about some promotions held by a brand.

Then what should we do?

IMHO, we should ‘juice’ mobile technology by;

• Treat mobile as a media; not source of revenue.
• Maximize its superiority value as a media that very personal, interactive, always connected, payment channel, and always carried
• Create exciting activity programs that align to the campaign goal
• Treat mobile as a complement to other media; don’t push it to be available to all campaign if it doesn’t relevant
• Treat mobile as a tool to create brand engagement, that create ‘we hear you’ impression
• Hear other industry expert about they think about how mobile can help them to ease their pain
• Educate both market and brand owner about above values and how should we do it

So, Octokers…. I challenge you to give me at least one activities that relevant to mobile that you think will be a great campaign model….. you can drop me an email or discuss with me at any chance….. :)

This source might give you clearer picture about mobile as a 7th mass media…

| ViewLet’s differentiate ourselves by juicing mobile values in a right way… let’s be a pioneer…. put some passion on your mobile and be a mobile.juicer… ;)

Hi Passionland readers,

I’m .juicer -dot juicer- a new member of passionland family, that (planned) to be an added value to the organization.

We will design, integrate, and implement any activities related to -so called- 7th mass media (http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/7th_mass_media/index.html).

At brief; .juicer will add any of existing media value by using superiority of mobile technology on its nature to be a -personal, permanent connect, always carried, payment channel, profiling tool, fun- device.

.juicer