For those of you that don’t know about it, Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile professionals. For a quick history and info visit here. Essentially we meet on a Monday once a month to discuss different topics, view demos & presentations, and do networking.

There are Mobile Monday chapters throughout the world and it really is an invaluable resource for those of us in the industry. We have been a member of the MOMO New York group since our inception, and I have made many important contacts and friends at our monthly meetings. Since our main office is in Princeton, NJ, we are right smack in-between New York City and Philadelphia. Well recently a MOMO chapter was started in Philly, and until this month I had not attended a meeting. Officially the chapter is called Mobile Monday Mid Atlantic.

Thanks to someone on the MOMO-NY email list, we were informed of a great event that MOMO-MA was having this past Monday. So last minute, unshaven, in jeans and a sweatshirt, I jumped in the car and headed over. A little uncomfortable in a room full of suits, in the end it was well worth the trip.

The topic of the night was Mobile Advertising and Marketing. They put together a panel of “experts” and rounded up a group of a few hundred to attend. What I did not realize when I got there, was that many in attendance were not MOMO members. Apparently the event was co-hosted by Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic and the Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association (PHIMA). That explained the room full of suits. The event was put together mostly as an educational resource for those looking to get involved in using mobile marketing and advertising.

The event was moderated by Steve Smith who writes for Mobile Insider, a newsletter I have enjoyed reading for quite some time. Steve did an excellent job moderating, and had some great follow-up questions for each of the panelists.

The panel consisted of:

• Webster Lewin, Director of Mobile Marketing, R/GA.
• Adam Schneider, Sr. Director, Sales, AdMob.
• Tom Limongello, Director of Sales, Crisp Wireless.
• Tole Hart, Research Director-Consumer Services, Gartner.
• Stephanie Bauer Marshall, Manager-Mobile Advertising, Verizon
• Teddy Goldstein, Founder & CEO, Broadtexter

While I had a hard time staying in my seat and not jumping up to grab the microphone, most of what these folks presented was great stuff. What surprised me the most though was when Steve asked the audience how many had accessed their mobile browser. I turned around to see almost 100% of the room with their hands up. Immediately afterwards someone joked and asked how many were actually able to connect to the Internet, which sent the room into laughter.

Without going into detail of each presentation, and while there was some that I clearly disagreed with, the audience received it well.

They covered topics of  banner and text ads, mobile websites, SMS advertising, on-deck advertising, video and cross media topics. What I found completely missing was discussion of the tracking and analytics. All the talk of running campaigns, and cost per impression and click, and no talk of optimizing sites, conversion tracking or detailed ROI. Hopefully soon we’ll have enough installations of Mobilytics that it will warrant the attention it deserves in the whole mobile marketing and advertising mix. One thing is for sure, there appears to be some serious interest in what we are all doing, and 2008 might actually be to year of mobile for real.

After hearing this panel, I immediately registered for Media Post’s OMMA Mobile Conference on Feb 7th in NYC. It looks like more of the same but should be a lot more detailed and interesting.

From all that attended, thanks to Brad Blumberg and the founders of the Mid Atlantic chapter, to Steve Smith, the Panelists and Blank Rome Law Firm for sponsoring the event. It was quite enjoyable.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 am and is filed under Mobile Marketing, SMS, Mobile Web, Mobile Advertising. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.