This week has seen the arrival of the biggest yearly event in mobile (the GSMA Mobile World Congress) and as always it has left us buzzing about all things mobile. This year’s theme was ‘Redefining Mobile’ and the city of Barcelona saw thousands of mobile & technology professionals from all corners of the world arrive en masse for the event from 27th Feb to 1st March. Yours truly was on site to report back on the latest this year. Whilst there weren’t nearly as many big stories or new product announcements as last year, the congress was exciting nonetheless. Below is a summary of the key trends, announcements, and highlights that have come out of this year’s MWC.

HTML 5 & The Mobile Web

One of the bigger announcements at MWC was that of Mozilla and Telefonica (the company who owns O2 in the UK) forming an alliance to create a new platform for HTML-5 based devices with the intention of creating a phone architecture that relies entirely on web technology. The implications of this are huge as everything from calling to messaging & browsing would eventually be executed via the Firefox browser if successful. More Info Here

Facebook also announced that they were focusing on the mobile web by investing in initiatives to support its development; more specifically HTML5 technology standards and payment enabling. This is a move that inevitably makes sense because if users are using the Facebook mobile site instead of the native apps, Apple is effectively taken out of the equation. More Info Here

On the Google side of things, a portion of Eric Schmidt’s keynote speech centred on the Chrome for Android app – now available in over 20 countries for handsets and tablets supporting the Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Google said the browser was designed with three concepts in mind: it had to be fast, clean, and simple….and it looks very sleek and fast indeed. You can see a demo of Chrome for Android within Eric Schmidt’s keynote

Mobile Payments / NFC

Whilst there’s been a lot of talk around payments and NFC for a while, this year’s congress saw a lot of companies showcasing services around NFC and mobile payments. However, the biggest announcement came on Monday when Vodafone announced it was partnering with Visa to roll out mobile payments via NFC across all the markets where it operates More Info Here

More Smartphones…More Android

There weren’t nearly as many new devices unveiled when compared to last year’s show. However, there was fair share of exciting smartphones on display out there, most of which were running on Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

The big surprise was Huawaei’s launch of the Ascend D Quad – a powerful Android Smartphone with a rather impressively sharp and vivid graphic display. HTC’s One X also generated a lot of buzz with its thin body, sleek design, and Beats Audio integration. The folks at Phone Arena have coincided with us and have put these two handsets amongst their favourite new phones showcased at MWC.

Unlike last year, Samsung* did not steal the show by unveiling its latest Galaxy S smartphone like many may have originally hoped (The Galaxy S II was unveiled at MWC 2011). They did, however, showcase the Galaxy Beam (an innovative phone and projector combo) and updated versions of their tablets (in both 10.1 and 7.7 varieties). Moreover, the biggest move was the launch of the Galaxy Note 10.1, essentially a larger version of the original Galaxy Note phone/tablet combo, complete with a stylus.

Coincidently, Samsung also picked up a few awards at the GSMA global awards during the congress. They won the Best Smartphone award for the Galaxy S II as well as the overall Device Manufacturer of the year honours. SMG was nominated for Best Mobile Advertising & Marketing campaign in partnership with Enrich Mobile for our global Angry Birds Samsung Galaxy S II campaign. The complete list of GSMA Global Awards winners can be found here.

Interestingly, there weren’t nearly as many tablets on display as last year (amusingly, Apple announced their iPad 3 unveiling event for next week at the same time that Eric Schmidt was delivering his keynote at MWC). However, nearly all of these were running on Google’s Android OS…as were most of the new smartphones on display. As if Android’s power wasn’t big enough (now the leading smartphone operating system ahead of Apple’s iOS), Google made sure that Android’s presence was felt throughout the event. Their clever marketing tactics included erecting an entire Android wing complete with a smoothie bar and delicious Android ice cream sandwich treats (see below) in honour of the latest version of their operating system. They also brought back a series of new Android collector pins this year which saw MWC attendees (and even staff!) running around Google’s partners’ booths in order to acquire them. Not only were people trading these on-site at MWC, communities started forming on EggDrop where people were exchanging and trading these via the mobile app. Very fitting!

More info, videos & news of this year’s MWC can be found on the Mobile World Live website

*Samsung is a client of Starcom MediaVest Group

Now that we're well into 2012 and with the Mobile World Congress kicking off in Barcelona in a few days, it feels like a good time for a quick update on the world of Mobile here at SMG and where we see 2012 heading.

2011 was a great year for us, with our clients' investment in the channel growing by over 350% YoY. However, it wasn't just our clients who were interested - the press covered several of our campaigns, we were given kudos by the Mobile Marketing Association, and a celebrity chef's son even felt compelled to do an internship in our team for 1 month!

Additionally, 2011 saw many Mobile industry firsts for SMG, which included:

• World's 1st 3D tablet ad (winner of the 2011 MMA EMEA Innovation Award) • UK's 1st geo-targeted SMS operator competition • 1st entirely re-designed hidden golden egg level with Angry Birds • UK Launch of the FT Android Smartphone & Honeycomb tablet apps • Launch of Guardian Android app • 1st UK campaign on VEVO Mobile • 1st pre-roll campaign on YouTube Android app • PC Advisor Daily iPad application Launch Partner • 1st O2 Video MMS Campaign • UK Google Goggles Marketing Experiment launch partner

Whilst 2011 was a good year for SMG & Mobile, we are very excited to see what 2012 will bring to this space. A good indicator of where things will go in any given year is the biggest yearly ‘globile’ (global + mobile) event: the GSMA Mobile World Congress. This event sees virtually all major players in the eco-system coming together in Barcelona (operators, manufacturers, infrastructure companies, developers, etc.) and has historically seen the unveiling of many great products – Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 there last year*

This has gotten us here in the mobile team around to thinking about some of the things we expect to see in mobile in 2012. Some of the recurring themes were:

• Windows 8 is rumoured to be making a splash at MWC which indicates that it may not be too long before we start seeing a veritable Windows tablet market emerge.

• Nokia/Windows phones will gain some serious traction this year, following the positive reception of the Nokia Lumia and the advancements that Windows 8 will bring

• Mobile to increasingly become a "house-life" device that simultaneously connects to all your other screens: TV, tablet, desktop, etc.

• A sharp rise in brands using mobile marketing to drive immediate action via proximity/geo targeting

• Smartphone penetration in the UK to go above 70% by the end of the year

• Whilst NFC has gotten off to a rather slow start in the UK, 2012 will hopefully see this ecosystem coming together for mobile payments and wider usage

• Expect to see a lot more mobile integration with print & outdoor advertising this year, especially around Augmented Reality

Surely some of the biggest surprises in the space are bound to be those that barely anyone saw coming…which makes it all the more exciting! Be sure to tune into Emerging Spaces for an update on the 2012 GSMA Mobile World Congress in addition to weekly market updates from the SMG Mobile team.

*Samsung is a client of Starcom MediaVest Group

It’s nearly impossible to avoid Facebook in this day and age. There are those few that abstain from this pastime but for the majority Facebook is an unavoidable, and essential, digital presence.

With over 33 million users in the UK, more than 22 million of these use Facebook on mobile. While the mobile application is not yet as rich as the desktop version, largely due to the device technology, the user-base is rapidly growing and the potential for advertising raises the question: why has Facebook abstained from exploiting this revenue stream thus far? Furthermore, what do users on Facebook mobile do and how would one effectively engage them to build a valuable brand experience?

The importance of answering these questions for us is twofold: to satisfy natural curiosity and to understand behaviours on Facebook that will most effectively allow us to build positive brand experiences when advertising opportunities become available.

Ads on Facebook Mobile

With mobile Facebook users being twice as active as PC-only users and roughly 20% - 35% of ‘likes’ coming from mobile devices, insufficient volume for advertising opportunities would seem to be a tenuous line of reasoning. Some may argue that, just as with Facebook desktop, they are waiting until the product has gained such traction and a defined ‘cool’ status until feeding in ads. However, wider public attention has turned to Facebook mobile ads in the wake of the news around its IPO and industry rumours of mobile ads appearing imminently (NMA Subscription Required). Our very own Oli Newton has also contributed to a recent piece in New Media Age exploring this subject (NMA Subscription Required)

A lot of us have a hunch that there will be some official announcement from Facebook regarding a mobile ad product & strategy towards the end of this month at Facebook’s global marketing conference. However, as it stands there aren’t any ads on Facebook Mobile yet. Although they have a mobile optimised site, users are still unable to fully engage with all of the website’s features (it cannot yet support all tabs, games, etc.). However, the mobile apps have some features ideally suited to the technology such as the geo-location function which presents an ideal opportunity for advertisers interested in this nascent active space. A space that is rife with opportunity as evidenced by the fact that over 96% of people in the UK who ‘check-in’ via mobile do it via Facebook.

In this modern time when ad relevancy is more important than ever the targeting potential of mobile advertising has to be fully utilized. According to a report published in Financial Times earlier this month, Facebook may launch “featured stories” ads (FT Subscription Required) using a Sponsored Story format. This will probably be displayed into the new formatted users’ timeline on mobile.

Furthermore, the rise of social gaming demonstrated by the likes of Farmville would seem a perfect fit for the Facebook mobile platform. The concept of incentivised ‘likes’ is an area of contention due to the sometimes questionable long-term value of paying a user to ‘like’ a brand. However, there is potentially much more value to be had if real-time geo-targeting were used to drive users to physically engage with brands/products in-store in order to gain those precious ‘farm coins’. With Facebook mobile as a central area from where to access the games a sufficient level of scale could be built for the purposes of effective advertising.

Usage & Relevant Advertising

Although we know people are active on Facebook mobile (roughly 67% of its entire user base), there hasn’t been a significant amount of official data made available on how mobile Facebook usage differs from its PC counterpart. Usage insights are vital to creating valuable consumer experiences via marketing.

These days it’s easy to believe a lot of rumours around the imminent evolution of the Facebook platform, especially regarding Mobile, but without any proper confirmation from Facebook…the best thing to do is to examine the way people use Facebook via mobile and then determine what will be the best advertising approach.

With this in mind we had a few thoughts about what we and our immediate peer groups do on Facebook mobile and we recruited a bit of help to ask a few others. Two trends that emerged amongst the few individuals we spoke to were that most of us accessed Facebook mobile frequently (multiple times per day) and when out and about. Keeping in the vein of what we have mentioned previously, this goes perfectly with geo-location capabilities and the opportunity to build meaningful brand experiences for relevant audiences at the right place & time.

Interestingly, a few people commented that they sometimes felt frustrated by the Facebook Mobile experience (both mobile website and app). Similar opinions have been voiced by others before and this coupled with the fact that Facebook only launched their iPad application last October, has led some to question how mobile-forward the company actually is. However, as Facebook recently signed a deal with Bango (FT Subscription Required), a mobile payment company in the UK, it’s clear that Facebook have got some much bigger mobile plans that extend far beyond standard ads. There is also some speculation that Facebook’s strategy is to secure its future revenues by getting the best deals now to avoid a harder competition from Google and/or Apple. Shervin Pishevar, entrepreneur, recently made an interesting observation in stating that “If the app is making users insane, they are just going to go to the browser version of the site, which is a big win for Facebook because it gives them an advantage over Apple.”

By Roberto Agosti & Michael Vitello. Special thanks to Nicola Boekstein for her contribution & insights into this article