Recap: My Time at Mobile World Congress 2012 - Jide Sobo

Mobile World Congress is the mobile industry event of the year It brings together all sections of the mobile value chain from all corners of the globe From San Mateo California to Shenzen Guangdong Provence This year there were over 60000 delegates who descended on Barcelona from 27th February to 1st March all there to witness the latest and greatest from across the mobile industryWhilst it could be said that the operators are diminishing in significance within the mobile ecosystem global turnovers in excess of amp16345 billion Euros for Vodafone alone means they cannot be ignored The main UK operators were well represented in Barcelona with Vodafone Orange and O2 Telefonica all present with big stands There was also representation from the Middle Eastern operators such as Qtel Qatar and Zain most of the rest of the Middle east showing how mobile communications are growing in importance in all regions The O2 Telefonica stand stood out as the most impressive from the operators which is in line with their ambitions to widen their range of services to include O2 Money ampamp O2 Health amongst othersMost of the large stands come from the big boys in the mobile infrastructure space Qualcomm manufacturers of mobile chipsets and network equipment in particular had an impressive stand where they were clearly expecting to do some big deals Not only was the stand on two floors with casual meeting rooms above the product displays there was also a large conference room area outside one of the halls Qualcomm were not the only company to have some serious real estate Huwaei the second largest provider of mobile infrastructure in the world after Ericson also had an impressive stand and an even more impressive looking hanger that was only accessible to their guests I managed to have a chat with the Head of Mobile Advertising at Huwaei who explained their ambitions to power mobile advertising services across most of Asia and Africa Whilst the European and US market is relatively advanced there are big opportunities in the East with operators looking to develop new revenue streams from advertising as they have done in the WestThe predominance of these big infrastructure companies means that unlike most advertising or digital conferences the general uniform is of suits rather than jeans Until that is you move into the smaller relatively area of the App Planet in Hall 7 This is where the smaller newer entrants to MWC come to playApp Planet was where most of the interesting exhibitors had their stands I39m not being disrespectful but semiconductors radio antennas and femtocells just don39t float my boatIt was here that for the first time a lot of the mobile advertising networks were looking to attract new publishers as well as advertisers AdsMobi Mojiva Adfonic Millennial Media InMobi all had a presence at MWC this year Nexage ampamp Smaato were also there from a mobile exchange perspective and Mobclix were represented by their parent company VeltiThere were also a lot of app developers that were touting their wares and looking for corporate projects as well as companies with app development tools that make it easy for anybody with half a creative eye to build their own apps using an online interfaceBack into the sunshine and even more exhibitions from handset manufacturers such as Nokia debuting their new camera phone with a 41megapixel camera Some of the Nokia services such as Nokia Maps 3D show some great innovation that gets forgotten about behind the Apple and Android hype Hopefully the Nokia Microsoft partnership can help bring that to the fore againLG were showing off their 3D handsets which look amazing The 3D gaming demos were spectacular although they looked like they would make your brain hurt after playing for more than 5 minutes Samsung also had their wares on show with a number of artists drawing caricatures of people on the Galaxy Note to demonstrate the power of the stylusSo what does it all mean to us as a media agencyFirstly having first visited MWC 5 years ago whilst working for AdMob it really does seem like mobile advertising is growing up and starting to play with the big boys Back then the App Planet didn39t exist and the show was very much about infrastructure so the fact that so many mobile ad companies were exhibiting at this the biggest mobile show in Europe is definitely encouraging There is still a long way to go in terms of standards for rich media ad serving and measurement but the signs are all there that this will happenSecondly the emphasis on mobile payments shows that major companies are expecting to see big moves in mcommerce in the coming months Both eBay and PayPal had a presence and even Visa were showing off their contactless payments and mobile top up products The Visa stand featured a lot of Samsung devices and the hope is that the partnership can help launch contactless payments using NFC around the Olympics in London this summerAs mcommerce grows it will be much easier to demonstrate the ROI of mobile campaigns as we will be able to move from awareness to driving actual salesThirdly improvements in devices and networks mean that media consumption on mobile devices and I39m including tablets here will undoubtedly continue to increase Screens on mobile devices are just getting better and better and HD content looks amazing As mobile content consumption continues to grow in the home where network speed is less important due to wifi coverage taking consumer39s media time away from TV press and even online we need to look to mobile media to recapture those eyeballs for our clientsMobile VOD rich media and branded content all present opportunities to sell more services into clients We also need to be proactive and plan how to migrate spend from other media into mobile We39re making a start this year but it is something that will accelerate and we need to be preparedIt was a couple of years ago when Eric Schmidt said that Google would make more money from mobile ads than desktop and they continued that rhetoric this year with Jason Spero Head of Mobile Advertising at Google saying quotAds placed on mobile will provide more value to an advertiser than desktopquotWe need to ensure that we integrate mobile into client comms plans not just from a simple display perspective but in a rich and engaging way in order to deliver that increased value for customersJide Sobo is Head of Mobile at MEC in the UK Jide previously Mobile Strategist at Media Brands brings twelve years of mobile experience to the agency He is responsible for driving the growth of the channel Jide can be reached at jidesobomecglobalcom Read all Jide39s39 MediaBizBloggers commentaries at MEC Active EngagementCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or 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Recap: My Time at Mobile World Congress 2012 - Jide Sobo

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