In what's described as a first in Canada, Toronto-based Addictive Mobility has opened up a new mobile innovation lab that showcases emerging capabilities of mobile technology and digital advertising.
New digital media techniques and technologies present powerful ways to connect companies, agencies and online marketers with the growing global market that is social community-based, described company founder and CEO Nussar Ahmad.
"Linking social media with mobile marketing is an ideal way to leverage and increase brand power," Ahmad described during a tour of the new facility.
"Mobile phone users feel it's important to be connected at all times," he explained. "So, for brands that are looking for new ways to target consumers, the mobile phone is ideal. It's a direct way to connect with the audience, through social communities and mobile technologies."
Throughout Addictive's new lab space, located in the digital media saturated Liberty Village area in downtown Toronto, portable media devices like smartphones, online capabilities from the Web, out-of-home advertising and digital signage displays are shown running some of its newly-developed digital solutions and software applications.
Placed in a retail environment or public space, it all combines to create a new and powerful advertising channel for agencies, clients, customers and other key media industry participants.
Some call it the 'Outernet' - like worldwide advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather.
Ogilvy recent opened its own Digital Labs demo space with a conference showcasing the newest technologies in the digital out-of-home (OOH) and point-of-sale (POS) space.
The event was dubbed 'The Outernet' and Addictive Mobility was one of the presenters -the Toronto company helped launch the New York facility with presentations about digital signage technology and out-of-home advertising opportunities.
"Some of the most cutting edge digital solutions today are taking place at the very point at which consumers experience a brand," noted Carla Hendra at the event; Hendra is CEO of Ogilvy & Mather North America and Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather New York.
In the Toronto lab, Addictive Mobility CTO and co-founder Dilshan Kathriarachchi demonstrated a first key step for success in mobile marketing - a campaign's consistent look, feel and functionality across multiple platforms.
Using a recent project completed for Canadian telco Telus, he showed how the company's mobile marketing website plays on a smartphone, with the site's familiar design, tabbed page navigation and other features intact on the smaller screen.
Kathriarachchi described how his company developed an internal database and dynamic look-up table, where handset specifications such as screen size, video codec, landscape capabilities and so on are automatically searched so that content can be delivered in a compatible and feature-rich format, no matter what the target device.
Next, he uses the lab's huge widescreen display to show off a new app, called AMo, a "surgically targeted" marketing application that can be used to tap into online social networks and the vast treasure trove of accessible information they contain.
Blog entries, online photos, open profiles and the latest wall posts can be searched and sorted by valuable demographic categories, such as age, sex, frequency of online activity and more.
The app can even identify 'leaders' or 'followers' in the social community, important criteria when leveraging a social network for its ability to influence or inform a targeted group.
Kathriarachchi noted that the app has been developed to sync with leading social network tools and platforms like SMS, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and so on, and can be updated with newer environments like Foursquare when a "critical mass" makes it appropriate to do so.
The app, of course, connects with all manner of mobile platforms, including Blackberry, Windows CE, Palm, Android, and Apple iDevices, such as the iPad used for demo purposes.
Enterprise-wide reporting is enabled via Web-based tools that can provide various stats and metrics, Kathriarachchi described, adding that the company has its own ad serving and insert capacity, enabling it to serve up mobile ads with clickable actions embedded, bringing immediate connectivity with a sponsor's online information portal, help desk and ordering or fulfillment services.
Such applications are customizable for each client or campaign, Ahmad added, noting that mobile service providers like Addictive Mobility must be both flexible and focussed when introducing clients to one of the largest potential audiences: the wireless subscriber.
"The mobile environment is both personal and ubiquitous; it's where the 16-35 year old consumer comes to play," he said of that valuable target group. "We've developed this lab to help people gain some awareness and education about advertising to the mobile community."
On-the-go mobile interaction and dynamic messaging means content can be updated and adapted for the customer, based on location, time, weather, market conditions or other user interactions to ensure it's relevant and engaging, he outlined.
"A lot of agencies still use the 'big bang' theory of marketing, and that's appropriate with some campaigns and some platforms. Digital can add a new surgical precision to marketing, no matter where the customer is. It's a combination, the best of both worlds."
Noting that, sometimes, the brand doesn't know who its customer is, Ahmad agrees also that, with new mobile marketing tools hooking into extensive social networks, the customer may not know which brand is following him or her.
"Who is the parent; who is the child?" he asks of the new marketing reality in which a brand's best medium may be someone else's best friend.
AddictiveMobility is a subsidiary of addictiveTECH Corp, and an interactive mobile technology company specializing in mobile social media products and solutions.
The company launched as a student-conceived incubation project in 2002, but has quickly grown to become an award-winning player on the international market, parterning with major brands such as Toyota, Telus, Ogilvy & Mather, Lipton and more.
AddictiveMobility is privately owned with headquarters in Toronto, ON and offices in Palo Alto, California.
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