The Business Impact Index is the world’s only ranking of the marketing industry’s top agencies, marketers, brands and technology providers delivering the highest level of business impact through mobile-first campaigns.

“As demands placed on brands are higher than ever, it is critical that marketers and their agencies understand the true impact campaigns have against marketing objectives, both on an individual basis as well as their cumulative efforts,” says Sheryl Daija, Chief Strategy Officer, MMA. “The SMARTIES Business Impact Index forces focus on what ultimately matters, overall business growth. With this expansion to the SMARTIES program, which already identifies and recognizes the most innovative mobile campaigns, the Index now benchmarks what success looks like and the SMARTIES Case Study Hub gives our membership the most comprehensive body of leading work that inspires, guides and informs future advances in mobile marketing.”

The methodology for the MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index was developed in close collaboration with WARC, the global authority on advertising and media effectiveness. The rankings leverage the finalist and winner data from the previous year’s (in this case 2017) SMARTIES Awards programs across the globe using a proprietary methodology to determine the business impact, assigning points to campaigns and the organizations.

“We were happy to partner with the MMA and lend our expertise to produce a benchmark and guidance to the industry for what matters in the emerging mobile marketing space,” says David Tiltman, Head of Content at WARC. “The MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index will show what work is making the most impact, which agencies are leading the pack and driving change, and what success in mobile looks like.”

The 2018 SMARTIES Awards is now open to accept entries. For more information or to submit work for consideration, visit http://www.mmaglobal.com/smarties2018.

The post First Look: Mobile Marketing Association Reveals the Shortlists for the Global and North America SMARTIES Business Impact Index appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The agenda for the two-day event, May 9-10, 2017 at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in New York City, is developed by marketers for marketers. Among the MMA’s most popular annual events, the forum features a global who’s who of industry leaders and collaborative exploration of mobile’s most critical issues. From the revolutionary impact of mobile on the buying journey and consumer life cycle to its influence beyond the marketing mix, the expert-led sessions will leave attendees actionable insights on how mobile video, native, location, programmatic, apps, messaging and more can drive their own mobile success stories.

“Mobile is the most personal of all platforms, with the ability to drive brand engagement and loyalty like no other. It opens an exciting world of opportunity, and this event brings some of the world’s most innovative brands together in deep discussion about how to seize it,” stated Sheryl Daija, Chief Strategy Officer, MMA. “We’re confident all of our attendees will benefit from the conversation and feel they’re leaving with the knowledge they need to connect with their customers in meaningful ways to reach their business objectives.”

Confirmed speakers for the event include:

• Samsung: Jay Altschuler, VP, Media & Partnerships
• The Coca-Cola Company: Corinne Baker, Marketing Manager, Digital Platforms and Innovation
• AllState: John Baronello, Director, Marketing Analytics
• Twitter: Leslie Berland, Chief Marketing Officer
• VaynerMedia: Chris Bradley, VP and Group Creative Director
• Philips: Emilie Hardick, Global Mobile Lead
• Grubhub: Tammi Harrison, Vice President of Customer Experience Marketing
• Rosetta Stone: TJ Hunter, Sr. Director, Consumer Marketing
• RetailMeNot, Inc.: Marissa Tarleton, Chief Marketing Officer
• Budweiser: Monica Rustgi, Senior Brand Director
• Hallmark: Lindsey Roy, Vice-President Greetings Marketing
• Philips Zurich North America: Monu Kalsi, Vice President, Head of Digital Marketing
• Supercell: Ryan Wener, Head of Marketing

MMA members and non-members are welcome to register for the Mobile Marketing Leadership Forum at http://www.mmaglobal.com/mobile-marketing-leadership-forum-2017/register (special rates available for members). Those unable to attend are invited to follow @mmaglobal and join the conversation on Twitter.

The post MMA Announces Mobile Marketing Leadership Forum Speakers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Ahead of the weekend, a provided media release to MMW noted that the revised guidelines will shift both mobile in-app and mobile web from a “count-on-download” minimum to a “count-on-begin-to-render” ad impression measurement minimum.

References to “served” impressions have been removed from the proposed guidelines, substituting them with the concept of counting event-driven impressions which have a greater potential for an “opportunity-to-see” by an end user. The change will better align measurement of these impressions with the counting model in place for viewable impressions.

Simultaneous to this release, IAB and MRC, with the assistance of the IAB Tech Lab, have also introduced a proposed revision to the Desktop Display Served Impression Guideline, shifting desktop digital ad measurement away from a minimum of “count-on-ad-insertion” approach to a “count-on-begin-to-render” model, the release explains.

With this move, mobile and desktop measurement will be more closely in sync with digital video measurement, which already requires “count-on-begin-to-render.”

“A ‘count-on-begin-to-render’ model is going to offer publishers improved measurement,” said Anna Bager, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile and Video, IAB. “These updates will be critical in delivering the efficiencies that marketers and agencies seek from digital campaigns. They move measurement to more closely align with other measurement metrics, such as viewable impressions—providing an avenue to more cohesive cross-platform measurement.”

To learn more, you can read the official announcement here.

The post MMA Joins Industry Forces in Proposing Updates to Ad Measurement Guidelines appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

A recent survey released from the Mobile Marketing Association shows that 75 percent of marketers say they will adopt a multi-touch attribution (MTA) solution by 2019.

However, the report summary notes, the available solutions are not in-line with their performance needs.

The survey, which serves as a baseline of marketers’ intentions, familiarity and experiences with MTA solutions, showed that marketers believe that MTA is potentially a powerful attribution and planning tool.

Marketers believe that, although MTA is now more focused on conversions and sales, in the future it will also help them with upper funnel metrics, with almost 80 percent of marketers reporting that MTA will be the solution providing clarity for both budgeting and agile marketing efforts.

However, despite the promise today’s solutions might offer, marketers are still not confident in today’s vendor offerings, the MMA says. Marketers’ responses indicate there are several areas the vendor community should attempt to address:

• Complex offerings need more transparency: Only one out of four marketers who currently use MTA solutions say they are familiar enough with MTA approaches and methodologies.
• Costs and ROI must be in balance: Marketers need to be convinced that net impact will be positive. While more than half of marketers using MTA solutions believe it drives incremental results, only 40 percent of marketers report that they are convinced that the cost of MTA covers the benefits.

For the marketers who have yet to test MTA solutions, the complexity of the offerings combined with their lack of resources of are the main adoption challenges, the press release notes.

“Brands admit that they need to deepen their teams’ knowledge on attribution solutions, but the black-box approach is leading to hesitation and a lack of trust,” explains Greg Stuart, CEO of the MMA. “The promise of what MTA could deliver to marketers is the reason why we are empowering brands with the tools they need to find the right partner for the right program that meets their brands’ needs. We want to help MTA solution providers build this really important market.”

The post MMA Finds That More Than 75 Percent of Marketers Share This Goal appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Data extracted from the report outlines how the most successful campaigns top all overs, often due to a cohesive execution of combining mobile creative with other creative endeavors. Some suggestions from the report include:

• Leveraging mobile platforms by increasing the brand perception as personally relevant and differentiated from its competitors.
• Solving a problem or providing an experience is far more engaging and effective in driving emotional connections
• Maintaining a focus on visually compelling ad formats
• Building ad campaigns from a mobile-first mindset

The report goes on to outline some especially crucial areas in which marketers have the most potential to improve and adapt these new trends including:

• Shifting sales goes from sales to engagement using mobile
• Balance in focus between targeting and creative endeavours
• Focusing on new technologies to reach consumers such as augmented and virtual reality

Sheryl Daija, Chief Strategy Officer of the Mobile Marketing Association goes on to summarize. “Brands have a wonderful opportunity to learn from campaigns that were courageous in pushing the creative and story-telling potential of mobile, while still executing on a strong strategy.”

The post Mobile and Creative Strategy Must Go Hand in Hand According to New MMA Report appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

What does ‘reality’ mean in an omnichannel world, the webinar organizers ask?

Consumers live in the physical world, yet they spend much of their time online, primarily using mobile devices. In response, brands and retailers are shifting to omnichannel commerce to deliver consumer experiences that bridge the gap between the real and the virtual.

“Now, marketers can identify and target individual consumers throughout their purchasing journey with context-aware experiences that drive satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue,” the webinar’s registration page reads.

In the webinar, attendees will:

•Learn how implementing personalized omnichannel marketing campaigns can help brand owners increase their understanding of buyer behavior throughout the product’s lifetime.
•Learn how providing contextualized and relevant messaging throughout the consumer’s shopping journey will foster deeper brand loyalty and drive repurchase intent while collecting valuable analytics.
•Learn how Thinfilm’s NFC technologies can bring packaging and products to life by adding easy-to-use smartphone interactivity with the simple application of an affordable pressure-sensitive label.

To learn more or to register, click here.

The post Webinar: Raising the Bar for Omnichannel Commerce appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Brands behind the initiative include Allstate, Bank of America, 1-800Flowers.com, Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company and Unilever.

The MMA Marketing Attribution Think Tank (MATT) “will help rethink the world of marketing measurement and attribution, giving marketers better measurements, tools and confidence in connecting marketing to business outcomes.”

The first initiative of MATT is focused on Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), as many marketers believe it to be the Holy Grail to fixing marketing measurement.

“Multi-touch attribution will be the anchor of future marketing attribution. However, it’s an area where marketers lack the depth of knowledge and experience to evaluate solutions. Add in a highly-fragmented pool of solution vendors, each delivering a different modeling technique, and it’s nearly impossible for marketers to confidently select and apply the right solutions for their business,” explains Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association. “The MMA is a big tent organization and we are in a unique place to bridge the gap between the solutions and what brands need: clarity, education and standards around MTA performance, transparency and technology.”

Over the last six months, the MMA has conducted a comprehensive, deep-dive analysis into the providers, dynamics and implications for marketers around MTA, working with Joel Rubinson, President of Rubinson Partners, Inc. and former Chief Research Officer of the Advertising Research Federation.

Due to the technical complexity of MTA, the MMA also aligned with the Marketing Science Institute as an academic partner to support future technical development. The Institute is a nonprofit organization “committed to bridging the gap between academic marketing theory and business practice.”

The post MMA News: Mobile Marketing Association Launches Marketing Attribution Think Tank appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Per the familiar drill, the shortlist names were selected from submissions from all over the world. The entries represent the platform’s “immense potential to reach and engage connected consumers in unique and original ways.”

The shortlist was selected by the Smarties Pre-Screening Council, which includes more than 100 senior level mobile marketers.

These entries will now undergo review by the MMA’s independent jury, which is comprised of 28 senior brand and agency professionals and led by jury chairperson Denise Karkos, CMO of TD Ameritrade. Entries will be evaluated on four criteria: strategy, execution, creativity and results.

“Mobile consistently challenges the game for marketers. Given the quality of entries this year, it’s clear that the industry is taking notice and advantage,” says Karkos. “Now, as a jury, we are faced with the exciting-yet-difficult task of selecting the winning campaigns, setting a rigorous bar to take home a coveted Smarties.”

“Mobile’s pervasiveness, flexibility and capacity for creativity is driving the transformation of business and marketing,” adds Sheryl Daija, Chief Strategy Officer for the MMA. “We are now in a mobile-first world, and these campaigns demonstrate the endless opportunities the platform offers for marketers to make meaningful connections with consumers.”
The shortlist for the 2016 Global Smarties Awards includes:

To review the complete shortlist, click here.

The post MMA Announces 2016 Global Smarties Awards Shortlist appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

We’re told that the first course available will be “An Introduction to Native Apps,” sponsored by Atlanta app development company stable|kernel.

The Native Apps course starts August 1st and will be available free of charge for a limited time to qualifying users. To register, visit here.

“The demand for education through online ‘micro-learning’ has been growing steadily and we have been exploring our options for development and delivery,” says former MMA executive Paul Berney. “Last year we delivered an internal training course for a client which has been taken over 5,000 times. It was time for us to take that content public but we wanted partners like stable|kernel who understand the value in educating the market place.”

To learn more about the courses, click here.

The post mCordis Rolls Out Online Mobile Marketing Training Courses appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

MMW learned this week that a new webinar will address the power of data science for effective mobile marketing.

“Today, 80% of internet users worldwide own and use a smartphone in addition to a desktop computer,” the webinar’s registration page reads. “Given that, internet consumption habits of global consumers have transformed in recent years, driven by the optionality of new technology and a proliferation of devices. With each of those devices comes data – vast amounts of it – and deciding what to do with that data has become the million-dollar question for today’s marketers.”

Backed by the MMA and presented by Denise Hotta, Associate Product Manager for DataXu, the July 21st webinar will be jam-packed with helpful insight and key takeaways, including:

• How can marketers take advantage of existing data to market to people, not devices, in a smarter way?
• How can marketers broaden their thinking to avoid defining customers by yesterday’s data points?
• What are the various use cases that a mobile-first advertiser can employ to attract and retain a loyal user base?

To register for the webinar, click here.

The post Webinar: Making Mobile Marketing Better Through Data Science appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.