“South Africa is a hotbed of mobile social innovation. From a depression-and-anxiety group helping teens via SMS, to assisting with compliance for tuberculosis medication, and the ‘cellphones for HIV‘ programme we have described earlier, diverse health initiatives are findings ways of using mobile phones.” – MobileActive.org

(South) Africa is in that peculiar situation where our mobile uptake outranks every other communications medium available today. Figures vary between 75% penetration rates to about 90%.

It is therefore not surprising and rather pleasing to see various healthcare organizations realizing the value communication via the mobile phone could add to their service offering. It is been long overdue and I predict a massive flux of mobile oriented campaigns for 2009, especially in the healthcare industry.

From a device called SIMpill (see the play on the word simple), sending text messages to users as reminder to take critical medication, monitoring and tracking in real time to Cell-Life’s “Cellphones for HIV” project, collaborating with various institutes to provide a lower cost service to people suffering from this dreaded disease, we should see the awareness around our health and the betterment of our lives drastically improve through the integration of mobile and online.

The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) has launched a text message initiative especially developed for teens as many of them are reluctant to speak about the problems they experience, and this way they are able to anonymously communicate a cry for help to SADAG.

From their press release: “This service is a new and exciting way for teenagers around South Africa to reach out for help. Teenagers often prefer to communicate via sms, as they may feel uncomfortable expressing themselves verbally. This service is also instant, and a teen in crisis will never get a busy signal when he or she is in crisis. This service is also cheaper than a telephone call, as messages are charged at standard sms rates. In this way, teenagers around the country can get help, information, and practical advice on how to deal with depression and suicidal feelings. The teens can also request school talks and find mental health resources in their area.”

Unfortunately it seems that there was no outreach programme for this particular service, so no matter how effective the idea, if the execution lacks, the campaign falls flat on its face. I don’t believe teens will consciously search the net for help. They are afraid, reluctant and shy by nature and their problems worsen this feeling.

It is therefore critical to devise campaigns that deliver this initiative to them. There are social elements that cater for every teenager’s individual needs, Mxitand Facebook only but two of them. These channels should be embraced. Schools, public services and community outreach programmes should actively market this initiative as well.

While I believe this specific campaign has been around for a while and probably idling in the background, you can look forward to better execution and marketing of healthcare mobile services in 2009. Hopefully, including SADAG’s.

Important Update: Arrogance sometimes has its upside. I haven’t done my research on SADAG well enough, and subsequently received a phone call from the founder of SADAG, Zane Wilson, who has delightfully informed me on the astounding efforts they do to spread the message of their teenage text campaign. They visit a lot of schools where they give talks, hand out flyers and have appeared on various radio stations and television shows as well.

They also advertise in a variety of magazines, and while not necessarily addressing people through the media of my choice, their efforts certainly outperforms my wildest imagination. I apologise.

I have discussed where my expertise might complement their efforts though and I’m very happy to assist them in spreading the word through the media I specialise in. I look forward to everyone that’s ever been touched by this disease to help where they can. Leave a comment if you desire more information.

I’m not going to elaborate on the the evolution of the mobile phone and how it has empowered normal people way beyond our wildest imagination. Instead, I’ll reflect on a conversation that I had just this morning. Firstly, it is common knowledge that there is still a stigma attached to mobile phone advances in South Africa. Most of the older generation still rely on mobile phones to send text messages (with effort), make and receive calls and to wake them up in the morning.

Let me ask the older generation a question though.

When last were you gob smacked by the apparent ease with which your youngster operates his / her mobile phone? Not too long ago I would reckon. And by youngster I mean anything from the age of 12 to 35 and even older.

With the introduction of the smart phones [images above], savvy business people and an ever increasing section of the general public have found a multileveled approach to their mobile phone usage.

We surf the internet with our phones, we can engage large groups of people in conversation at almost zero cost. We can distribute audio, video and text information across various websites and applications to literally thousands of people within a couple of seconds using a standard mobile phone.

But this is irrelevant to the older generation. Consider this. [True story]

This morning, 8:30am 31 October 2007, I had a conversation with a 40-something year-old lady (my boss’ wife) in the crystal retail business about her upcoming mobile contract upgrade. She was telling me how she actually need nothing more than a standard phone with limited features as she only makes and receives calls with it. How often have you said that, huh?

I responded to her statement by asking her how she thinks her clients would react if they could receive images of the latest stock on their mobile phones and have an option to place an order at reduced cost via return text message.

The silence was deafening. The light bulb moment was even more prominent.

The best part of this scenario is that she could still maintain her standard mobile usage for making and receiving calls. She doesn’t need to engage in a technological war of thumbs with her phone and neither does she need to learn how to operate the most complicated phones on the market.

But her customers are enjoying a more efficient manner to conduct business with her.

The infrastructure is in place where we can control and measure these types of communication campaigns to provide the type of instant gratification and convenience that your customers have become accustomed to.

Remember, just because you prefer to communicate and purchase in the conventional way does not mean your customers do too. Go test it and leave a comment on your thoughts.

I’ve recently found a couple of very interesting mobile platforms, only available in the US, but with the pace that mobile is going it wouldn’t be long before South Africa gets in on the action.

If you’re a business, please do not dismiss this post too quickly.

From msearchgroove.com I’d like to briefly cover three of them.

WHRRL & RUMMBLE: Location enhanced social networking from Whrrl (LBS application) and Rummble (WAP site) give users real-time location information to connect mobile social networking with real life networking (a novel idea!). Users can broadcast and search for friends in their locality as well as post reviews and photos of places they have visited, geotagging them on their site. This functionality is set to take off by utilising the key characteristic of the mobile communication - mobility.

One standout Q&A for me on Whrrl is listed here:

I am a business owner. How do I update the information about my business in Whrrl?

That leads me to Utterz.

UTTERZ: Voice is one of the main propositions of this mobile user generated content offering. Users can match their voice ‘Utterz’ with text and photos by calling a clearing house and Utterz does the rest, autoposting onto sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Although you can manage and edit postings online, there are some usability issues that make mobile account management tricky.

Utterz allows its users to publish audio (voice), video, pictures, text (blog) to their Utterz account. These can then be fed to just about any social networking site available such as Facebook, MySpace, Livejournal, Blogger etc.

Their tagline epitomises their service offering: Mobile post voice, video, picture, and text mashups right to your page. Evolve. Be Herd.

Smart Businesses keep a pulse on social and corporate trends. In some of my clients’ case, I am that person. What is overwhelming is possibly the vast amounts of mobile social networks that keeps popping up. Here in South Africa we have the now much discussed “the Grid” from Vodacom, Mxit and in all probability a host of new ones in the not too distant future.

A couple of things I would encourage businesses to keep in mind are:

1. Your target audience spends time on social networking sites during office hours.

2. Your target audience accesses these sites via their mobile phones after hours.

3. Regardless of the amounts of mobile platforms popping up, your target audience will find one (or more) to their liking and spend considerable amounts of time on them (their mobiles)

4. I call it your target audience because they are just that. It is not only 16 year olds that use their mobile phones to its capacity. The sooner businesses get that, the better.

5. Mobile marketing is not as expensive as you think. Just ask.

The list goes on, you can always add to this in the comment section.

[Note, I hope Agent Craig could shed some light on the parallel these applications draw with the Grid]

Smart companies and not necessarily big companies get mobile. They comprehend the benefits of mobile to their businesses. Moreover, they understand how mobile and online work in tandem for an even better consumer experience.

iPay.co.za and Energy.co.za, flying entirely under the radar in advertising and marketing terms have revolutionised the prepaid electricity dilemma I face more often than not.

Semi detached housing, flats and many newly built residences these days consist of prepaid electricity. I personally own a property with prepaid electricity and my current rented residence also consist of it.

The inconvenience that goes along with prepaid electricity is enormous when days are long and business is pressing as usual.

Thanks to these two businesses, purchasing electricity these days is as simple as sending a text message from my mobile and loading the electricity token onto my meter box.

All in less than 60 seconds.

iPay.co.za and energy.co.za (from Syntell Networks) have single handedly become my most coveted commodity. Gone are the late night visits from one supermarket to the next to find prepaid vouchers.

Thawte further ensures that my online credit billing is safe and secure so I can breathe easy where it comes to my credit transactions.

Therefore, when my electricity went bust this past weekend during the quarterfinal match of the Rugby World Cup, everyone was upset, except me.

I fired off a quick text message and within 60 seconds, my recharge voucher was sent back to me.

We missed one lineout. More importantly, I was deemed the smartest guy in the room.

Isn’t it time your business becomes the smartest guy in the room?

Continuing with integrated marketing campaigns, Virgin Mobile is on the money with utilising various media formats to engage their clients, empowering them to interact with the brand and virally spread the word to their friends and friends-of-friends.

This short video will explain the campaign and it is noteworthy how they have combined mobile marketing, social media and viral marketing to gain the benefits of brand awareness.

“Virgin is a fun and creative brand. Our goal of the campaign is to strengthen the position and increase brand awareness”.

To strengthen their position they have created a compelling and lucrative commercial that stimulate their clients to participate in the brand and pay the message forward.

[Because] “We believe advertising becomes more efficient when consumers are involved in the making of it”.

Traditional marketing and advertising methods have evolved to where consumer generated content is synonymous with digital word-of-mouth marketing. By enabling consumers to carry the brand to their peers a greater trust relationship is associated with the brand.

Breaking down the individual components of this campaign will explain the effect of the commercial and the outcomes based results.

Mobile Marketing:
Virgin Mobile uses their database to send a text message to their clients to inform them of their latest interactive campaign. The clients are encouraged to visit the Virgin Mobile website and participate in the prank call campaign.

Viral Marketing:
At the end of the prank call, the recipient of the call will receive a text message from Virgin Mobile with an explanation of the prank and an invitation to the website to participate themselves.

All prank calls are also recorded and can be forwarded to friends via e-mail. Each e-mail contains an invitation for friends to visit the Virgin Mobile website and participate in the prank call campaign.

Social Networking:
Consumers have the choice to let others experience their prank calls on the website and have listeners rate the prank.

The highest rated prank call can be used for television or radio commercials among others.

Should they have opted to provide consumers with an incentive, such as the winning of prizes, I believe that the reaction to the campaign might have even been stronger.

Businesses have been slow to adopt mobile marketing strategies and in my post today, I will use real case studies to equip them with the information that would aid them in recognising the potential of mobile campaigns.

The big difference between large corporations such as Coca Cola and your business is that their advertising and marketing efforts on television focus mostly on brand engagement and awareness than on driving sales.

Of course Coca Cola is also smart and use many platforms to launch their marketing campaigns from, including mobile. Frankly, so you can you.

Most businesses need to continuously drive sales and find more ways to engage larger targets more often.

Why would mobile marketing then be any different to television advertising?

Simply because any successful mobile marketing campaign is strictly permission based. That means your target has consciously opted to receive your content.

In most cases, mobile phones are a personal extension of its owner’s persona. Unlike e-mail where pundits find many ways to invade our privacy through unsolicited material, our mobile phones are mostly untainted still.

Let’s view a couple of examples on how mobile campaigns add value to businesses and how others are executed to drive sales.

Optimise client relations and problem resolution

An online recruitment vertical uses software with integrated mobile messaging which automatically notifies registered candidates (if they opted to receive it) of new job opportunities via text messages.

During screening processes, the employer is able to notify candidates on the success of their application by either communicating via e-mail, mobile or both.

Similarly, many companies employ these tactics to add value to other businesses or in a personal capacity. Every day people sign on for services like weather reports, financial indicators, news headlines, sports results et cetera.

It enables these companies to interact with their broader target market by provisioning content utilising various channels.

Driving Sales & Traffic

A well-known wine company is running a competition on the neckers of their wine bottles. The competition encourages people to text their name to the short code printed on the necker. For every 5 people the participant refers their chances of winning increases.

A viral effect is born and soon the number of participants grows exponentially. The winner is announced on the company website 3 weeks later.

Smart marketers will ensure that another unforgettable offer is positioned on the web page on the day of announcement.