The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) just announced some changes to help it better position itself for the rapidly changing mobile marketing industry.
In a press release issued yesterday, the MMA outlined new priorities to help the association “redefine its role in promoting and enabling the global mobile marketing opportunity.” Based on feedback from a survey of members and non-member companies across four regions, the MMA wanted to identify ways the organization could evolve to better meet members\’ needs and provide greater visibility for the mobile marketing concept.
\”In its formative years, the MMA placed great emphasis on helping build a global industry, creating standards and guidelines to support the growth of a new industry,\” said Federico Pisani Massamormile, the MMA\’s Global Board Chairman and Interim CEO. \”In many ways, the need to act as evangelists for the mobile channel has evolved into to a need to get brands and agencies to increase spend on a channel they\’re now aware of. Marketers understand the need to include mobile in their plans, but still need support to find the right role for mobile in the marketing mix. We aim to make mobile an indispensable part of the marketing mix.\”
The MMA, which was formed when the idea of mobile marketing was in its infancy, realized they needed to evolve into an organization that helps support the numerous facets of the industry instead of provide awareness for a concept that brands fully understand the power of. To do so, the organization will concentrate its efforts on what it believes to be the five building blocks of the industry:
- Promote the channel, the industry and individual member companies to brands and agencies in order to create more commercial opportunities for its members, demonstrating that membership creates a competitive advantage for companies.
- Educate brands, agencies and consumers about the full scale and scope of the mobile marketing channel, highlighting its advantages and benefits.
- Measure by creating and developing authoritative measurement, metrics and insight into the size, growth, trends and effectiveness of mobile marketing.
- Guide by continuing to create and develop guidelines, best practices and standards designed to ease the planning, purchase and implementation of mobile marketing.
- Protect the opportunity by representing the industry before regulators and legislators and by managing industry self-regulatory programs to maximize public and industry confidence in mobile marketing, lower barriers to entry and minimize non-economic costs of doing business.
A large part of the repositioning was to provide members with stronger benefits and to meet the needs many have been asking for over the years. \”The MMA recognizes that the mobile marketing industry has evolved and therefore have refocused our efforts to meet member demands,\” said Paul Berney, MMA CMO and managing director for EMEA. \”This refocus on the five building blocks gives us greater clarity around the products and services we need to provide members to support them and to provide even more benefits.\”