Outstanding use of mobile to launch the new Golf GTI
AKQA produced a fantastic campaign to launch the new GTI in the US late last year. No TV. No Posters, No press ads. Just an iphone app.
Watch this video for the full story - and remember this next time someone tells you iphones are niche

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=324848336756

The Resurrection of SMS
One of the problems with mobile marketing is that for many people it means poorly thought out SMS campaigns; we've all received annoying texts from companies that come across as spam. But used as a permission marketing tool, with smart targeting, we're convinced SMS can be reinvented as a very effective means of building a dialogue with people. In the past we have done some interesting campaigns using Instant Messenger Bots - where a message sent on IM is 'read' and an automated response given from a database driven by keywords within the message. This sort of approach is well suited to SMS and we expect to see lots of innovation in this area - helped by new tools that allow easy integration between SMS and the web - like this US start Up Twilio.

http://bit.ly/cIH6y7

Mobile couponing taking off
Packaged goods brands have tended to be cautious when investing in the web, but we are seeing signs that they are more willing to try mobile. Despite increasing evidence that online can and does build brands and drive sales ( Research by Comscore and retail gurus Dunn Humby last year showed that online was just as effective as TV in driving CPG sales) spend on search and online display tends to be low.
But with mobile there is a recognition that brands may be able to counter the power of retailers. Talking with big brands we hear of experiments with shopping list apps and the number of mobile couponing trials is growing. One issue that may slow this is the reluctance of retailers to allow anything to slow down checkout traffic - so smart ways of integrating with EPOS systems is key.

http://bit.ly/b808vq

Google Buzz on mobile
The big news in social this week was the launch of Google Buzz - where Google emulate the best of twitter and facebook updates and integrate it with their Gmail service. As you'd expect from Google it also works well on mobile too - and in line with our view that mobile and social will soon mean the same thing, we expect this to be really significant. This is a good summary of the mobile elements from Mashable.

http://bit.ly/a0G2Qt

Mobile World Congress
Next week sees the big event in mobile - the annual MWC in Barcelona attracts over 50,000 delegates from every part of the mobile value chain. This year will see the big web players there too - Eric Schmidt of Google is doing a keynote and Steve Balmer of Microsoft will launch Windows Mobile 7 - which we expect to be a very significant move from Microsoft. We'll share news and views next week and also on twitter.

http://bit.ly/bybzVA.

In the meantime it's worth remembering how the web people think of mobile with this interview with Eric Schmidt from 2008 Yes, mobile will be a larger business than the PC-Web. But it will take a few years.
http://bit.ly/cYwpeH

Ever get bored in meetings? There's an app for that
Finally, a plug for one of our current projects - the Meeting Magician iphone app is designed to make meetings fun again. Play buzzword bingo, calculate how much money your meeting is wasting and schedule a fake call to give an excuse to leave.  http://bit.ly/8Q9a0m
And there is a money back guarantee - if you have the app the next time we meet, I buy the tea. ( The Blackberry version is being worked in and should be launched in the next few weeks)