Link: The MySpace of Mobile?
BusinessWeek has an interesting article on mobile marketing company Mozes – who are offering their text messaging platform free of charge to the music industry.
Among marketers, mobile has been hailed as the next big thing for years now, but in the U.S., actual adoption has lagged behind the hype (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/23/07, “The Sell-Phone Revolution”). With the exception of a few big brands, most advertisers have taken a wait-and-see approach when it comes to mobile marketing campaigns. Now Mozes, a 14-person startup from Palo Alto, Calif., with $5 million in venture funding, is hoping to give both advertisers and consumers an incentive to experiment, by offering up its text-messaging platform for free.
While its service is available to anyone from individuals to school groups to small businesses, Mozes is targeting the music industry, promoting its Web-based platform as a free tool that bands can use to connect with fans on their mobile phones, notifying them when concert tickets go on sale, for example, or running text-to-win contests. When the Plain White T’sâ€â€a band that topped Billboard’s Top 100 singles chart in Julyâ€â€ran a backstage pass giveaway with Mozes during their tour last fall, around 50% of audience members participated each night, the company says.
It’s an interesting gamble – by targetting the music industry, Mozes hope to build a ‘branded network’ of consumers. Once the marketing database hits critical mass, they’ll be in a position to charge advertisers for getting their message to their network. However, the question still remains whether consumers will be happy to receive marketing texts from third parties. Mozes clearly state on their homepage “You won’t be spammed or tricked” – could this be seen as a little misleading?
We will never directly target fans phones with messages. We will take our services to marketers directly who must build their own permission based connections with consumers. The marketers’ choice is to run mobile marketing campaigns on Mozes or not, and many today will opt for a white label solution instead. Over time, however, our belief is that they will be more successful on our network since we will set a high and effective standard for permission based marketing for the consumer. We also provide tools directly to individuals that will build affinity to Mozes and spread the brand. The branded network of course has to offer additional advantages to marketers, which we think it does already, and we will continue to innovate to make sure that’s true.
Thanks for the post. For clarity, providing a trusted mobile service is central to our value proposition for consumers. Using Mozes, consumers must opt-in to receive messages from bands or brands. We don’t spam. We do provide an easy interface for consumers to manage the number of connections to their mobile phone.