Everything service providers need to do technically to remain an integral part of the value chain in the world of e-commerce and digital content they already can do. Fully committing to this role and getting the rest of the world to come along for the ride is a bigger challenge.
Last month the TM Forum and OgilvyOne, a global, interactive marketing company, began their joint work to change the nature of advertising and blend the creativity or marketers with the ingenuity of network and software engineers. At least that’s the plan.
OgilvyOne and TM Forum will explore possible business models for advertisers and service providers, and work together to identify the needs of all players in the value chain. If successful, they could tap a market worth $250 billion, according to STL Partners, a consultancy from the U.K. that specializes in business model innovation in the Telecoms-Media-Technology sector.
Some of the areas they need to help service providers address are customer personalization, location-based advertising, micropayments and enhanced security. They’ll start with mobile operators, but IPTV providers will be interested in their work.
Scott Seaborn, head of Mobile Technologies at Ogilvy Group UK, said mobile communications connects brands, consumers and retailers while also connecting the Internet to the real world. But he said that it’s the creative minds in marketing that know the customer. “The two worlds have to come together,” he said.
What can bring them together, and be mutually beneficial, is an agreement to join the best practices of the mobile marketing and advertising world with the process frameworks of the TMF and apply them to the network, location and immense customer data information of network operators. Only then might operators reap the true benefits of personalization and targeted advertising and become the platform of choice for charging and reconciliation.
One of the first obstacles on the technology side is more of a regulatory obstacle. “There are privacy issues that may make customer identities so masked that you can’t use them. [Personalization] may be a bridge too far in today’s climate,” said Jim Warner, vice chairman and head of the content sector at the TM Forum.
That’s why all efforts to start should include an opt-in option for consumers, one that provides a level of confidence about how their personal and usage information will be used. Seaborn calls this the three Ps: permission, privacy and preference. This complements Ogilvy’s three-pronged marketing strategy of engage, acquire and activate.