Text2 Win fast replacing Write in and Win Competition

Mobile Marketing,Jamaica- Jamaica's food and beverage industry was littered with them. Those sales promotion competitions complete with the sing-a-long radio jingles that encouraged you to solve a riddle, fill in the blanks the corresponding press ad, collect the wrapping of the product and drop it all in a box, typically placed at participating supermarkets. And then you waited.

There are still a few dinosaurs like that left, but they've been eating the dust of the new sales promotion king of the block- the text2win competition. Red Stripe had a very successful one called Beer Money a Run, Guiness is about to launch a 22 country competition, Coca Cola had one in a couple of other Caribbean countries, FX Trader the Cambio brand from GraceKennedy has one currently running. And an industry insider and I agree, there is loads more to come. Watch for them and tell me if you win anything.

The important lesson to learn here is that mobile marketing with all of its opportunities for brand building sales promotion, cannot be seen as a fad, or some esoteric alternative channel.In a country of 2.5 million people, there are 1.8 million cell phones in circulation, Jamaicans love to talk and of late also text. It's a status symbol,a clear signal that we have long embraced the digital lifestyle.

The question is, how are Jamaican and Caribbean companies going to handle that challenge. For many companies in America and Europe, the mobile channel is already a part of the marketing mix. Wayne Chen, CEO of SuperPlus Food stores recently told me in a meeting recently,he's long recognised that the mobile phone is the new mass media channel.

dot Mobi Gets 75,000 Registrations

Mobile News - Wall Street Journal is reporting that "businesses and individuals in more than 100 countries registered over 75,000 wireless Web sites with a "dot-mobi" domain name yesterday". The dot mobi domain officially opened to the public on Tuesday September 26,2006. It's a new top level domain name for mobile devices and registered a dotmobi domain name will be restricted to mobile devices and sites providing services for them.

Reggae music rocks on myspace.com

Online community- Established and emerging Reggae music artist, promoters, record labels, clubs reggae radio knowing where their audience hangsout are already on myspace.com and more are heading there.

And there's good reason:Myspace.com is part of the social networking phenom that includes other sites such as youtube.com and facebook.com. It has 114 million members. MySpace allows users create and manage their own Web sites, instantly communicate with each other and share music or other kinds of media.

With that kinda market making, artist building clout, Reggae music industry has sought to carve out it's niche. In fact, myspace.com has become such a force that business analysts such as marketwatch.com has stated "MySpace's worth as a company will increase tenfold to somewhere around US$15 billion by 2009."

Caribbean versions of MySpace, Facebook, Blackplanet coming ? already here?

Jamaicans have embraced the digital lifestyle big time. We have 1.8 million cell phones in a country of 2.5 million people. We own more cell phones than landlines and even televisions.

Jamaicans online are shopping, making friends, finding lovers, promoting their music, products and more of them are flowing online -whether they love here or in the Diaspora.

But there is still too few sites that engenders a sense of community,peer to peer interactivity and that is uniquely Jamaican and Caribbean. Yes we have vibesconnect.com and caribbeanmassive....but nothing as yet that can hold a torch to myspace, youtube.com, facebook.com.

Sandor Panton of Top5 network of sites (Jamaica, trinidad, caribbean etc) and Rodney Browne, CEO of eCaribbean Ltd in St Kitts told me not to worry, as they are on their way to creating a network of Caribbean sites that will feed the increasing need of the online Caribbean community here and overseas.

I checked on them to see if they were heading in the right direction. Among Sandor's sites are: top5jamaica.com, top5trinidad.com,top5caribbean.com,top5bikini.com jamaicanjokes.com,jamaicabusinesscalendar.com,channeljamaica.com. Then there is Rodney, who has caribgreetings.com, caribbeanmassive.com and has mylocalcaribbean.com coming as well as others I was told keep quite about.

But outside of Sandor and Rodney, there is the guy who runs vibesconnect.com and it's sister sites, villagehub.com and smutvibes.com. What this all means to me too, is that maybe Jamaican and Caribbean companies, the ones who get it anyway, will see this as an opportunity to advertise and promote their products and services online. The network of Caribbean sites are growing,let's see what gonna happen.

C&WJamaica restoring call boxes

Telecom News, Jamaica - Cable and Wireless Jamaica Limited (C&WJ) is reviving its call box service, saying it sees revenue potential in certain rural areas and the tourism sector.
Down from a peak of approximately 2,500 to 700 call boxes, many of which were lost to vandalism, the telecommunications company with a monopoly in pay- phone services in Jamaica, is using the next six months to complete refurbishment of the network. The project started two months ago. C&WJ's new phone boxes will not accept coins or cash, only cards.
C&WJ said the decision to rebuild the network flowed from market research indicating that there was still a local demand for call boxes.The benefit of the service, he said, is "the ability to make a call while on the move for persons without a mobile phone. Source: Jamaica-gleaner.com

Digicel investing US$100 million more in Jamaica

Mobile News, Jamaica - Mobile giant Digicel says it plans to spend another US$100 million upgrading its infrastructure in Jamaica this year, pushing to more than US$600 million the Irish-owned firm's total investment in the island since entering the market in 2001.

"We're believers in the Jamaican story," said Digicel chairman Denis O'Brien. "We think that Jamaica is going through a renaissance similar to what Ireland went through in the late 1980s, and as a place to attract investors we think that Jamaica has one of the more outstanding opportunities in the Caribbean." "It's extraordinary," O'Brien said."About 86 per cent of people in Jamaica now have a mobile phone, whereas five, six years ago that was maybe less than 10 per cent." Source: jamaicaobserver.com

the dotMobi domain Landrush, got yours?

Mobile News - Well if you haven't heard about it, you've been playing too long with your Lego set.Step away from it and get clued into the dotmobi landrush is on. What is dotmobi? It's a new top level domain name for mobile devices and registered a dotmobi domain name will be restricted to mobile devices and sites providing services for them. The primary reason for this happening is this statistic: "There are four times as many mobile devices than PCs in the world".

No need to google it, here's the link dotmobi.org. But warning, already premium names like reggae.mobi is taken and by some company in Ireland,my wild guess is someone, or some company attached to Digicel. Jamaica.mobi is also reserved and other general but considerably premium names such as cruise.mobi and car.mobi are gone. Want to find out why there is a landrush and maybe how you can reserve the dotmobi extension for your brand, go to the site. The service officially opens to the public today.

JMMB launches newly redesigned group of websites next month

Kingston,Jamaica - An insider told TechWatch that, the JMMB Group,the leading financial management and financial advisory company in Jamaica,will be launching their newly redesign group of websites by October.
The company, which manages more than J$51 billion on behalf of over 70,000 clients in Jamaica and the Caribbean, we hear used DutchPot Interactive,a Jamaican digital marketing solitions company as the development agency. The site redesign covered the Group site as well as that of it's other securities and insurance brands and reflects additional interactive service oriented features.

MOBi160- Bringing Your Big Ideas To The Small Screen

Kingston,Jamaica - Mobile marketing is arguably the most exciting and cost effective direct marketing and advertising method currently available to businesses. Defined,it is the interactive,flexible and targeted way of reaching your customers-anytime, anywhere, on any phone via text messages. With the mobile phone now the number one personal device that's always on, text message marketing is like putting your brand in the palm of your customer's hand.

As a global trend, being reflected locally and regionally, it offers any sized business, in any industry the opportunity to increase brand awareness, generate a customer opt-in database, drive up attendance to events or visits to a store, improve customer loyalty and increase revenues."Mobile marketing can benefit businesses like nightclubs, restaurants and party promoters to retail stores and supermarkets, health and financial services companies, music and DVD stores, car dealers to hotels, travel and leisure companies" said Ingrid Riley, director of Mobi160, a Jamaican mobile marketing company.

"For companies and advertisers continually seeking alternative and more effective ways to reach and connect directly with their target audiences, the opportunity is compelling," Riley continued. Here are some facts; according to the Mobile Marketing Association, over 350 billion text messages, also known as "SMS Messages," are exchanged across the world's mobile networks every month, with over 15% them being marketing messages. Additionally, it has been noted that mobile marketing has a stronger return on investment than other media and have response rates of between 10-40%. Further, a study done by Airwide Solutions found that by 2008, 89% of brands will use text messaging to reach their audience, with nearly one-third planning to spend in excess of 10% of marketing budgets on the medium. Already brands such as Pepsi,VW,BMW,Visa, eBay and MTV have leveraged the mobile channel.

In the Jamaican context, there are just under two million mobile phone subscribers and more companies have used text messaging as part of their marketing and customer service strategy e.g. Beer Money a Run by Red Stripe and text voting with Digicel Rising Stars. Others have been using it to send loan/bill payment and appointment reminders, special offers and information bulletins.

"The possibilities are limitless, so mobile marketing is a serious marketing and business tool" Riley argued, as she explained that with MObi160 focuses on helping companies build their brands and businesses using text message marketing. The company also offers a suite of full service and self service options. This has been a shameless plug about a company in which I'm involved.

Check out Jamaica Business Calendar

It's an online diary for corporate Jamaica's events.Jamaica Business Calendar www.jamaicabusinesscalendar.com was created by Sandor Panton,the Top5jamaica.com entrepreneur. Postings are free and so is reading.

Digicel goes to the US Market in October

Yep, Digicel the fastest growing mobile provider in the Caribbean,which now operates in 20 countries will enter the American market next month.
They revolutionised the prepaid market in the Caribbean and is taking their concept to Uncle Sam's land. God knows the prepaid market still needs some help there, even though it has had some earlier pioneers and champions in maverick brands such as Virgin. Digicel's move is no surprise, as they've moved past being a Caribbean provider to pursuing building a global brand.