First there were blogs. Next, mobile marketing took off. The increasing popularity of moblogs shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
This amalgamation of blogs and mobile marketing involves publishing blogs from a mobile device and often includes photos taken by camera phone. Moblogs may not seem particularly revolutionary at first glance (they appear, after all, virtually identical to traditional blogs), but some companies are finding them very useful where both promoting their marketing efforts and maintaining customer communication are concerned.
Industry blog “Adrants”:http://www.adrants.com/ recently spread the word that mobile handset manufacturer “Sony Ericsson”:http://www.sonyericsson.com has launched “a moblog”:http://moblog.co.uk/cblog.php?show=3877 in conjunction with an online contest. Called Memorable Movie Moments, the site encourages consumers to recreate moments from popular films using their camera phones. The idea seems to be to generate buzz about the company’s K750i model and boost interest in its contest. It’s certainly encouraging consumer interaction and producing some interesting submissions (picture grown men dressed like Edward Scissorhands and a plate of mashed potatoes and broccoli designed to replicate The Island of Dr. Moreau.)
Toronto-based “Navigate the Streets”:http://navigatethestreets.com, the popular tech-themed “urban race” that has players navigating Canadian cities by solving clues, also publishes “a moblog”:http://navigatethestreets.com/race/moblog/ on its site. For this organization, it’s the ideal vehicle via which to recap game activity and provide the answers to game clues.
When it comes to utilizing moblogs, though, the possibilities don’t end here. I’ll wager it won’t be long before the rest of the marketing community recognizes the value of establishing and maintaining consumer contact via a versatile medium that can reach potential customers wherever they go.