MMA repositions to educate brands and agencies

The Mobile Marketing Association said it is repositioning itself as the market sector begins to mature, with a heavier focus on brands and agencies. Specifically, the trade group said it will focus on five new building blocks after extensive meetings with members to become more effective at the global, national and regional levels.
“In its formative years, the MMA placed great emphasis on helping build a global industry, creating standards and guidelines to support the growth of a new industry,” said Federico Pisani Massamormile, the MMA’s Global Board Chairman and Interim CEO. “In many ways, the need to act as evangelists for the mobile channel has evolved into to a need to get brands and agencies to increase spend on a channel they’re now aware of. Marketers understand the need to include mobile in their plans, but still need support to find the right role for mobile in the marketing mix. We aim to make mobile an indispensable part of the marketing mix.”
The trade group said it plans to:
• Promote the channel, the industry and individual member companies to brands and agencies in order to create commercial opportunities for its members.
• Educate brands, agencies and consumers about the full scale and scope of the mobile marketing channel.
• Develop measurement, metrics and insight into the size, growth, trends and effectiveness of mobile marketing. This has been a particularly important need for advertisers wanting to use the channel.
• Continue with its best practices efforts to make buying mobile marketing easier.
• Represent the industry before regulators and legislators, self-regulate the industry and develop lower barriers to entry.
The MMA also introduced a new brand as part of the initiative.