Mobile Marketing Association: SM2 Innovation Recap

I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the very talented Frank Cooper, Chief Marketing Officer of Global Consumer Engagement of PepsiCo Global Beverage Group, in a panel discussion at Mobile Marketing Association’s SM2 Innovation event.

His background is quite phenomenal. Pepsi has gone after bringing on someone who is fluent in content to make the product even more engaging than it has been before. Although his educational background belies his creative background as he went to Harvard Law School. Anyone who follows me in my more recent years knows my lack of affinity for most attorneys. This one I found to be as exhilarating as Diet Mt. Dew. Frank served as a senior business affairs executive for Motown Records and Def Jam Recordings. While at Pepsi, he led the re-launch of trademark Pepsi and help renew Pepsi’s multi-billion dollar deal with the NFL and their partnership with The X Factor. Frank has also worked with Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, and others through sponsorship deals. You’ve got to ask yourself: “Isn’t this different from what we normally see?”

You can tell his experience lays in dealing with a great deal of content. What makes that exciting is that is where a lot of our engagement is going. I started to ask him key questions regarding the mobile industry. A lot of people think they have really hit it big, and I’m saying it hasn’t – yet. So far we’ve only been talking about seeing millions of dollars flow into the mobile marketing scene, not billions. In the broadcast scene, we’ve seen billions. When the b-word starts to creep into mobile marketing, then we know it’s finally arrived.

That’s one of the things Frank emphasized – that we are only in the infancy phase – and that one of the reasons why it still isn’t mainstream is because it’s extremely complex. You’ve got your normal agencies, digital agencies, mobile agencies, mobile or digital ad platforms, supply-side platforms, and aggregate platforms. Then is it video or display? A lot of those things have worked themselves out on the online side but not worked themselves out totally on the mobile side.

Then you’re also dealing with the continued privacy issues and preference issues. What would be commonplace for some millennial in terms of things fed to them in terms of ads, helpful hints, or information that makes their life easier might be intrusive by someone who is of an older generation and would cause them to throw their phone through the window of the business unwantedly advertising to them.

What we’re learning without question is that the mobile device is the most personal device in the world. And mobile devices are more than just phones, and Frank and I discussed how it’s now a state of mind. Mobile means an untethered device of any kind, whether it’s a laptop, tablet, or phone. Phones are now becoming much larger, and people prefer using different devices. As I’ve said many times before, you know where your phone is more than where your children are. When people doubt me, I ask them this: “If you were to lose your phone and child in the mall at the same time, which would you go looking for first?”

We know mobile devices are going to become more dominate in our lives. It’s imperative that businesses are prepared and have a strategy in place. Your strategy should be around the engagement and experience of the customer.