MMA Committees

Focus will be on identifying and articulating best practice approaches to mobile measurement and data collection.  Mobile is much different than web, and the complexities and nuances require careful consideration of the role mobile plays in all aspects of the marketing funnel, from brand awareness to engagement to conversion to loyalty.  This group is comprised of analytics experts from companies in measurement, media, brand marketing, advertising and ad networks.

Co-Chairs – Mike Ricci, WebTrends and Anders Rosenquist, Ph.D., POSSIBLE (WPP)

Initiatives: This group released the paper entitled “MMA Primer on Mobile Analytics” in September 2012 that became the most downloaded document of the year.  Looking ahead, the group is in the process of preparing use cases that illustrate distinct opportunities for mobile analytics throughout the path to purchase. Also, the team will be leveraging work done by WebTrends for Microsoft, which will allow us to begin prioritizing the mobile analytics areas within the marketing funnel for best practice development. 

Member Companies:

Working with the IAB and the MRC to develop the smartest ad counting methodology for mobile advertising.  Unlike the current state of Internet currency measurement, where the new emphasis is on viewable impressions, the mobile world must first address uniform measurement standards based on “client side counting.”  When the new In App Advertising Measurement guidelines and the updated Mobile Web Advertising Measurement guidelines hit the market in November 2012 we will be concentrating on education, adoption and compliance with the guidance.

Collaborative Effort – George Ivie and David Gunzerath, Media Rating Council, Joe Laszlo, IAB and Leo Scullin, MMA

Initiatives: The development of In-App Ad Counting guidelines has been underway since early 2011 and come to market on November 5, 2012.  Education, adoption and compliance will be the hallmarks of this group effort from now through 2013.

Member Companies:

Audience measurement is a critical component for any medium looking to establish its place in a marketers media mix.  Mobile has just begun to attract enough attention from marketers to deserve first class audience measurement.  While the major audience measurement firms have added mobile to their product suites, many open issues and opportunities remains to be examined and independently assessed.  MMA efforts in this area will concentrate on cross media effectiveness measures – SmoX.me – that was announced and funded in July 2012.

MMA Lead – Vassilis (Vas) Bakopoulos – Head of Industry Research

Initiatives: SMoX.me. Research will test real in-market marketing campaigns to determine the relative economic value of investing in mobile channels compared to traditional marketing channels.  Results expected to provide insight into channel mix optimization as well as assess more clearly the role and relative value of each of the individual mobile channels, including Mobile Display, Rich Media (or other unique ad types), Video, Audio, Email, SMS and others.

Member Companies:

Identify issues and areas of the global mobile advertising market where concerted efforts can help reduce friction and increase market liquidity, making it easier for buyers and sellers to conduct business.  This will be done primarily by establishing standards for mobile ad unit sizes, as well as offering guidance on emerging platforms such as tablets.  Members will also come to us to address issues that are confounding market development, such as the lack of uniform definitions in reporting (e.g., mobile rich media metrics) or the unique complexities of certain mobile platforms (e.g., mobile video).

Member Companies:

Mobile was the fastest-growing video platform in 2011 – more than 31 million users represented a nearly 40 percent increase from the previous year. Not only that, but usage is expected to explode over the next five years as emerging trends such as “TV everywhere,” second screen viewing, cloud-based video services and Mobile DTV add momentum. Video will soon account for more than 70 percent of total wireless data traffic. If you’re interested in joining this committee, please contact committees@mmaglobal.com. The ‘Mobile Video Landscape’ is now available.

Member Companies:

Mobile Video Ad - an ad whereby the primary unit consists of delivery of a video advertisement to mobile devices.  Different from Display, the ad unit delivers video to create consumer demand and engagement, and, the video ad delivery is the primary value proposition for the advertiser.  During or after the video, it may have rich media features as an overlay.  Mobile video units are most commonly sold on CPM, CPV and CPC.

Examples include: Pre/Mid/Post-Roll, Interstitial, Transition and Value Exchange ad units

The mission of a MMA North America Mobile Video Committee will be to develop a robust set of guidelines and standards to enable advertisers to take maximum advantage of the opportunity presented by mobile video, making mobile advertising easier to transact for advertisers, publishers, and all companies in the mobile video advertising ecosystem.

Co-Chairs – Will Kassoy, AdColony and Anne Schelle, Acta Wireless

Initiatives: there are three working groups and one white paper under way:

• Lexicon – headed by Nikao Yang, AdColony – this group will focus on preparing a glossary of terms and definitions that can work across the entire mobile video landscape
• Gap Analysis – headed by Ben Bieber, Greystripe – this group will focus on identifying the gaps that appear between current standards and guidelines from IAB, ORMMA, etc. and determine if and how they can be addressed.
• Technical Efficiencies – headed by Chris Brown, Millennial Media – this group will focus on finding the technical efficiencies in the areas of SDKs, APIs, end-to-end system integrity and video transcoding.
• White Paper – November 2012 – working with the Committee Co-Chairs and Brian Bos of Team Detroit, this effort will be focused on the media and marketing opportunities that exist in mobile video. Market size, challenges and emerging best practices will all be addressed herein.

UMAP v.2.0 was launched in January 2012 and the Compliance Program was launched in September 2012. The goal of this effort is to identify those ad unit sizes that are being effectively used and deserve to be part of the basic planning tools for mobile advertising. While we have identified 6 units that now qualify as standards, we continue to seek and evaluate data on current and new ad unit sizes that are achieving success. We also focus on what is emerging in tablets so we can provide ongoing guidance to members.

Initiatives: As we continue to gain adoption of UMAP v.2.0 we also seek regional inputs to support and refine our recommendations. To this end, we ask our Global, Premium, Premier and Regional advertising sellers to contribute ad impression data by unit size for feature and smart phones so we can provide contemporary guidance. For more information please email Leo Scullin, leo@mmaglobal.com.

If you are compliant with the UMAP v.2.0 program, or wish to become so, please go to our website and self-attest so that your company can receive and utilize the UMPA Compliance Seal. http://www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractice/compliance

Also, the MMA is collaborating with IAB US to enhance UMAP v.2.0 with added guidance on creative specifications for the designated standard ad unit sizes. This new update to UMAP v.2.0 is expected in early 2013.3

Consumers love coupons – in 2011 consumers redeemed nearly $4 billion in coupon offers, representing a 6% increase over 2010, according to Inmar.  Also according to Inmar, in 2011 CPG marketers distributed 311 billion coupons. On the retail side, 35% of more than 2,000 national and regional retail operators (excluding restaurants and services) issued their own coupons, according to Spotzot Mobile Shopping.  However, despite the prevalence of smartphones worldwide, most of these transactions still occur in the realm of paper.

Although digital coupons offer significant targeting, cost and efficiency benefits to the industry, they still make up less than 5% of the coupons redeemed at grocery, drug, mass, convenience and dollar store outlets according to Inmar (Inmar Coupon Trends 2011).  While the reasons for this are many, one major contributing aspect is the industry, from both a retailer and manufacturer standpoint, has been slow to adopt standards for digital coupons, rather, choosing to do multiple approaches.  Also, the digital coupon world and digital ad spending world have remained separate. 
However, the MMA North America Mobile Coupon Ad Unit Standards Committee seeks to change this by issuing standards that will help guide the industry to higher levels of collaboration.  If the industry will respond, the benefits of mobile coupons can thrive with new technologies like Apple’s Passbook and iOS and Android push alerts tied to HTML5 content promise a new era of coupons and promotions, and location-aware mobile devices offer CPG marketers even more precise one-to-one marketing and richer, more cost effective mobile relationship management.  This committee will create and recommend standard for mobile coupon creative, metrics, measurements and redemption designed to standardize and unlock the true power and potential of mobile coupons, incentives and rewards.

The mission of the MMA Mobile Coupons Ad Unit Standards Committee (MOCAUS) will be to develop a robust set of standards, guidelines and recommendations for mobile coupons, incentives, offers and rewards.  The output of this committee will enable advertisers and the industry in take maximum advantage of the opportunity presented by mobile coupons, incentives, offers and rewards, and further enable advertisers and mobile solution providers to engage in standardized best practices for consumer engagement and mobile relationship management.

Co-Chairs – Adam Lavine, FunMobility and Jim Schreitmueller, Spotzot

Member Companies:

As privacy concerns among consumers, regulators, legislators, advocates and businesses continue to remain at a high pitch, there is an on-going need to be aware of and to address pertinent issues.  This group gives all members the opportunity to join with other privacy professionals to discuss and consider the privacy implications of many mobile marketing situations and opportunities, while offering the market careful guidance.  Many issues arising will have serious impact on mobile business models, so the committee initiatives are merely the first step member companies can take in developing comprehensive approaches to privacy.  Furthermore, up until now this committee has had a US focus but the MMA is beginning to develop a separate EU Privacy Committee. MMA Managing Director for EMEA, Paul Berney, is commencing that effort in Summer 2012.

Co-Chairs – Alan Chapell, Chapell & Associates and Jennifer Barrett-Glasgow, Acxiom

Initiatives: MMA’s membership is diverse and in need of special guidance and education on key privacy issues in mobile.  MMA supports the efforts of the cross-industry coalition called the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). The DAA has been instrumental in creating the successful industry self-regulation approach around Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA).  As formal principles and codes emerge from the DAA, MMA members need some general guidance as soon as possible. We are issuing initial recommendations on the responsible use of mobile unique identifiers (we generically call them MUIDs) in October/November 2012.  This will be followed by further industry dialogue around best practices, guidelines and industry standards.

Because privacy and mobile represent such a potent area of interest this committee will be responding to market developments while always looking to identify, if not stay ahead of, emerging issues and developments.

Member Companies:

The mission of this group will be expanded beyond the original task of maintenance of the carrier playbooks as iterated through the Consumer Best Practices document.  The new focus of this group will be to embrace and articulate all valid messaging approaches for brand marketers, while continuing to emphasize the marketing best practices that should be followed.  The committee will be comprised of working groups that will play important roles in advocating for healthy and effective messaging channels.

MMA Leads – Michael Becker, NA Managing Director and Leo Scullin, Global Industry Initiatives

Member Companies:

Push Messaging capabilities in smartphones allow brands to send messages to users who have installed their mobile app. Engagement for mobile apps typically drops very quickly after install. Push messages provide developers, publishers and brands a very effective way of keeping users engaged with their app, increasing their ROI. While still at an early stage, push messaging is growing very rapidly with over 8.7% of all new apps on Android using the capability (up from 4.9% of all apps).

This group is just coming together and MMA members are welcome to join. The first deliverable in early 2013 will be educate brands and marketers through a MMA Push Messaging Best Practices guide for brands and marketers. The mission of the MMA North America Push Messaging Task Force will be to maximize consumer opt-in to push notifications so app publishers can directly message their connected users.  Definition: A push notification is a direct communication, from an app publisher to its users, which is delivered over the data network to IP-connected devices. The goals of this effort include the following:

• Enable brands and publishers to maximize engagement with mobile users while ensuring that the user experience remains positive.
• Allow marketers and agencies to use a common vocabulary to measure engagement.
• Describe best practices for collecting user information, protecting user privacy and using push messaging along with other mobile messaging channels.
• Grow the potential market size for push message marketing. Make push messaging a mobile marketing must-have (as opposed to an experiment)

Member Companies:

Led by Kirsten McMullen of 4INFO and Karen Bruce of Cincinnati Bell. This team has managed the alignment and streamlining of the MMA's CBP v. 7.0 in accord with CTIA and WMC. The goal is not to add to and reshape this document as before, but instead to refine it to contain the essential set of rules that back up the CTIA's Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Playbook (http://www.wmcglobal.com/images/CTIA_handbook.pdf). Version 7.0 will be the final iteration of this work product, and will be issued at the end of October 2012. Through 2013 MMA and this Task Force will be the advocates for MMA members regarding the viability and logic of the rules that are being developed, audited against and enforced.

Member Companies:

Led by Jeff Hasen of Hipcricket and Michael Levinsohn of Archer. This team is working on the best practices a marketer should follow to be successful with messaging programs. This will, initially, produce a relatively short list of tenets that will give brand marketers and their enabling partners high level guidance on how to conduct high quality messaging programs. This output will have global implications, and may lend itself to regional variations for other parts of the world at a later date. 

Other Initiatives in Messaging:

• MMA/CTIA Joint Task Force – created to help codify and increase the “fast track” program that gets major brands’ messaging programs approved and running expeditiously. Identify added areas to focus on improving the process, and to support the evolving MMA/CTIA relationship.
• TCPA Task Force – this group will be formed to coordinate the activities and knowledge surrounding the TCPA lawsuits, and activities that members are taking, such as petitioning the FCC, forging opinion letters and advocating positions with regulators and legislators.

Member Companies:

The MMA is viewing mobile apps through the eyes of a brand marketer. What does a brand or their agency or media partners need to know about apps? This group is examining Mobile Apps as a media channel that needs to be optimized in the following areas: relevancy, distribution, monetization, development and marketing. In 2012 the Committee formed Task Forces addressing the first three areas, and the results of their efforts were delivered at the MMA Forum in New York on June 14, 2012 (see bottom of page - http://www.mmaglobal.com/events/forums/newyork2012/presentations). These efforts were led and supported by the following companies:

• Relevancy: Originally led by Yowza
  • Supported by AdMarvel, Affinion, Pandora, Tribune and Turner
• Distribution: Led by Jai Jaisimha, Open Mobile Solutions, Inc.
  • Supported by Adobe, Applico, Cox Media Group, Fiksu, Inc., GetJar, Inc., The Nielsen Company and WDA
• Monetization: Led by Patricia Clark, Zumobi
  • Supported by Applico, comScore, Microsoft, Millennial Media, Inc., Poynt and WDA
• Development & Marketing: This effort is open to MMA members and is currently supported by the following MMA member companies: EachScape, iCrossing, and mBlox.

Initiatives: Once the Development Task Force gets their efforts underway the Committee will produce a white paper summarizing the findings of the various working groups.

Member Companies:

The MMA formed this committee to become a central communication channel to brand marketers, focusing their attention on the most critical factions of the Mobile Commerce ecosystem.  Mobile Commerce is particularly important as it relates to brand marketers establishing a comprehensive mobile presence that befits their industry and product category.  It is an enormous area to cover, so MMA members are working to focus attention on the most critical component for brand marketers to understand – mobile payments.

Member Companies:

The MMA formed this committee to become a central communication channel to brand marketers, focusing their attention on the opportunities and challenges that mobile payments will bring in the immediate and near future. We are currently recruiting MMA member companies and logical prospective members to jin this group.

• With a new group initially led by Alykhan Govani of Payfone, we are bringing companies into the conversation like, Visa, Google, Isis and others to build a new framework created to address the opportunities that Brand Marketers and Retailers have with mobile payments, wallet solutions included.

Member Companies:

Just forming, we are now recruiting member companies to help us build the framework for this highly anticipated endeavor. Please contact committees@mmaglobal.com to offer your support.

This committee’s mission is being reshaped to conform with the new MMA education business model.  We will have working groups that will address either Certification or Curriculum issues.  We will ask for committee members to volunteer to help MMA establish the right criteria for proper certification (and the associated levels therein), lending unique authority to the overall certification efforts.  We also request subject matter experts within discreet areas of mobile marketing, to work in small teams to collaboratively assist in curriculum development.

Initiatives: to be developed in conjunction with MMA Director of Education.

• Certification Criteria Task Force – leveraging the expertise of member companies, including brands that are successful mobile marketers, we will form a working group that will have a key and discerning role in defining the most important criteria for success in mobile.
• Curriculum Development Task Force – this will have rotating membership, depending on the subject matter needed by the MMA. We will work with John Arnold to prioritize and sequence this work effort.

Member Companies: