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Mobile Marketing Association taps Internet evangelist as new CEO

The Mobile Marketing Association filled a nine-month vacancy in the president/CEO?s post with the appointment of Greg Stuart, an executive who once evangelized the Internet in its salad days.

Mr. Stuart?s appointment to the top position at the MMA is meant to stabilize an institution that has struggled to find a voice among its peers even as mobile is becoming the fastest-growing technology and marketing medium in history. As president/CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Mr. Stuart faced the identical challenges in his 2001-07 tenure convincing marketers and ad agencies to include the Internet in the marketing mix.

?The mission here is pretty similar to the Internet days: Let?s perfect mobile as the channel for marketers,? Mr. Stuart said. ?Part of that is to understand mobile?s role and its value in the marketing mix and helping marketers to be successful within the mobile channel.

?Just because somebody?s a marketer doesn?t mean they understand the nuances of a new channel,? he said.

Mr. Stuart?s immediate predecessor, Mike Wehrs, lasted one year as MMA chief before moving to the CEO?s position at bar code specialist Scanbuy.

Mr. Wehrs? predecessor, Laura Marriott, set a pretty hard act to follow for MMA leaders with her living and breathing mobile nonstop from the association?s inception through 2008.

House of Stuart
The latest leadership change comes weeks after the MMA unveiled a new look and repositioned itself at the global, regional and national levels.

Based in New York, the MMA currently has more than 700 members comprising brands, agencies, wireless carriers and mobile marketing firms.

There are obvious parallels between mobile this year and where the Internet was when Mr. Stuart began his IAB tenure. Back then, marketers and agencies took much convincing to understand the Internet?s potential, but about $8 million in IAB research spending helped prove the medium?s efficacy.

?We proved that the Internet was the deal of the century ? because supply outstripped demand,? Mr. Stuart said. ?The same thing has to be happening in mobile right now.

?So part of that is to help marketers have it be successful and mobile right this moment is the deal of the century,? he said.

?Marketers are very slow to adapt new technology ? it?s just the general nature of things. For marketers who jump in now it?s a huge opportunity.?

Indeed, one of Mr. Stuart?s core tasks is encouraging MMA members and marketers and agencies to allot bigger budgets to mobile.

?Generally speaking, it?s in its infancy,? Mr. Stuart said about mobile marketing. ?We?re kind of where we were with the Internet 10 years ago. We might have a budget of 1-2 percent, where most of it is test.?

Sticking with the knitting
If more mobile marketing understanding and spending is what the MMA seeks, then Mr. Stuart has the credentials for marketing speak.

In addition to his job as IAB chief, he was also an advisor, director and angel investor in more than a dozen venture-backed firms in the past three years. He has also held jobs as chief marketing officer and head of ad sales in the 1990s through the turn of the century.

Mr. Stuart is a noted speaker and author of a book read widely in marketing circles, ?What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds.?

Like the typical marketer he is, Mr. Stuart has a 100-day plan. First, meet members of the MMA board of directors. Next, hear the marketers and agencies? pain points. Finally, create a plan saluted by all that the MMA can execute.

Mr. Stuart will be based in New York, but is expected to travel extensively nationwide and overseas.

Given the state of the economy and marketers? natural conservative tendencies, Mr. Stuart has his work cut out. For him, charity begins at home.

?The MMA needs to be in a position to take leadership of the industry and I don?t think it?s sufficiently resourced at this point,? Mr. Stuart said.

Final Take
Mickey Alam Khan is editor in chief of Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily

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