A delegate’s opinion on the first day at CTIA

By Mickey Alam Khan

April 1, 2008

Steen Andersson, cofounder and vice president of marketing at 5th Finger

LAS VEGAS – Steen Andersson, cofounder and vice president of marketing at mobile service provider 5th Finger, is a mobile veteran. He’s also attended CTIA Wireless conferences in the past. How did the first day of this year’s event shape up for him?

Mobile Marketer’s Mickey Alam Khan caught a few minutes with San Francisco-based Mr. Andersson during a rather dull session – sorry, couldn’t help it – to discuss the CTIA show, delegates and trends.

Thoughts on the first few hours of CTIA Wireless 2008 Marketing – The Mobile Channel
It’s a challenge for me since I’ve been in this space for so many years. Not to be a little bit off-hand with some of the topics and discussions, but once if you sit and listen at what’s been discussed, you quickly realize that the U.S. market holds a unique opportunity for a much richer ecosystem of mobile niche markets than anywhere else in the world.

Mobile search as an environment – [agency Team Detroit senior vice president] Cary Tilds’ keynote – and then jumping from that to multiple companies who are supporting the mobile efforts for the election campaigns just demonstrates the richness of the diversity going on in the marketplace.

On the thin attendance from mobile marketers during yesterday’s morning sessions
It’s always been this way. This conference has always been industry-centric. There are not too many brands or agencies here.

But it’s still very important for the industry to get together and really have a viewpoint of how we’re growing and where are the opportunities and the challenges.

There are two shows a year. The other show in six months has more focus on entertainment marketing. This one’s more [focused] on other areas of mobile.

Difference between this year’s Marketing – The Mobile Channel event and last year’s
Last year was more conceptual than this year. For example, [mobile measurement firm] M:Metrics were talking about the numerical trends going on, growing trends in WAP usage, text usage.

But when you compare it to this year’s keynote, you see figures from a bunch of other companies such as ABI Research.

On the challenges ahead for mobile marketing
I think the challenge for mobile marketing is understanding how best to integrate with the current and the emerging nature of the digital agency.

So, for example, Team Detroit has tagged themselves as a new form of integrated agency. And how does a mobile vendor like 5th Finger position itself to support those guys and make them heroes in the eyes of their clients versus seeing us as some form of competitor, which we clearly are not.