Mobile Commons’ new CEO talks mobile strategy

By Dan Butcher

August 20, 2009

Anthony Risicato is the newly appointed CEO of Mobile Commons

Mobile marketing company Mobile Commons Inc. has appointed Anthony M. Risicato as its CEO and announced new partnerships with agencies.

Mobile Commons' platform focuses on integrating SMS into multichannel campaigns and is designed to manage mobile communications programs in one interface. The company's roster of clients includes Credo Mobile, Service Employees International Union, Oxfam International, Andre Agassi Foundation, New York City Department of Public Health, Care USA, National Association of Realtors and the National Basketball Association's Sacramento Kings.

"From our perspective, mobile marketing has had a lot of forms over the last 5 to 8 years, with the industry focused primarily on one-way delivery of content, ringtones, wallpapers and how to get people engaged via apps, which has been somewhat successful," Mr. Risicato said. "But the mobile space has evolved by getting large operating agencies involved to make mobile marketing a real engagement tool.

"How do I deliver content and information and get that consumer to engage with me as a brand?" he said. "SMS amazingly has been the leader for years and it continues to be the leader growing at exponential rates, but it has been only over the past two years that brands have really started to leverage it.

"How do I speak to my consumers and get them highly engaged with my brand? By leveraging SMS and being able to connect that to a voice call, mobile coupons, a mobile site and social media such as Facebook and Twitter."

Credo Mobile is a Mobile Commons client

Mobile Commons' Web-based user interface and APIs integrate SMS, voice and Web applications with CRM programs and databases, enabling companies and agency partners to launch scalable mobile marketing campaigns with analytics and reporting.

The platform also integrates Twitter, Facebook applications, Flash widgets and geolocation features.

Mr. Risicato, a 15-year interactive marketing veteran, will guide the company as CEO through its next phase of development, building on its growth over the last two years.

Prior to joining Mobile Commons, Mr. Risicato was general manager at Covario, an interactive analytics firm focused on Global 2000 companies.

From 2003 to 2007, Mr. Risicato was general manager at Innovation Interactive, a performance marketing company, overseeing business development, operations and product management.

In 1998, Mr. Risicato joined DoubleClick, where he spearheaded the international operations launch of DART for Advertisers (DFA) based in London.

So what is the way forward for the mobile marketing industry?

"Every one of the big brands are figuring out that folks interact with them in a variety of media, but a lot of people saw it as a siloed effort," Mr. Risicato said. "Thinking of mobile in a silo really undermines the power of the medium -- multichannel is incredibly powerful and people are starting to understand that thanks to the agency influence in the marketplace.

"The agencies are trained to think holistically, what's our overall strategy?" he said. "Brands have always wanted to speak to their consumers and mobile is another way to do it, but by itself it's less powerful than when integrated holistically.

"Our goal is to make running a mobile campaign as simple as running a Web campaign, getting data in and out of systems and focusing on integration with the existing CRM tools our client have in place."

Mobile Commons started out primarily working with advocacy, nonprofit and political organizations, but within the last year and a half, the company has branched out into the brand marketing and agency space.

So what is expected of the new CEO?

"The board made it very simple for me: more, better and faster," Mr. Risicato said. "How do we make mobile easier for people?

"It cannot be the way forward for marketers to have to learn esoteric technology terms, mobile marketing has to be just as easy as launching a campaign on the Web," he said. "How do we broaden integration work to measure mobile response rates in conjunction with online, print and broadcast response rates?

"Breaking out of the mobile silo is very important to us, so we're focusing on the integration of various channels -- marketing holistically."