Buzz not necessarily a good thing, says CTIA exhibitor

By Mickey Alam Khan

April 4, 2008

Show floor traffic at CTIA Wireless

LAS VEGAS – As senior vice president at messaging giant Acision, Oz Eleonora has seen several waves in wireless come and go. He knows a trend from a fad.

Mr. Eleonora was responsible for choosing the booth at this year’s CTIA Wireless 2008 show. He made sure it had plenty of space: a large foyer and five meeting rooms, including an aerie on the second floor. The booth’s distinctive black wasn’t hard to miss on a show floor where stands from LG, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft simply astounded in size, mobile phone models, leggy help and executive manpower. Here’s what Mr. Eleonora had to say in a quick sit-down with Mobile Marketer’s Mickey Alam Khan:

What did you think of the show?
I think the show has got more realistic, there’s more realism to it. By that I mean some analysts complain there’s no buzz. And my reaction to that is, buzz is not necessarily a good thing.

Buzz is often about things that have not happened yet and in many cases, never happen at all.

The industry is learning to focus on improving and expanding what we already have, rather than pie-in-the-sky. And why are we doing that? Because the user has taught us that they’ve already chosen their modes of communication. They just want to be able to do more with it.

What do you think of the booths? They’re humongous and must cost millions to make.
Another one of the large shows I go to is NCTA – the national cable show. And while it is not as big, you have not seen anything till you’ve seen the booths there.

The reason for big booths is you meet many of your customers, if not all, as well as your target customers and you need a place to be able to have a private discussion with them and show them examples of your capabilities. You don’t want to do that in the open air and so you have a booth like this.

It more than pays off, because of the amount of customer touch-points you’re able to get.

Should mobile marketers be here?
Yes, they should be here. Because mobile marketing will not succeed without mobile messaging and this is everybody who makes mobile messaging work.

Anything that stood out in the last three days?
I was really impressed with the LG booth. They really went the extra mile and it doesn’t hurt that they have the sexy devices to go with it. That and the whole futuristic theme.

Something you would change?
The other disappointment is perhaps that technology people don’t seek out the marketers enough. That’s why we partnered with [direct and interactive marketing agency] OgilvyOne. You’ve got to marry technology with marketing.