The intimacy of Blyk

Over the course of the past week Blyk has evolved from its standalone MVNO status, to integrating with mobile operators, eventually across the world. Bringing with it the knowledge and insight of how to effectively use the mobile platform for commercial engagement – something that has thwarted operators.

And of course, one then reads the waves of schadenfreude, or speculation, emanating from various digital keyboards. But Blyk demonstrates a beautiful thing – how commercial communications will be in the future.

Most mobile advertising gets on average a 3-6% response rate, where as engagement and relevance, Blyk response rates have remained the same  an – average 25 % for past 20 months. Which other form of commercial communication gets that type of ROI? And one also gets accurate reporting – none of this, licking your finger and sticking it into the wind averages, that the entire media industry was (is) based upon.

MVNO’s are notoriously difficult for a host of complex reasons, but as Antti Öhrling explained in conversation with Peggy Anne-Salz

An MVNO means that you have to make up-front heavy investments. We needed to do it in the U.K. in order to get the whole machinery working. We needed to have access to all the tools that the operators have in their server rooms. Now that we understand how to use it [technology] we know how to help them. We know exactly how they can combine operator infrastructure with our ad engine and campaign management. We can make every campaign pixel perfect but what’s more important is that they [campaigns] are extremely relevant to the receiver. We saw the MVNO model as too slow for growth. If we partner with operators, we can triple or quadruple the speed, and reach the scalability that many advertisers are looking for.

Peggy’s take is Blyk has its eye on the prize: developing the capabilities – in partnership with mobile operators – to be a game-changing engagement media in reach and response.

Indeed, and as Antti often argued, Blyk was never conceived as an MVNO – that was the intial vehicle, but as a mobile media.

And as a mobile media, it has demonstrated proof of concept. What it also does is, defy the logic of the mass-media mass-consumer marketplace. This is a world that is customised, that can identify its most relevant audience and vice versa for the most relevant and timely messaging and communcations.

Its a massive opportunity, and is part of the evolution of the mobile society – but it requires brands and media companies to understand that opportunity comprehensively. And I think that this is where there is a problem. Mobile has been thought of like other channels – PUSH. But mobile is conversational – the logic of broadcast media does not fit.

This new logic is based upon intimacy. And what brand would not give its right hand for some of that? If advertising were a thing in its own right would anyone want to buy it? Alan Mitchell famously wrote. And that’s the point – Pekka Ala-Pietilä  in conversation with Peggy says this,

There are three elements. We have developed the capability to make ads relevant, that has allowed us to create an opt-in audience that want to receive this advertising. Beyond this, we have changed the whole context of advertising. Advertising ceases to exist because it is perceived as content. And that is one of the great aspirations of advertisers: to get to a level of relevance where what they send is perceived as valuable information, valuable content and important social currency. The fact that the audience responds positively to this response is reflected in the third element of this: our net advocacy scores. [By way of background, Net Advocacy is a measure of the volume of positive and negative word-of-mouth.] With over 40 percent, we’re at the same level as YouTube and Facebook.

Jonathan MacDonald is also quoted in excellent Peggy’s piece

EXPERIENCE EXPERTS

Jonathan MacDonald – an architect of Blyk strategy – highlights another ace that plays in Blyk’s favor as it enters into this and other partnerships with mobile operators: breadth of offer.

Based on a background briefing with Antti Öhling, Blyk co-founder and CEO U.K., Jonathan pieces together what he calls the “Blyk partnership Blueprint” (which he shares in this post).

The model:

1)    Position yourself as an MVNO (as Blyk did) to perfect the process of linking brands with people. As Jonathan, an eyewitness to this stage of the company build-out observes: “Over time there was constant improvement of processes and tools which all connected to creating a true experience for Blyk members and creating the world’s first network as a media.”

2)    Productize this offer. Create a comprehensive capabilities mix whose components (in the case of Blyk) include: “Blyk brand, Blyk user experience, Blyk approach, Blyk audience management and of course, Blyk advertising sales.”)

3)    Partner with mobile operators. Use the existing infrastructure and capabilities of the mobile operator, experts at customer acquisition, billing and delivering great service.

Previous postings on Blyk

If I were a CMO, head of brand, or advertising I would be reading, listening and talking to real experts on mobile marketing and communications. I would demand that mobile becomes a core part of any communication and business strategy. I would want to know how to build Widgets and Apps and to learn how I could make my advertising communications so good it is seen by its recipients as a currency of information that is valuable. That is what Blyk has taught us.

And who would not want some of that?

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Posted in: 7th Mass Media, Advertising, Convergence, Data, Economics, Engagement Marketing, Engagement Mobile, Generation C, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Strategy, Trends, iPhone

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