OK so I was at the Barcelona Mobile Monday event. It was on at the same time as the one in London and the content of it proximity marketing. By that they seemed to only suggest the use of Bluetooth as the only current form of proximity technology. Unfortunately there weren't any new ideas coming out regarding the use of RFiD and such in devices to do proximity communications. I had also hoped that they would put something out about mobile to mobile communications and viral marketing via mobility. Not a chance though.
Anyway... the speakers were:
David Masó, CEO of Futurlink, one of our most popular and successful local start-ups will explain us about Futurlink’s experiences and future plans on proximity solutions.
Miguel Sola, Director of Daem Interactive, another Barcelona Start-up will present their latest products and services for marketing campaigns using mobile image recognition.
Joan Grau, Director of operations at Media Contacts, will explain us about implementing proximity marketing solutions, the challenges and opportunities from the demand side.
Paulino Moraleda, Brand Communications Manager for Nike, will share with us what a major brand sees in the value and potential of proximity solutions and what they can provide.
I was going to give you the full lowdown on the content but instead I am just going to bullet point it. Out of all of the talks the one that I can't actually comment on is the talk by Miguel Sola. I am hoping that someone will put up an English translation of his talk content. Unfortunately for me I don't speak spanish so I didn't understand his talk. The rest of them were in English.
The guy from Nike was really interesting and it was great to hear what Nike see as their key concepts are and how they view their customers. I think the most interesting things that the guy from Nike said was that Nike don't want to pester their customers, just inform them. As such they will not send unsolicited messages to people. On the other hand they also assumed that all communications to their customers was one way communication. I do wonder if it is just the mindset of the old style marketers that they don't see marketing as a two way interaction. I hope they do because it makes life interesting.
David Maso was also working on behalf of Nike at one point as their marketing communications liason and it was his job to provide content for communications as well as the channels. It was again an interesting talk but still no grasp of the bi-directional comms.
In terms of the differences and similarities between the two talks I think the Spanish MoMo is a lot more settled they have a venue within the university that has a capacity for up to 150 people and the ability to do panel discussions etc. This gives them a stable location and will also hopefully encourage more students into the mobility space. (I hope)
The events in Spain aren't quite so oversubscribed as London and that's a good thing. I think that London could learn a few things by attending a Barcelona MoMo as they would find a solid structure and a group of amazingly organised people. Unfortunately even MoMo Barceona seems to struggle with the issue of none attendees... there were quite a few people who signed up and didn't attend. Unlike with London though because it's not oversubscribed they aren't too worried about this.
I think Barcelona has a LOT of potential to be as big as or even bigger than MoMo London as it also hosts the World 3GSM Congress.