Top honours for OMD in mobile advertising competition

Josh Dovey (left) of OMD and Rick Joubert from Vodacom with Leilani Visser, who won a holiday for her contribution.

Not only did the agency take first and second place, it also took the mobile media prize for the best overall performing agency. Leilani Visser and Carston Sing both won holiday packages worth R45 000 and R25 000 respectively. The mobile media prize entitles OMD to place R50 000 worth of media space for its brands on any of Vodacom's mobile media platforms.

iPhones were awarded to runners-up Melissa Cogle and Celia Collins from Starcom, Steve Morelli from Starfish Mobile, Sebastiana Venturi from Media Compete and Julio Rodrigues from Mindshare.

Handing over the prizes at OMD in Johannesburg yesterday, Rick Joubert, Vodacom's head of mobile media, said that the results were phenomenal in the sense that out of all potential participants targeted, 25% enrolled in the challenge (totalling over 200 participants across more than 30 agencies), with a significant long tail of additional enrolments resulting from the virality of the campaign. The general feedback was positive in terms of achieving the awareness, educational and lead generation objectives.

The Vodacom Mobile Media Awards were created with the express purpose of raising awareness of the potential of the medium to reach out to consumers. The awards seek to educate, inform and entertain advertising and media agencies about the power of mobile advertising through interaction with mobile platforms and services.

Unaware

Millions of South Africans have mobile phones, but no matter how many features they may have, most of us use only a small proportion of them - we make and receive calls, send and receive SMSs, and if our phone has a camera, we take pictures. This is probably acceptable for the average consumer, but mobile phones and mobile phone technology present South Africa's advertisers, marketers and media with a powerful tool to reach out to potential customers. However, too many operators in the advertising, marketing and media industries are unaware of this tool's potential.

According to Josh Dovey, CEO of OMD, digital and mobile media are the future. "It is an area of massive potential in this market and we have invested resources because I believe OMD needs to take a leading role as the largest media agency in SA.

"If you look at the way mobile telephony leapfrogged fixed line in Africa, logic would suggest that the same thing will happen with broadband internet eg the primary interface between consumers and the world-wide web in Africa will be their cellphones.

“This will add to the range and depth of communication possibilities between advertisers and their customers in the mobile space, and as this grows so new consumers will see this kind of communication as quite normal. The digital generation will not have any prejudice against it. A company like Vodacom then becomes a vital link, and it's great to see it being driven from their side as well," he says.