Jumping the Connectivity Gap – Mobile Makes the Leap at MILIA 2003

Canadian producers counting on mobile applications to accelerate from the margins to mainstream should be mindful what is working where. That is the message from MILIA 2003, where case studies and success stories about mobile applications from around the world made up one-third of the conference agenda. Held for the first time in Cannes, France from March 25-28 to coincide with MIPTV, the mature, 40-year-old, international market for TV program buyers and sellers, MILIA marked its 10th year with an ambitious program weaving information sessions in three streams: mobile telephony, interactive TV and broadband. “The mobile industry was happy to be here,” says Ferhan Cook, who organized the MILIA sessions for Reed MIDEM. Mobile certainly created noise – from the stage and from the audience – with virtually every session interrupted by more than one distinctive ringtone. Even when asked to shut off their phones, MILIA attendees were reluctant to do so. That attachment is key to mobile’s success. Because the mobile phone is an intuitive and personalized device, it can, according to South African broadcaster Richard Fyffe, “jump the connectivity gap” and “jump the revenue gap” for ITV. However, it may be some time before these applications are integrated with mainstream television, especially in North America where mobile growth lags Europe, Japan and other countries. Insight or attention to “the need state” of the consumer is all-important, according to keynote speaker Guy Laurence of the phenomenally successful multimedia mobile content service, Vodafone live! From its launch in 10 countries in October 2002, the service counted one million subscribers by the end of March 2003. Despite its growth, Vodafone is proceeding methodically, researching every step. While some applications are common across Europe, for example, Vodafone fine-tunes its service to fit the local culture – this even for broadly popular applications such as the downloading of ringtones, a market estimated by Laurence at 1.6 billion Euros. Now expanding beyond the simple monophonic to polyphonic and master tracks, Vodafone offers the work of local as well as international artists. The localization rule applies across the board from pricing per country to advertising. Says Laurence, “Consumers are ambiguous. Some countries hate it, some are okay as long as they opt in.” Even more important is localization of the more developed content mix involving MMS or multimedia messaging, which Vodafone varies from country to country, from culture to culture. Adult content and gambling, especially, show marked differences between countries. What is acceptable in one country may be offensive in others. Vodafone’s answer: to set benchmarks and implement them at the local level. This emphasis on localization also raises questions about what kinds of content other than adult and gambling are likely to have mass appeal. Canadian producers and government agencies gearing up to support gaming for example, should ask themselves if gaming, defined as a broad category, is truly universal? In his entertaining and enthusiastic presentation on mobile entertainment, consultant Robert Tercek of Machines That Go Ping pointed out that of the java downloads from Do Co Mo, Japan’s leading mobile communications company, 53 % are not games but peer-to-peer applications. Popular examples cited by Tercek are much like Imagineer’s “Kitty Mail” where the user selects the kitty’s outfit, dresses it and then sends the costumed kitty to friends. Tercek predicted “blockbuster potential” in the adaptation of online games such as Electronic Art’s Sim City where the user creates characters, moves them into a house and helps them furnish it. Tercek’s list of mass appeal games such as Nekozone’s, Shit Panic – no description required – are clever but do not require extensive scripting or storytelling skills or even graphical design. Tercek took great effort to position this stuff at a high level, as programming rather than content, going so far as to include a wayward McLuhan reference. However, experienced interactive producers who are would-be entrants to the mobile market might ask themselves whether they can compete, and if so, do they want to? Likewise, interactive producers tracking the next trend – that of tying mobile applications to viewer behaviour during television programs may find them marginal and location specific. Those attending MILIA’s session Participation TV: TV/SMS Success Stories heard of the phenomenal success of a daily soap opera broadcast on ABS-CBN Interactive, Philippines. Viewers guessing the title of the episode – based on the plot and not revealed until program end – send one million SMS test messages per day at 20 cents each for daily revenue of $200,000. Factors contributing to this success reflect the socio-economic realities of the Philippines, according to ABS-CBN’s Carlos Kitigbak, who explained that mobile phones are widely used in comparison to internet and even basic telephone services. Kitigbak’s figures indicate of the 75 million population, only two million have cable, two million are on telephone land lines with 1.5 million on any kind of Internet. This compares to Canada where the majority of households are cabled and about half have high-speed Internet. Also successful, data mining and collecting via the mobile phone may not be accepted universally. While SMS text messaging lends itself to transactions such as direct response advertising and TV coupons, many consumers may not want their mobile phone operator to share their data that is highly personalized. Flytxt UK’s Lars Becker encouraged broadcasters to move beyond TV voting to “build channel interactivity rather than per program” by leveraging databases built over time by tracking individual viewers. No matter how lucrative, for many it is a scary prospect. Best to follow Vodafone’s lead and proceed carefully. In a metaphor for the interactive industry’s relationship to TV, MILIA was not located with mainstream MIP in the Palais des Festivals but several hundred metres along the Croisette, underground, in the Noga Hilton’s conference rooms. “It was physically impossible to put them in the same building,” says Ferhan Cook, who estimates “about 40% went back and forth to MIP.” Organizers of MILIA 2003, which bills itself as “the world’s leading digital and interactive content event,” deserve praise for presenting a forward-looking effort in the face of world events. “Of the 15,000 who registered, 10% did not come because of the war,” Cook estimates. In fact, rather than focusing on attendance numbers, Cook’s main concern was to not “overload” conference participants. Julia Walden is the president of Toronto-based Borden Street. Borden Street specializes in content development, communications strategies and business plans for interactive media including digital television, the Internet and other emerging interactive platforms.

Jumping the Connectivity Gap – Mobile Makes the Leap at MILIA 2003

Broadcast | May 1, 2003

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