FEATURED NEWS

07.26.10 Fieldbury PLC Set to Acquire MobileWave, Developers of the Planet Oi' Mobile Social Marketing Platform. GlobalFluency to Play Key Role in Bringing Planet Oi' to Markets
London (July 26, 2010) - Fieldbury PLC today announced, subject to
shareholder's approval, a conditional agreement to acquire MobileWave Limited, a company that owns the intellectual property rights to Planet Oi', a social networking and mobile relationship marketing platform.

06.24.10 World Cup: Guerillas on the Pitch
FIFA tightly controls its World Cup sponsorships—but guerilla marketers still use clever ploys to grab eyeballs for their nonsponsor clients
One organization that has closely followed the work of ambush marketers is the CMO [Chief Marketing Officer] Council in Palo Alto, Calif. The company's "Doing Away with Foul Play in Sports Marketing" global thought leadership initiative leading up to the 2010 World Cup is aimed at helping sensitize and alert brand sponsors and sports franchises to trademark trespassing, property rights violations, and online scams, frauds, and infringements. Also tied directly into the World Cup, the Council's "Get Wildly Creative About South Africa" people-inspired nation brand advertising contest sought to develop fresh ideas and dynamic creative content that shed a positive light on South Africa. Italian filmmaker "Booris" was awarded the Grand Prize in the contest powered by Zooppa, a global social media network of 60,000 creative enthusiasts, for his video One and Eleven. More than 400 contestants submitted creative work in three categories, including video, print advertising, and online banner display.
"Capturing the essence of a brand in an intensely captivating and engaging campaign is one of the most challenging tasks facing marketers promoting nation brands," says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. "It was truly amazing to see the variety of content, difference in view, yet singularity of idea that the brand of South Africa is one of diversity, inspiration, hope, and aspiration."

06.22.10 Mobile, Minutes-As-Currency Key To African Markets
Direct Newsline spoke extensively with GlobalFluency president Donovan Neale-May about the opportunities and hazards sub-Saharan countries afford marketers, but one key concept immediately bubbled to the surface. “There is a large installed base of mobile phone users, and airtime is a currency, although you would never say that to a central bank” Neale-May said. Neale-May estimates that there is a mobile penetration level of around 450 million accounts in the region, within a population of around 850 million. That would put it – in raw numbers – well ahead of Brazil and Russian, and closing in on India, which has around 600 million accounts. (China, which is approaching the 900 million level, is the pack’s clear leader.) Second, “mobile phones are an essential tool in Africa for commerce, information, socialization, communication, and increasingly for banking and financial payments,” Neale-May said. “The mobile phone is the transactional device for most of these folks, and the informational device.”
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