Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, announces today the agency has designed an innovative mobile operation to increase awareness of Oreo, the world's No. 1 biscuit brand from Kraft Foods.

Through the promotion the OREO brand, a family treat on sale across the UK since March 2008, is targeting family members going to the cinema together and sharing the experience of blockbuster movies. The brand is sponsoring advanced screenings of family movies in Vue cinemas across the UK. For the highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Ice Age 3, OREO-branded magnetic photo frames will be distributed in cinema foyers while engaging attendees through an original mobile competition set up by Phonevalley, in partnership with MediaVest.

From 26th June to 19th July in Vue cinema foyers around the country, families will be encouraged to strike a pose with the interactive Oreo standee for the chance to win one of several prizes including a family holiday to Universal Studios, Florida. To enter the promotion, entrants simply use their mobile phone to take a photo of their family and friends with the Oreo standee and text it to a shortcode, or email if they own an iPhone or BlackBerry. Entrants will receive an SMS confirming their entry, followed at a later date by an SMS inviting them to go to www.oreofamilymovies.co.uk to see if their picture has been selected for the Oreo online gallery. Consumers will also be able to download and print pictures from the Oreo website.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, adds: "This mobile campaign captures the Oreo brand's qualities in a fun, interactive and engaging way. After our recent mobile campaign for Kraft Foods in the US, this new initiative in the UK enhances the mobile capabilities to connect consumers and brands in a genuine and creative mode."

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, announces today its partnership with L'Oreal Paris to extend the brand awareness of the new "Combleur Collagène Lèvres" and the new "StudioLine MineralFX aux actifs minéraux" to mobile users.

To support these two innovative products, Phonevalley built a mobile strategy which focuses both on a brand image objective and a recruitment one. The agency released two MMS to 150 000 mobile users, chosen in perfect affinity with each target of the L'Oreal Paris products.

The first campaign was designed for the new "Combleur Collagène Lèvres" that L'Oreal Paris wanted to promote amongst women from 35 to 49 years old. On last April 14, Phonevalley sent 105 000 MMS presenting Linda Evangelista, the inspiration of the "Combleur Collagène Lèvres".

On April 29, L'Oreal Paris retried again and demonstrated its range of mineral effects haircare products, "StudioLine MineralFX aux actifs minéraux" thanks to an MMS sent to 45 000 men from 18 to 35 year old, all Smartphone owners. The MMS displayed Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy hero. He was inviting mobile users to connect on the L'Oreal Paris website to print a 1,5 euro reduction coupon to redeem on any product from the MineralFx range.

Alexandre Mars, CEO Phonevalley and Head of Mobile Publicis Groupe, says: "We are delighted to renew our collaboration with L'Oreal Paris, for whom we already built mobile marketing campaigns.
Their efficiency, as well as the similarity between L'Oreal Paris' target groups and the mobile phone owners population, have drove us to recommend these two image and couponing campaigns".

"Les marques engagent ainsi la conversation avec le consommateur final", explique Alexandre Mars, responsable de la statégie mobile chez Publicis. Sans toujours éviter le faux pas: la prenière application d'un constructeur automobile avait été mal notée par les mobinautes, ce qui l'a contraint à lancer une nouvelle version.(...)

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Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, in partnership with ARC WW Russia unveils Volvo's first mobile Internet site in Russia named m.citysafety.ru to support the launch of the new crossover Volvo XC60.

Together with traditional communications channels used by Volvo Car Russia till the launch of new Volvo XC60, the safest in Volvo's history, the mobile platform has been chosen as the most effective in engaging consumers.

The content of the site is optimal for gaining necessary information, starting with an opportunity to book a free test drive for the new Volvo XC60, and finishing with 3D game Сity Rally, which can be downloaded to the mobile phone.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile: "We were keen on developing a great engagement for Volvo on mobile, the number one channel for consumers on the move. Volvo offers people to experience exciting moments in their car and to break new grounds while driving. We hope to extend this excitement and emotional connection in and out of the car, thanks to the most personal device."

David Thomas, President of Volvo Car Russia, adds: "Volvo cars and crossovers are the leaders of the sales ranking in Russia in premium segment and we strive for being first in everything else. Using new media for communication proves that Volvo brand is modern and innovative. From the new mobile site for XC60, consumers can learn more about the car, which not only can speed up without assistance but also pull up."

The site, created by Publicis-owned mobile agency Phonevalley, allows users to create shopping lists based on Kraft recipes, and access preparation and cooking times as well as detailed cooking instructions direct from their handset. Users can then check off items as they shop, or choose to send recipe details to friends via e-mail.

The mobile destination also integrates personalized account features linked to existing Kraftfoods.com online accounts which allow users to save favorite recipes. Phonevalley says it hopes this will facilitate further and deeper engagement with the Kraft brand.

Traffic is being driven to the site by mobile display and search ads bought by Boston-based agency, Digitas, and running across Yahoo's U.S. mobile portal.

"Kraft Foods has focused its mobile strategy on one goal: to extend its reach towards any mobile phone with an Internet connection. The brand's ambition was to facilitate engagement and help drive additional engagement" on multiple platforms, said a Phonevalley spokesperson.

A recent Forrester report titled "Is an iPhone App Right For You?" highlights the innovation of Kraft's iFood Assistant application, and points out that its users are willing to pay for such a feature-rich service, despite the fact that it's branded. That would suggest its free Web-based counterpart might prove similarly popular.

Kraft Foods is expanding its reach of consumers through the launch of a new mobile Web site, which will be promoted via mobile search and banner ads on Yahoo's Web portal.

The site at http://m.kraftfoods.com was created by Phonevalley and is meant to offer new and existing Kraftfoods.com members access to recipes while on the go. The site extends Kraft Foods' reach to any mobile phone with an Internet connection.

"Kraft Foods intended to extend its mobile reach towards any mobile phone with an Internet connection," said Alexandre Mars, Paris-based CEO of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe. "The brand's ambition was to facilitate engagement and help drive additional engagement with Kraft Foods' unique award-winning recipe database.

"The strategy lays in the creation of a community around Kraft Foods recipes," he said. "This mobile site is perfectly well targeted for all cooks on the go, people willing to prepare great meals and save time."

The site offers consumers access to recipes in their kitchen or the grocery store while tending to many of life's responsibilities.

Recipes on the go

With just a few clicks, users can create shopping lists, search their favorite recipes by ingredient or meal category, all by utilizing Kraft's extensive database of recipes.

Upon choosing a recipe, the consumer immediately accesses the meal's full ingredient list, preparation and cooking times, as well as the detailed cooking instructions.

Consumers can also receive inspiration from the "Recipe of the Day," which is updated seven days a week in conjunction with the Kraftfoods.com Web site.

The mobile site offers consumers smart features such as the "Shopping List" (to check off purchased items in-store) and the "Share with a Friend" (to share meals with others by email).

Phonevalley has personalized the browsing experience and developed user account management features, which allow users to create their own recipe box with their favorite recipes for quick access in the future.

Users' accounts are linked to their respective Kraftfoods.com Web accounts to facilitate the Kraft engagement and help drive additional engagement with Kraft Foods content.

The Kraft Foods mobile site is promoted by Boston-based Digitas in partnership with Phonevalley through mobile display advertising and mobile search on Yahoo's mobile Web portal.

This isn't Kraft's first foray into mobile.

Kraft Foods ran a mobile campaign in Germany this January to promote the launch of a new instant coffee brand called Jacobs.

The campaign was integrated with traditional media and let consumers request samples and order products from their handsets. Kraft spent a lot of time defining the target audience for this campaign in order to minimize the waste of resources and the costs required to reach the consumers.

Additionally, Kraft launched a new iPhone and iPod touch application in December that offers consumers access to food and meal-planning ideas.

Called the iFood Assistant, the app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for installation on any iPhone or iPod touch. The app targets consumers on the go looking for recipes.

"Mobile is obviously the perfect media to execute Kraft's strategy," Mr. Mars said. "Mobile is now in every pocket and Kraft Foods' mobile site gives access to recipes while consumers are in their grocery store or in their kitchen."

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, announced today that Kraft Foods, the world's second largest food company, has expanded its consumer engagement on mobile devices by launching a mobile Internet site (m.kraftfoods.com) to offer existing US-based Kraftfoods.com and new members access to Kraft's recipes while "on the go". The Phonevalley-created site extends Kraft Foods' reach to any mobile phone with an Internet connection.

The site offers consumers access to recipes in their kitchen or the grocery store while tending to many of life's responsibilities. In just a few clicks, users can create shopping lists, search their favorite recipes by ingredient or meal category all by utilizing Kraft's extensive database of award-winning recipes. Upon choosing a recipe, the consumer immediately accesses the meal's full ingredient list, preparation and cooking times as well as the detailed cooking instructions.

Consumers can also receive inspiration from the "Recipe of the day" which is updated seven days a week in conjunction with Kraftfoods.com web site. The mobile site offers consumers smart features such as the "Shopping list" (to check off purchased items in-store) and the "Share with a friend" (to share meals with others by e-mail).

Phonevalley has personalized the browsing experience and developed user account management features, which allow users to create their own recipe box with their favorite recipes for quick access in the future. Users' accounts are linked to their respective Kraftfoods.com web accounts to facilitate the Kraft engagement and help drive additional engagement with Kraft Foods content.

The Kraft Foods mobile site is promoted by Boston-based Digitas in partnership with Phonevalley through mobile display advertising and mobile search on Yahoo!'s mobile web portal in the US.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, is thrilled about the new service and states "The Kraft Foods recipe mobile site stands as a bright example of the new generation of the mobile footprint. Kraft Foods provides quick access to easy to use recipes and thus delivers great services to mobile users".

"People are leading increasingly mobile lives and we're pleased with this opportunity to provide delicious food ideas to cell phone users anywhere in the U.S." adds Ed Kaczmarek, Director of Innovation, New Services at Kraft Foods. "Last year we introduced iFood Assistant for iPhone and iPod Touch so we see this as yet another way to reach people anytime, anywhere."

"The Kraft Foods mobile site is a great example of how we are working with Phonevalley to help them build brands, reach consumers on a large scale and increase consumer engagement in new ways," said David Katz, vice president, mobile advertising and publishing, Yahoo!. "As a global leader in mobile advertising and through our relationships with leading agencies, Yahoo! is focused on empowering brands to tap into the burgeoning audience of mobile consumers across any handset."

Since the emergence of mobile as a marketing tool, Coca-Cola has managed to harness the power and specificity of this medium to reach its targets on the move, at any time of the day. Coca-Cola was one of the first players in France to have integrated mobile in its overall communications strategy. Coca-Cola won the Strategies 2008 Mobile Marketing Grand Prix.

Coca-Cola entrusted Phonevalley to design an original communication operation to support on mobile the "Buvez Bougez" promotion for its "Grip & Go" bottle.

To appeal and attract the target of the 20-39 years old while they are on the go, Phonevalley has designed a hunt to the Coca-Cola logo on all the french territory, which began on April 27 and will end on May 30.

The logo hunt is now open!

Since April 27, the French mobinautes, wherever they are, can engage in a treasure hunt from their mobile phone, and get a chance to win an MP3 player each week. Based on the model of the "hot and cold" game, its principle is to approach as close as possible to the Coca-Cola logo hidden on the map of France.

From each Monday morning, participants simply enter their zip code on the mobile site. They then choose a direction and distance to get closer to the location of the Coca-Cola logo. Each participant is offered three tests per day and continues to explore the map of France until Sunday, the day of the draw: those arrived in a radius of less than 20 kms of the logo participate in a raffle to try to win an MP3 player.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile adds: "Our teams are very proud to have designed such an original mobile operation for Coca-Cola and its "Buvez Bougez" (drink, move) promotion. Drink, move, but also play and win thanks to your mobile: the treasure hunt perfectly illustrates the uniqueness of mobile to create a permanent link between brands and their consumers".

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, and sportlifestyle company PUMA, announce today their new initiative that harnesses the power of mobile to keep all sailing fans updated about the PUMA Ocean Racing team.

On October 11, 2008, at 14.00, in winds of over 25 knots and stormy seas, the PUMA Ocean Racing team stormed across the start line of the first leg (section of a race) of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09. The race is made up of ten legs, finishing in June 2009 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Setting sail from Qingdao, China, on February 14, il mostro, the PUMA Ocean Racing boat, which was christened by Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek, just finished the 5th leg of the race, China to Rio. This leg was a killer, a grueling 12,300 nautical miles, by far the longest and most trying leg of the race with extreme heat and cold, monsoon and hurricanes. After a much needed stop in Rio, the team set up again on April 11, 2009 sailing 4,900 nautical miles to the PUMA team's home base in Boston.

Phonevalley discloses the PUMA Ocean Racing team mobile Internet site: m.pumaoceanracing.com

To support PUMA communications towards all sailing followers and improve brand awareness, Phonevalley designed the PUMA Ocean Race mobile Internet site: m.pumaoceanracing.com. Live on April 9th, the site allows mobile users from 7 countries (United-States, France, Germany, United-Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil and Russia) to follow the race and their favorite team in the battle from Rio to St. Petersburg.

The PUMA Ocean Race mobile Internet site displays the freshest news on the race from the PUMA team, as well as impressive photos and videos to download on mobile phones. Sailing fans can also follow the race, live on their device, thanks to a Google map which highlights the positions of all racing teams in real time.

The PUMA Ocean Race mobile Internet site also presents all PUMA sailing collections, men and women, footwear, apparel and accessories. It subsequently drives mobile users to stores thanks to a PUMA store locator which identifies the closest shop on a map, and thanks to a click-to-call function to be directly connected with the store.

Phonevalley has set up a PUMA Ocean Race mobile desktop icon specifically for Blackberry owners, to download from the mobile site. This will increase PUMA's relationships and brand loyalty with high profile mobile users.

To stimulate the buzz around the PUMA Ocean Race mobile site, Phonevalley created a viral attribute to offer sailing fans to send a free message to a friend and let him/her know about the site.

Alexandre Mars, CEO Phonevalley and Head of Mobile Publicis Groupe, is thrilled: "We are extremely proud to support PUMA in building close relationships with all sailing fans for this ultimate sailing adventure. After our cooperation for their first mobile campaign during Euro™ 2008, followed by the great mobile platform for last Shanghai Formula 1 Grand Prix, the PUMA Volvo Ocean Race initiative stands as one of the most briliant illustrations of the power of mobile to support brand awareness".

"Today, thanks to their mobile phone, all fans of the PUMA Volvo Ocean Racing team get the opportunity to stay connected 24/7 with il mostro and its fantastic, though grueling, adventure" says Antonio Bertone, PUMA CMO. "They will follow the race up to its final leg, when the PUMA team will hit the finish line, live on their phone. This ultimate human adventure did need to be scrutinized on the mobile screen!"

About the Volvo Ocean Race

37.000 nautical miles, 9 months, 7 teams, 1 chance at bragging rights: the Volvo Ocean Race is the most extreme, most dangerous and most challenging sailing event on the planet. It is the ultimate mix of world class sporting competition and on the edge adventure. A unique blend of onshore glamour with offshore drama and endurance. The race is a dream young sailors aspire to, and brings together the best talent from around the globe. Often referred to as the "Everest of Sailing," the Volvo Ocean Race is a test of not only skill, but also endurance.

"Consumers have more and more choices, and they're finding a pretty good experience using the mobile Web," said Mark Donovan, a senior analyst at ComScore.

The number of people using the mobile Web to access a social networking site quadrupled to 9 million, Donovan said, while the number of people who used the mobile Web to trade stocks or access a financial account nearly tripled to 3 million. (Phones might be useful for panic trading.)

Usage is increasing as more smartphones land in people's hands, Donovan said. The number of people with smartphones increased 81% over the past year, to 24.8 million from 13.7 million.

That trend is likely to continue as phones drop in price. ISuppli, an El Segundo research firm, predicts 11% growth in global smartphone sales in 2009, even as the overall mobile handset market slogs along. And Juniper Research predicts that smartphones will account for 23% of all new mobile phones by 2013, as demand for complicated applications draw consumers to more technically savvy handsets.

Popular content also is driving the on-the-go Internet numbers, Donovan said, as media properties such as CNN and Google perfect their mobile sites. That's motivated phone users without smartphones to start using the mobile Web too, he said.

This is all good news for advertisers, who are struggling to find an effective place to reach people in a year in which their budgets are significantly smaller than last. Donovan says internal ComScore studies have found that ads viewed on mobile phones can have higher click-through rates than those viewed on computers. Some mobile ads are viewed by users who are otherwise difficult to reach, such as those who don't use computers as much and mostly check the Web on their phones, he said.

Half of males 18 to 34 access news and information via the mobile Web, according to ComScore.

"Mobile marketing seems recession-proof due to the well-known fact that the number of mobile users is still growing and will continue to grow," Alexandre Mars, head of Mobile Publicis Groupe, said in a recent white paper.

His proof? There are 30 countries where the mobile penetration rate is above 100%, India boasts 9 million new users each month and China adds as many users as the population of Miami each month.

"Mobile marketing will give the advertising industry a complete face-lift," he said.

Phonevalley and M6 Video have created a communication strategy on mobile since mobile is the first media consumed by the 15-25 years old target group. Young people -12 million mobile users in France- browse and search on mobile portals like Yahoo! They are twice more likely than the national average to watch TV and videos on their mobile phones.

M6 Video and Phonevalley have set up a mobile media campaign associated to a mobile Internet site dedicated to the movie. The Incredible Hulk's mobile site presents the movie, its preview, its synopsis and a few pictures. Banners were displayed on Yahoo!'s mobile portal in the most popular sections among the youth, like the home page, " Yahoo! News ", " Yahoo! Messenger ", " Yahoo! Search " or " Yahoo! Mail ".

For M6 Video, this very first mobile campaign is a great success. It has reached over 560,000 page viewed and a click through rate close to 4.2%.

Alexandre Mars, CEO Phonevalley and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, adds: " I am very glad Phonevalley has successfully supported M6 Video to launch The Incredible Hulk in retail. A leading entertainment publisher in France, M6 Video has perfectly integrated mobile in its cross-media strategy towards the young".

From November 29 to December 7, Phonevalley released its "Pure Garage" MMS to a targeted group of over 32,000 Blyk subscribers, from 16 to 24 years old, all fans of dance music. The MMS encouraged them to enter a competition and win a Nokia mobile phone. People could also click on the MMS to download a "Pure Garage" mobile wallpaper.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, explains: "Warner Music's Pure Garage mobile campaign achieved great results, with excellent click-through rates of 12.8%. It's a great ROI operation which proves the flawless efficiency of mobile for perfectly planned campaigns."

Les participants au jeu accèdent aussitôt à un site Internet mobile créé spécialement pour l'opération. Ils sont alors invités à enregistrer leurs coordonnées complètes pour participer au tirage au sort.

Intermarché optimise l'opération en consacrant une page complète d'explications simples sur le code 2D et son fonctionnement dans son prospectus.

Jean-Christophe Pagès, coordinateur de projets NTIC, Groupement des Mousquetaires ajoute : "Nous sommes heureux de pouvoir faire nos armes dans le code 2D aux côtés d'un acteur tel que Phonevalley. Le but pour nous étant de développer un moyen de délivrer de l'information au consommateur, à sa demande, où qu'il soit."

Alexandre Mars, PDG de Phonevalley et 'Head of Mobile' du Groupe Publicis, se félicite : "Nous sommes très fiers d'accompagner Les Mousquetaires dans leur approche des codes 2D : c'est un outil efficace pour transformer un support non interactif en un canal d'échange avec une marque."

A propos des codes 2D

Les codes 2D permettent de stocker davantage d'informations que les codes barres traditionnels que l'on retrouve notamment sur les produits de grande consommation. Il est aujourd'hui possible de lire ces codes 2D sur un large nombre de supports (journaux, affiches, TV...) au moyen d'un téléphone mobile. Cette action peut déclencher l'ouverture d'une connexion à l'Internet mobile, l'envoi d'un SMS, d'un MMS, d'email ou un appel voix. Les codes 2D permettent ainsi au consommateur d'accéder à des contenus complémentaires (photos, vidéos, conseils beauté, infos produits...), de réagir à l'information (commentaires, témoignages, votes...), d'accéder à des services (comme l'achat ou la réservation en ligne) ou à des promotions (jeux pour gagner des places de spectacles, coupons de réduction...), etc. (source : AFMM).

For Google, the new phone is firstly about making it incredibly easy for users to pull down information from the web, and it is no coincidence that one of the icons on the very first screen of the G1 is about ensuring that none of the traditional gatekeepers of the mobile world – such as handset manufacturers and operators – has too much power, by making Android open to all developers as an open access platform.

"The move of Google into mobile is accelerating the momentum of device development and application development, creating a better and more open internet experience on a mobile device," says Philip Shepherd, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Is has been possible to download mobile applications on a range of devices for several years, but usage has been paltry because of users "fears over the cost of downloading and problems of finding applications in the first place. In stark contrast, within two months of iPhone's launch, the iTunes store had seen more than 100 million iPhone applications downloaded. The equation is simple: ease of use, plus a flate-rate data plan, plus an open application environment for developers, equals massive usage.

Alexandre Mars, chief executive of Phonevalley, the mobile arm of one of the world's largest advertising firms, Publicis, is in no doubt that there is great potential for brands.

"With the G1 or iPhone we can do so much more than just an SMS or text-based campaign," says Mars. It's all about building the brand into the application. The better the widget – or mini-application – is, the more usage it will get and consequently the more engagement there will be between brand and consumer.

In the US, for example, Phonevalley is launching a mobile recipe application which works on the iPhone and, soon, the G1. "You just launch the application and you get a recipe of the day and a host of other ideas. Once you have found a recipe, you can be directly linked to the 7-Eleven or Wal-Mart in your local area.

"If you add iPhone together with the G1 and new Android handsets from LG, Samsung and others that will come next year, it will be a great year for mobile advertising," Mars adds. "Because we will be able to provide something different for advertisers from the very beginning".

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, Zenith Optimedia, Saatchi & Saatchi and Toyota inaugurate today the iQ4u site, an exclusively iPhone site which takes advantage of the unrepeatable innovations of the phone notably its tactile navigation, its flowing and its high video player quality.

Laid bare in first worldwide preview showing at the Geneva 2008 Show, the iQ Toyota keeps on making speak at the Worldwide Auto Show in Paris. The car offers the answer to drivers who are looking for a city car with an innovative and sophisticated design which propose 4 places in les than 3 meters, and a respectful environment model to take up ecologies challenges from today and tomorrow.

A 100% iPhone site

The iQ4u site exploits much as possible the iPhone functionalities. Its interface, ultra design and simple, suggests a menu through a 3D cube, which is sitting enthroned in the home page. Users reach to the site's heading by making revolve the cube with their fingers, then by exercise a pressure on the face of their choice. The navigation is wholly tactile.

The cube gives access to the iQ Tv, the urban and tendency video chain of the iQ. Several personalities come along the user and propose him to discover through a video the vanguard of the trends, to explore the emergent flows and the new life's philosophies. Each week, Toyota will put on-line a video composed of one of these thematic : Fashion Inside ; Eco-Lexico ; So Fille So Bio; Que de Monde ; Today Tomorrow and Small Place, Best Places.
iQ Tv is also available on the iQ web site and on www.youtube.fr/iqtv.

Others cube's faces allow notably to discover the iQ Toyota in depths thanks a dynamic pictures wall and to download the booklet model. The iQ4u site will be improved regularly until January 2009. The cube's faces will show new interactive experiences for the next months.

iQ4u is also a compatible with the iPod Touch.

An exclusively iPhone media plan on perfectly affinities supports

To relieve the iQ4u launch towards the iPhone owners, Phonevalley has conceived a iPhone media plan composed of two parts:

• Color the iPhone Orange home page with a iQ corner which brings over on iQ4u
• Place banners on the Figaro.fr and Liberation.fr sites (partner: Zenith Optimedia)

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, declares: "We are very proud today to carry on our productive Toyota's collaboration to follow the brand in their communication towards the iPhone's owners target, in perfect adequacy with the iQ's futures buyers."

Publicis has historically been very aggressive in the digital space (18% of Publicis Group revenues are from digital compared to the average 7% for holding agencies), and they are now moving seriously into mobile.

In this interview, Alexandre talks about current trends he sees in mobile advertising, his favorite mobile campaign, and what developments he sees coming in the near future.

Publicis Center of Excellence

Today Alexandre wears two hats – CEO of Phonevalley, and also Head of Mobile for the Publicis Group. He explains, "The acquisition was very complimentary – Publicis realized that someday mobile will be an important part of digital. Even though it may be a small market today, it will be bigger and bigger."

"So we are brand agnostic – we work for all the Publicis brands – Starcom MediaVest, Zenith Optimedia, Digitas, Modem, Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Leo Burnett. The key thing is that once you build the mobile expertise and the mobile platform, it's really easy to scale that for every country and for every brand."

Phonevalley is a "full service" agency, and Alexandre explains that they work with clients and local Publicis agencies in 5 main aspects of mobile advertising:

• 1 - consulting and setting mobile strategy
• 2 - concepts and ideas generation
• 3 - building the mobile web site or application
• 4 - hosting
• 5 - planning and buying the media.

"This is a really broad area of expertise, we call it a 360º service."

"Glocal" Strategy

Phonevalley has 10 offices globally at the moment - US, Russia, India, China, Singapore, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy - and they work with local Publicis agencies in many more countries. Phonevalley has developed what they call a "Glocal" strategy – meaning a combination of global plus local.

"More and more of our clients are saying that mobile is great, but they need to work on a pan-European campaign, or on a regional basis, or even a global one. Our worldwide reach is why we can work easily with big global companies such as Google, Nokia, Yahoo!."

On the other hand, Phonevalley understands that each individual market has very distinct characteristics that must be taken into account of when planning and executing a mobile campaign. "In some countries you have mobile internet first, in some you have mobile applications, some use shortcodes, some don't, etc. So clients also require local expertise."

It is this combination of central Phonevalley expertise along with the numerous Publicis offices around the world that let's Phonevalley offer this "Glocal" capability.

Mobile is moving to the "Strategic Level"

Alexandre believes that 2009 will in fact be "the year of mobile advertising". Two of his reasons are quite well known and widely shared: the first is the growing availability of flat data rates, and the second is the improved capabilities of mobile handsets. But his third reason provides a very interesting agency perspective – he sees that mobile advertising is moving to the "strategic level" within brands.

"The fact is that many clients have done their testing, and now want to move onto a more strategic level. Some clients are still on a project basis, but more and more are bringing mobile in at the strategic level, saying 'what can mobile do for me? how do I link it to my online strategy? what can be the outcome of that?' "

Phonevalley's acquisition by Publicis also helps them take advantage of this movement to the strategic level. Alexandre explains why: "to make this work, you have to talk with the decision makers in a brand. You need to make them understand that mobile is really valuable, and not just part of digital."

"At first you have to talk to the CMO to show them it really works, and being part of Publicis we are able to get in and talk to CMO's. This is one of the reasons I started looking for a partner for Phonevalley 18 months ago".

Your mobile site is your FlagShip

Although Phonevalley works with many different mobile ad formats, Alexandre puts an especially strong focus on mobile sites and mobile applications. He goes on to explain his views of these.

"We believe you will do different things through mobile sites and mobile applications."

"The WAP site is most important, it's the first step. Without that, you can't have a mobile strategy. The mobile site is for branding like any internet site - it can support showing trailers, downloading applications, having customers enter their information, etc. Its really the flagship for your mobile advertising."

"After the mobile site it is mobile applications – they could be iPhone apps, Yahoo! Go applications, or Android applications. Mobile applications are definitely concept ads, there must be an idea behind it. If you don't have a great idea no one will use it."

The Puma Campaign for Euro2008

I asked Alexandre to tell us something about one of his favorite campaigns. "Concepts and ideas are becoming more and more critical in mobile advertising, it is what makes the difference. And a very good example of this is the campaign we ran for Puma for the Euro 2008 football championship."

Puma is a sponsor for several teams from different countries in the European football championship. They wanted a pan-European campaign that would let football fans voice their pride and joy as part of the build-up to this major sports event.

Alexandre explains how they approached the project: "we talked with other digital agencies working with Puma to come up with some new concepts. We realized that what people would really like is to be in a room watching the games with their best friends. Since we couldn't actually do that, we thought how could mobile help?"

So Phonevalley came up with "Together Everywhere" service. The idea was that every time their favorite team scores, PUMA will call the supporters that have signed up for the service on their mobile and instantly let them take part in a teleconference with their friends, whether in the stadium, out in the street, in a pub or in front of the television.

Phonevalley built a new WAP site for the campaign to let users register their phone number, chose their favorite team, and enter the phone numbers of up to 10 of their friends.

Then, during the competition, whenever their team scored, Puma would immediately places calls to each supporter and their registered friends. First they would each hear a 10-second sponsor message, and then the system would connect them all together in a conference call, so that they could discuss the goal and share the emotion of the moment. And Puma would pay for the first 2 minutes of the call.

And for those people who don't have many friends, "Together Everywhere" could instead connect them with other fans of the same team.

Puma also made ringtones available with each country's song which could be assigned to special incoming phone numbers so that the subscribers would know a goal had been scored and the incoming call was a Puma "Together Everywhere" call. Finally, to add some direct sales impact to the campaign, Puma also sent the participants an SMS discount coupon when the conference calls were completed.

To drive traffic to the WAP site and encourage participation, ZenithOptimedia and Zed Digital designed a wide-ranging media plan involving the press, posters and the web, and including banners, sms, shortcodes, and mobile search.

This campaign ran in 13 countries for 45 days, and Alexandre had this to say about the impact: "this is the kind of campaign where clients just say Wow, now I understand the relevancy of mobile – I couldn't do this on TV, with billboards, online, or with any other media channel".

But Alexandre is also quick to point out that no matter how powerful the concept, in order to make it work you need to be able to effectively execute on all the basics of mobile advertising - including banners, shortcodes, sms, wap, etc - in many different countries, each of which may have different telco capabilities, regulations, and customer patterns.

So both concept and execution are crucial.

Mobile Advertising Challenges

I asked Alexandre what challenges he saw facing the mobile advertising industry at the moment. He had an interesting answer.

"Two years ago, this was an easy question to answer, I would have said the biggest impediment is the attitude of mobile operators.
Especially in the US with their walled gardens it was a real problem.
But now most of them have changed and they are eager to work with us to bring in clients."

Instead, lack of effective measurement seems to be one of the biggest issues now, in a number of different ways. "We always try to get our clients to add a measurement piece to all the campaigns we run, but it doesn't always happen. And it would be really great if we could get the information we need from operators, like the project the GSMA is working on. Also, many of today's ad networks have real difficulty linking to our systems. We still receive excel files from some of them!"

Looking forward

The final topic we discussed was the future of mobile advertising. Alexandre said there were three thing he expects to see in the coming months.

"First, by the end of 2010, I think that 2/3 of all big brands will have completed their WAP sites. We have been pushing this for a long time, and now more and more clients are asking for them."

"Second, I think you'll see that location based services will happen in the next 6 months - we are working hard on it."

"Finally, this year I think you will see a few campaigns above the US$ 1 million level, which will be really interesting for the market. It won't be for a single project, rather it will be a strategic commitment of money at the budget allocation phase. As mobile moves to the "strategic level", this type of funding becomes possible."

To build PUMA as China No.1 motorsports lifestyle brand, Phonevalley has designed a comprehensive mobile campaign centred around a PUMA global mobile Internet site to feature PUMA's 'F Wan' operation (Wan in Chinese means 'play').

The Mobile Site

The mobile site introduces the PUMA brand and culture in an original and fun way. The operation was designed in partnership with Zenith China.

In Game Advertising

The campaign capitalises on advergaming opportunities and offers mobile users the chance to play a F1 battle car racing game that can be downloaded on the PUMA mobile Internet site. The games display four F1 PUMA cars to win the races!

From the Press Release:

For Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley's CEO and Publicis Groupe's Head of Mobile, "Following our recent EURO 2008 campaign for PUMA, I am thrilled we pursue our mobile operations for the sport lifestyle brand in China. With its 600 million mobile subscribers, the Chinese market is undoubtedly a fantastic opportunity for PUMA to develop its mobile presence and we are enthusiastic to support them".

"PUMA and Zenith are always looking for new and engaging ways to connect with our youth target in China. We can't 'outspend' the huge budgets of competitors but we can 'outsmart' them. By being the first, the most innovative, engaging and unique with our PUMA campaigns we continue to ensure PUMA's media budget delivers the best ROI compared with the huge budgets thrown around by other sports brands here" said Malcolm Hanlon, CEO of Zenith China.

What we think?

What I love about this is that its the quadruple play of mobile advertising. Its not just banners or text but its mobile advertising in all shapes and forms from mobile sites to gaming to couponing.

This makes it the mother of all advertising with the father or all brands and the god of all brands (F1) – Sorry – I should have said PUMA but really F1 is huge.

But the coupon delivery in this is great. The focus is also on delivering ROI for PUMA and basically anyone that downloads a game gets a MMS coupon for purchase of any toy accessory in all PUMA stores. EASY.

... F WAN - F1 (get it?) I love it!

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, unveils today PUMA's mobile communications plans around a major event to be held in October in China: the F1 race in Shanghai.

To build PUMA as China No.1 motorsports lifestyle brand, Phonevalley has designed a comprehensive mobile campaign centred around a PUMA global mobile Internet site to feature PUMA's 'F Wan' operation (Wan in Chinese means 'play'). The mobile site introduces the PUMA brand and culture in an original and fun way. The operation was designed in partnership with Zenith China.

The campaign capitalises on advergaming opportunities and offers mobile users the chance to play a F1 battle car racing game that can be downloaded on the PUMA mobile Internet site. The games display four F1 PUMA cars to win the races!

To increase the buzz on the operation, Phonevalley built a gaming bonus system: players who submit their scores by SMS or who forward the games to friends will earn new points. Every week, the top 3 players will be awarded and offered PUMA F1 shoes, bag and hat.

The mobile site also gives access to a store locator function to identify the closest PUMA retailer, it provides in-store promotions details, and it offers valuable gifts: a set of PUMA F1 toys theme to personalize users' mobile screens and wallpapers.

To increase PUMA's ROI, Phonevalley has also developed a mobile couponing campaign: as soon as players will download the mobile game, they will be sent a PUMA MMS coupon, to redeem a mobile phone toy accessory in any of the 350 PUMA stores in China.

Phonevalley signs PUMA's massive mobile media plan

Phonevalley media planning strategy concentrates on all available mobile channels in China:

• Banners and text links are displayed on the top three Chinese mobile portals: QQ, 3g.cn and Kong.net
• SMS short-codes are integrated in all PUMA OOH and print ads: once users text 'PUMA F Wan' to the 1066 958866 short code, they instantly receive a clickable SMS with a link to directly access the PUMA mobile Internet site
• WAP push (clickable SMS) will be sent to PUMA members
• SMS mobile search: mobile users who search for any sport related information are sent an SMS which includes a direct link to the PUMA mobile Internet site
• MMS couponing.

PUMA develops a brand awareness strategy in China through mobile

PUMA has 10 year history in motorsports and a long list of amazing sports marketing assets in the world of Formula One racing.

For Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley's CEO and Publicis Groupe's Head of Mobile, "Following our recent EURO 2008 campaign for PUMA, I am thrilled we pursue our mobile operations for the sport lifestyle brand in China. With its 600 million mobile subscribers, the Chinese market is undoubtedly a fantastic opportunity for PUMA to develop its mobile presence and we are enthusiastic to support them".

"PUMA and Zenith are always looking for new and engaging ways to connect with our youth target in China. We can't 'outspend' the huge budgets of competitors but we can 'outsmart' them. By being the first, the most innovative, engaging and unique with our PUMA campaigns we continue to ensure PUMA's media budget delivers the best ROI compared with the huge budgets thrown around by other sports brands here" said Malcolm Hanlon, CEO of Zenith China.

"I am very excited to be joining Phonevalley during the company's expansion phase in the Asia and Pacific area," Sarkar said. "APAC is a critical region for innovation in the mobile field, marketers are used to operate SMS campaigns campaigns and they now target the most influential parts of the population through search and display campaigns. I'm thrilled to be helping brands and agencies build a strong presence on mobile."

The APAC offices have been launched to help gear the agency towards offering more localized mobile campaigns for its clients. Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe head of Mobile, said, "We are committed to delivering the best in class mobile advertising campaigns in the APAC region. Our presence will facilitate our work and help our clients leverage the great returns available through mobile. It will also help us interact more easily with all APAC-based Publicis Groupe agencies. I look forward to building up great opportunities on mobile for our partners and clients in the region."

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, explains: "We are committed to delivering the best in class mobile advertising campaigns in the APAC region. Our presence will facilitate our work and help our clients leverage the great returns available through mobile. It will also help us interact more easily with all APAC-based Publicis Groupe agencies. I look forward to building up great opportunities on mobile for our partners and clients in the region." Devashish Sarkar has also been appointed as Phonevalley's Regional Director for the APAC region. He has extensive consumer marketing and media experience in companies such as BBC Worldwide, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Tupperware, and has worked in China, India, Indonesia and Singapore.

"I am very excited to be joining Phonevalley during the company's expansion phase in the Asia and Pacific area," Devashish Sarkar said. "APAC is a critical region for innovation in the mobile field, marketers are used to operate SMS campaigns and they now target the most influential parts of the population through search and display campaigns. I'm thrilled to be helping brands and agencies build a strong presence on mobile."

Asia counts over 1.3 billion mobile subscribers and today analysts see mobile as the number 1 device to access Internet. In China for instance, there are 600 million mobile subscribers, compared with only 80 million PCs. The penetration rates of mobile phones and Internet are respectively 42% and 14%. In India, mobile growth is ramping up and the country has generated 100 million new subscribers over the last 12 months to total around 290 million people. Furthermore, analysts foresee that mobile advertising expenditures in key APAC markets all together will total USD 6.9 billion in 2012, up from USD 738 million in 2007. This should be higher than the US or Western Europe spends.

Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, announces today it has expanded its global footprint to the Asian Pacific (APAC) region. Phonevalley's international strategy deploys with the opening of a hub in Singapore and offices in China and India.

Its Apac presence will help the agency offer to regional brands and advertisers mobile campaigns which will better fit with their local marketing objectives and clients requirements. Phonevalley will therefore achieve greater efficiency and results and, at the same time, help its customers to better engage their consumers.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley CEO and Publicis Groupe Head of Mobile, explains: "We are committed to deliver the best in class mobile advertising campaigns in the Apac region. Being on the ground will facilitate our work and help our clients leverage the great returns that are available through mobile. It will also help us interact more easily with all Apac-based Publicis Groupe agencies. I look forward to building up great opportunities on mobile for our partners and customers in the region."

Devashish Sarkar is appointed as Phonevalley's Regional Director for the Apac region. He has an extensive consumer marketing and media experience in companies such as BBC Worldwide, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Tupperware, and has worked in China, India, Indonesia and Singapore.

"I am very excited to be joining Phonevalley during the company's expansion phase in Asia and the Pacific area," Devashish said. "The APAC region is critical for innovation in the mobile field, marketers are used to operate SMS campaigns and they now target the most influential and wealthy parts of the population through search and display campaigns. I'm thrilled to help brands and agencies build a strong presence on mobile."

Asia counts over 1.3 billion mobile subscribers and analysts see mobile as the number 1 device to access Internet. In China for instance, mobile subscribers amount to 600 million individuals, to be compared with a total of 80 millions PCs. The penetration rates of mobile phones and Internet are respectively 42% and 14%. In India, mobile growth is ramping up and the country won 100 million new subscribers over the last 12 months to total around 290 million people.
Furthermore, analysts foresee that mobile advertising expenditures in key Apac markets all together will total USD 6.9 billion in 2012, up from USD 738 million in 2007. This should be higher than the US or Western Europe spends.

Challenge

To bring to life HPs "the computer is personal again" ad campaign and to integrate mobile into the media mix.
The challenge was to convince a 16 to 24-year-old target market that HPs new range of computers was relevant to them. Due to the personal nature of the medium, mobile felt right to the client, who wanted to kick off activity in three markets-the UK, Spain and Italy.

Strategy

To exploit the key targeting capabilities of mobile media by using handset, Hewlett-Packard : offered consumers free mobile games and wallpaper demographic, operator, contextualand behavioural sets of data.

Activity

We developed a dedicated mobile site in three languages, one for each market. The media plan spanned banners, SMS, MMS and pre-roll video, and used a database containing details of 16 to 24-year-old mobile phone users. HP products were targeted at the appropriate age and genders by matching relevant handsets to products. Contextual activity across Google AdSense and AdWords and Yahoo networks linked consumer searches to relevant products. UK activity included banners on Orange World, MSN Mobile, FHM.com and Heatworld.com, plus pre-roll ads on 02 Active, with text links on Yahoo and Google. Separate content offers, such as games and wallpaper, were offered to each audience. Finally, users were encouraged to complete a questionnaire on the mobile site that matched consumers and their friends with a specific HP product.

Results

The mobile aspect delivered an overail click-through rate of 2.5%-a significant overachievement for the technology category. The conversion rate of 20%, between clicking through to the site and downloading a game, video, image or wallpaper, showed that the advertising genuinely managed to stimulate further consumer interest in the range.

DM: And you believe that's important?
AM: Of course. Big clients need some global answers to their needs so even if you do work for local clients like EMI or Strongbow in the UK, there are others who want to engage with you on a global basis. It's a “glocal” strategy, with global reach but local expertise. So when we are working with global partners like Vodafone, Orange, Google or Nokia, it's important that we also understand the differences between the UK and France for example, or between China and the US.

DM: What sort of differences?
AM: It's a question of understanding what will work in one territory but not in another. For example, we know that we can run MMS campaigns in France or Italy, but they will not work in the US. Usually, a WAP site is at the centre of things and it's a question of driving traffic to the site and understanding what is the best way to do this in each territory. There's a certain amount of adaptation needed between different regions of the world, like the US and China for example, but not so much between different European countries. In terms of the destination mobile site, that will be quite similar, but what will differ will be the way we drive traffic to it. So we might use in-game advertising in the UK, but not in Italy, for example.

DM: So how many of the mobile campaigns you run would you say are global?
AM: It depends on the client. HP, Puma and Toyota are global, where they are launching the same products in several markets. Roughly half the campaigns we run are local, half global, and by global, that's not necessarily all around the world, but in more than five countries.

DM: And if you look at those Publicis Groupe companies, Starcom Mediavest, Leo Burnett and the rest, how aware are they of PhoneValley, that Publicis has this in-house resource at its disposal?
AM: The awareness is taking time. It's only a year since the acquisition so it's to be expected. This is a people business, so you need to talk with all the CEOs for all the agencies and explain what you do, and you also need to find good people in all the countries. It is tough, but we are having some success. WPP have the same situation with Kinetic, and Aegis with Marvellous Mobile.

DM: And when you're building mobile sites, how often does the client want a permanent presence on the mobile web, and how often are they campaign-based?
AM: This is a discussion we are always having with clients. Up until now, they have always been project-based, but this is just beginning to change. We say to them, it would be great to build this for the launch, but even better if we can maintain it afterwards. Some clients are just coming round to this viewpoint, but 90% of them are still very much project-based. This is really a consequence of the fact that mobile marketing and mobile advertising today is project-based. It's a conversation we need to keep having with clients.

DM: Is it a source of frustration to you?
AM: A little, but for me, it's more frustrating that for the last three years, everyone has been saying that next year will be the year of mobile advertising. This is where the frustration comes from. We need more clients to be aware of what they can do with mobile. We need to be honest and frank with clients and not oversell, and it is tough because even now, the clickthrough rates are so much better than on the web. But you hear so many different numbers from different people, so you need to be careful and realistic, and you also need to convince clients to release the numbers to the market. You need metrics.
Overall, I'm optimistic though. We have flat-rate data, the iPhone raising awareness, everything is in place to have a real, big market with big brands spending good money.

CBNEWS - Anne-Valérie Hoh

Paris, September 1st 2008 – Phonevalley announces today the launch of its mobile marketing operations in Russia. With a strong presence in all key markets in Europe, and after opening 3 offices in the USA beginning of July, Phonevalley now accelerates its international development and turns towards the promising Russian market.

Headquartered in Moscow, Phonevalley will collaborate with all Publicis Groupe's agencies in Russia. The agency plans to create mobile communication solutions for the existing clients of Publicis Groupe in Russia.

Russia: a dynamic advertising market and promising digital advertising development

The decision to extend Phonevalley's operations to Russia follows the dynamic development of the Russian advertising market, a consequence of the economical boom and growing consumerism in Russia.

Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and Head of Mobile of Publicis Groupe explains: "With 80 million mobile subscribers and 14 million users of the mobile Internet every month, we believe the Russian mobile market is fully mature to broaden its communications channels to mobile. As the pioneer of mobile marketing and the world's market leader, we are thrilled to launch operations in Russia and allow Russiabased brands to engage their consumers in a new, personalized and emotional manner."

Phonevalley will be headquartered in Moscow and will collaborate with all Publicis Groupe agencies in the country.

Kirill Pozdnyakov, previously a director of Russian mobile marketing company Fresh-Media, is the business development director.

The Russian mobile market has a lot of potential, according to Alexandre Mars, chief executive of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe.

Mars said: "With 80m mobile subscribers and 14m users of the mobile internet every month, we believe the Russian mobile market is fully mature to broaden its communications channels to mobile."

Publicis bought Phonevalley last year and has since helped it expand from Europe to Asia and the US.

So, today we spent 40 minutes on the phone together and had a great chat. I haven't written about Phonevalley since it got sold and I wanted to understand the marriage with Publicis Groupeand how successful the company was up to now.
So the interview split three ways and we started with Phonevalley
Phonevalley was a pan-European advertising agency that Alexandre began in 2001. Proceeding for sale to Publicis took place at the start of 2007 and concluded by the end of the year.

Bena: Why was Phonevalley sold?
Alexandre: There are many great local media advertising agencies, but Phonevalley was one of the first pan-European agencies. Many parties were interested in acquiring us in 2007 as mobile became more prominent but we chose Publicis because of the brand, global presence and ability to grow.
Bena: How successful was the first year with Publicis as the Head of Mobile?

Alexandre: Fantastic. We have a Glocal strategy with approximately ten countries globally. We work by ensuring that our brands and partners get the best business advice and strategy from the onset.

Bena: So business and brands are embracing mobile?

Alexandre: Well its getting better. By having a local presence in each market we can act quickly and focus on the mobile opportunity. So when or if there is a potential mobile campaign we can advise and nurture it instantly.

Bena: Do you mean simple banner campaigns?

Alexandre: Bena in some cases we can do a banner only campaign. But our success and growth and inspiration has been overwhelming. Did you hear about our Puma campaign?

Bena: I think so, do you want to give me a recap?
Alexandre: Puma is a great example of vision and creativity in the mobile advertising space. The campaign merged technology, brand identity, voice, data, barcodes into one?

Bena: Tell me more!

Alexandre: Well basically, Puma asked us to manage a campaign for the Euro 2008 in France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Austria and Switzerland. Consumers had the ability to save ten phone numbers into a favourites section. This means that all these ten people had something in common –they either loved or hated a particular football team. When that team scored all ten phone numbers would ring after the goal and were open for two minutes for all of the ten friends to talk, scream, shout, sing or laugh about the goal.

Bena: Love it!

Alexandre: Yes. It shows the creative direction in which mobile is going. Banners and search is one aspect but triggers for mobile advertising are everywhere.

Bena: So just to do a quick recap. Phonevalley is now very much part of Publicis. You are the Head of Mobile and you have teams in several global centres. You are growing rapidly and richer mobile campaigns are in the pipeline. Banners and search remain vital but more creativity is often also required.

Phonevalley/ Publicis works with brands and agencies for media planning and buying but you are very aware of the creative and can either manage it or help other advertising companies to make them mobile. But saying that education about mobile also remains vital at the moment for continued success?

Alexandre: Yes. There is a shift towards mobile. The iPhone has started something and huge brands are now more welcome to opening the doors to mobile and new brand strategies. It is an exciting business and we are really happy to be part of.

Bena Comments: This was one of the most upbeat interviews I have had in a while. Then I read Alexandre's bio. Yikes. He is only 33 – two years younger than me. Well – there had to be a negative in there somewhere!

Сергей Коптев, председатель совета директоров Publicis Groupe Media Eurasia, говорит, что решение об открытии представительства Phonevalley в России обусловлено динамичным развитием рекламного рынка вследствие бурного роста экономики и потребительского бума. "Сегодня отрасль уже близка к насыщению, и ставка делается на развитие новых каналов коммуникации, прежде всего, цифровых, которые открывают новые горизонты для эффективного общения брендов с людьми, - комментирует он, -Открытие Phonevalley в России - это важный, но только первый шаг на пути трансформации всего нашего бизнеса и превращения PGME в реальную медиа- компанию 21 века. Еще несколько лет, и сложно будет представить общение бренда и человека без цифровых медиа". По словам Сергея Коптева, услуги и опыт, которые предлагает Phonevalley, это первый шаг к тому, чтобы отказаться от деления медиа на традиционные и экспериментальные, и начать воспринимать цифровые каналы как минимум полноценными участниками медиамиксов.

Александр Марс, управляющий директор сети агентств Phonevalley и глава мобильного направления Publicis Groupe уверен, что российский рынок с его 80 миллионами абонентов сотовой связи и 14 миллионами пользователей мобильного интернета ежемесячно, количество которых каждый месяц увеличивается, полностью созрел для расширения своих каналов коммуникаций за счет мобильных медиа.

Российское подразделение Phonevalley возглавил Кирилл Поздняков, ранее занимавший пост директора и члена совета директоров компании Fresh-Media, специализировавшейся на мобильных решениях, где он создавал бизнес-модель компании, занимался стратегией развития, налаживал работу отдела продаж, создавал партнерские программы.

Агентство Phonevalley работает в 10 офисах на крупнейших рынках Европы, США, Юго- Восточной Азии. С момента слияния в 2007 году Phonevalley с Publicis Groupe, агентство предоставляет услуги в рамках группы, а Александр Марс, глава Phonevalley, также возглавляет мобильное направление Publicis Groupe.

Phonevalley, одна из передовых компаний в своей индустрии, предоставляет полный спектр услуг от стратегического консалтинга, планирования, закупок, статистики, аналитических отчетов до создания мобильных сайтов, приложений, брендированного контента, баннеров, программ.

Предложение агентства помогает международным брендам, таким как Hewlett-Packard, L'Oreal, Paramount, Nestle и Procter & Gamble, завладеть вниманием потребителя в любое время, в любом месте, используя современный и эмоциональный язык для разговора на волнующую его тему. Только в 2007 сеть агентств Phonevalley провела больше 1000 кампаний.

Chicago, July 8, 2008 – Phonevalley announces today the company opens operations in America and has established offices in Chicago, New-York and Boston. This announcement confirms Phonevalley's strong position as the global leader in the mobile marketing field.

Phonevalley expands its pioneer and leadership expertise in mobile marketing to the North-American markets and can offer now a strong commitment to this very dynamic region. Its US presence also provides worldwide brands with a global mobile marketing approach in order to reach their consumers everywhere.

The US market boasts over 250 million mobile subscribers, with a mobile phone penetration rate over 90%. Analysts predict strong increase in mobile marketing expenditures over the next few years. Mobile users are getting used to surfing the mobile Internet or consuming mobile content. Consequently, US brands are keen to communicate with their consumers on-the-move and to build powerful, innovative mobile marketing campaigns.

Phonevalley also announces today that Angela Steele joins the company as Regional Director US to drive Phonevalley's development in North-America. Angela was formerly Vice President/Mobile Activation Director at Starcom USA. She has guided mobile programs for active mobile brands such as Sara Lee, Nintendo, ESPN and Miller.

Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and Head of Mobile at Publicis Groupe, is thrilled: "Our deployment in North-America allows us to extensively enrich our global offer. Our growth strategy in North-America relies on our strong relationships with US Publicis Groupe agencies, as well as our ability to build long-term partnerships with key market players and our clients worldwide".

Also, Yahoo will use its mobile smart ads technology to allow for various versions of a brand's ad message and Publicis will use this system to come up with mini sites related to those smart ads.

Publicis said it will work on integrating its media buying systems with Yahoo's Right Media Exchange, which is an online advertising exchange that connects publishers with advertisers. And Publicis intends to use Yahoo's new advertising management platform, Amp, as well, when it is available.

Amp, which Yahoo said in April would be rolled out on a limited basis starting in the third quarter, is intended to make it easier for advertisers to aim their messages at specific demographic groups across scores of Web sites. Amp will rely heavily on data that Yahoo collects about people's preferences at its own Web site as well as other online destinations.

Pouvoir atteindre et localiser le consommateur à tout instant, être en mesure de s'adresser à lui de façon personnalisée: le nouveau support publicitaire qu'est aujourd'hui le téléphone portable ressemble au rêve de tout annonceur. Et ce rêve futuriste il y a peu devient réalité.

"On constate depuis quelques mois que toutes les conditions sont réunies pour que la publicité sur mobile explose", explique Alexandre Mars, responsable de la stratégie mobile pour le groupe Publicis, interrogé en marge du Festival international de la publicité cette semaine à Cannes.

En effet, l'internet mobile, principal vecteur de publicité sur les téléphones portables, est de plus en plus accessible et les sites web dédiés aux terminaux mobiles se multiplient.

La France comptait 11 millions d'adeptes de l'internet mobile ("mobinautes") au dernier trimestre de 2007 et près d'un million d'entre eux ont déjà réalisé un achat par ce biais.

Les annonceurs sont donc de plus en plus nombreux à exploiter ce nouveau filon. "Nous constatons que nos clients qui étaient dans une phase de test migrent tous vers de vrais budgets annuels. Il y a peu, seuls les annonceurs liés au marché des télécoms et quelques précurseurs tentaient l'expérience", explique Dimitri Dautel, directeur d'Havas digital mobile.

En terme d'investissements, les campagnes restent cependant confidentielles comparées aux autres supports.

Selon le cabinet eMarketer, la publicité sur mobile représentera 16 milliards de dollars en 2011, dix fois plus qu'aujourd'hui. A l'heure actuelle, elle compte pour moins de 1% du marché publicitaire mondial, mais à l'horizon 2020, elle devrait en représenter 10%.

Ce secteur laisse en effet entrevoir de belles perspectives pour les annonceurs. Selon les premières enquêtes, pour une campagne mobile le taux de clic (pourcentage de personnes qui ont cliqué sur une publicité pour avoir plus d'informations) est près de 10 fois supérieur aux chiffres enregistrés sur internet.

Autres atouts du mobile: "il permet une complémentarité avec d'autres supports de publicité et facilite l'instantanéité", explique Alexandre Mars. Ainsi, une campagne d'affichage classique dans un lieu public peut se doubler d'une campagne interactive. En passant son téléphone devant un panneau d'affichage, on peut ainsi télécharger un clip publicitaire ou bien acheter en ligne immédiatement.

L'idée est de pouvoir "démultiplier les points de vente", s'enthousiasme un responsable marketing. "Une publicité dans les transports ou dans la rue peut être efficace mais le temps de se rendre sur internet ou dans une boutique, l'impulsion d'achat est passée, alors que si on peut tout de suite aller sur internet grâce à son portable, l'impact de la publicité sera plus fort", explique-t-il.

Autre point primordial pour le développement de ce support: la géolocalisation. "Les publicités deviennent contextuelles", explique Luc Veuillet, président de la mobile marketing association, qui rassemble plus de 600 entreprises (opérateurs, équipementiers, agences publicitaires).

Demain, il sera possible de connaître le prix et le point de vente le plus proche de l'endroit où l'on se trouve en passant simplement son portable devant un code-barre. Ou bien de connaître les programmes des cinémas les plus proches.

The site, built by Publicis-owned mobile marketing agency Phonevalley, went live in the UK in May and earlier this month in Spain. It also features a game download and a location-based service to help consumers locate their closest store.

Phonevalley has planned and bought a supporting mobile campaign that includes pre-roll video ads, banners and search. It will run across entertainment, news and sport sections of the operator portals, as well as appearing on Microsoft and Bauer properties until July.

Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley, said the campaign proved the agency was skilled across mobile.

"We can leverage all mobile assets from content and services to innovative media plans," he said.

Paris, June 19, 2008 – Phonevalley, the worldwide leading mobile marketing agency, unveils Hewlett-Packard's famous "Computer is personal again" campaign on mobile, launched on May 8th in the United-Kingdom, and Italy, and June 1rst in Spain.

Phonevalley created and designed the HP "Computer is personal again" mobile Internet site (HP-mobile.mobi) to help people define their best suit personal computer: they fill in a short questionnaire on their way of life – whether classic and elegant, active, nature-oriented or creative– and as a result, the site discloses the reference of the computer they deserve.

The mobile site also develops a dedicated universe around the HP new range of products and favors engaging and proximity relationships between mobile users and Hewlett-Packard. It offers entertaining and valuable free branded content (a downloadable football game and original screen savers) and allows to immediately localize on a map the closest HP outlet.

Phonevalley optimizes ROI through a multi-format mobile media plan

To support the launch of Hewlett-Packard's mobile Internet site, Phonevalley built a massive mobile media campaign to target an influencer audience and reinforce its position of innovative and stylish brand in the 3 countries of the operation. The campaign's originality lies in the use of all available mobile formats: pre-roll videos, banners, keywords (search) and MMS. The display plan will run from May to July on all major portals (Orange, O2, Vodafone, MSN, Emap...) focusing on entertainment, sports and news channels. The whole mobile campaign will be relayed outdoor by a strong print and billing plan developed by ZenithOptimedia.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley's CEO and Head of Mobile Publicis Groupe, adds: "We are thrilled to collaborate with Hewlett-Packard and deploy the renowned campaign "Computer is personal again" on the most personal device: mobile. This fantastic campaign perfectly shows how we can leverage all mobile assets, from mobile specific content and services to innovative media plans, to create truly value-added campaigns."

The HP operation at a glance

• An original mobile Internet site with LBS (location-based services)
• A java game with in-game advertising

• Pre-roll videos
• Banners
• Search
• MMS

Chaque but marqué par l' équipe choisie, les supporteurs seront prévenus via leur mobile, qui les mettra simultanément en conférence téléphonique avec leurs amis supporteurs du même groupe. Des « motions live » partagées en temps réel, que les supporteurs soient dans les stades, dans la rue ou dans un bar. Soutenu par une campagne dans la presse, en affichage et sur Internet, le dispositif est déployé dans treize pays (dont la France, le Royaume-Uni, l' Allemagne et l' Italie) depuis le 29 mai. Il a nécessité un travail d' équipe entre Phonevalley (stratégie, site mobile), l' agence américaine Beam interactive (site mobile), la société allemande Touch Works (technologie de communication (" one to one "), Zed Digital et Zenith-Optimedia ( stratégie médias).

Nombreuses innovations

"C'est une grande avancée en termes de valeur ajoutée", estime Alexandre Mars, président de Phonevalley et « head of mobile » de Publicis Groupe. Cette opération réunit la dimension informative, cruciale en marketing mobile, et une dimension émotionnelle forte, ce qui estplutôt nouveau.» Officiellement, Puma ne s'est pas fixé d'objectif, mais ce premier déploiement mobile d'envergure sera passé au peigne fin après l' Euro 2008.

D'autres marques, telle Toyota, prépareraient des opérations de cette dimension. L'essor des forfaits de navigation mobile illimitée ouvre en tout cas la voie à de nombreuses innovations. Les budgets de communication mobile augmentent en conséquence, certains d'entre eux atteignant désormais le million d'euros. Pour Alexandre Mars, la « vraie explosion » aura lieu en 2009 . Elle sera sans doute retentissante dans certains pays, comme l'Inde ou la Chine, où le mobile est la porte d'entrée à Internet la plus accessible.

The Together Everywhere program works by connecting friends and fans of the same soccer team. After registering, users download their team's song or chant as a ringtone, so that when their team scores they are instantly alerted and teleconferenced in with either their pre-chosen friends or a network of anonymous supporters.

"[The strategy here is to] grow brand affinity and sell more products by putting Puma in the position of serving football fans across Europe by letting them download a team-specific chant or ringtone and then triggering that ringtone song or chant when their team scores," said Dave Batista, partner and executive creative director of Beamland, Boston.

"If they answer, they are immediately placed into a free conference call with friends or family or a group of random supporters," he said.

The 2008 European Soccer Championships are being used as a catalyst for this promotion.

Puma partnered with agencies Beamland and Area/Code Entertainment for this campaign.

The WAP site was developed by Phone Valley and Zed Digital. Zenith Optimedia provided media strategy and execution.

The program is available in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, Austria and Switzerland.

"As you can tell, [mobile] is at the heart of the campaign," Mr. Batista said. "To our knowledge, this is the largest – most markets – mobile campaign ever.

"It is available in 13 different European countries," he said. "As far as we know, we are also perhaps the first to do event-triggered conference calls using the mobile platform across markets."

Mr. Batista also said that this same principle could be used for American-preferred sports such as hockey or for specific special events including elections and speeches.

"Any time a group of interested parties want to come together to immediately celebrate or discuss a real-world event," he said.

Beamland works with clients such as Mini, Deutsche Bank, Bed Bath & Beyond and L.L. Bean.

Area/Code is an independent creative development agency. The New York-based company develops games and entertainment for clients including Disney, MTV, Nokia, A&E and the Discovery Channel.

"We want to connect people in real time no matter where they are watching the game," Mr. Batista said. "For example, imagine you're watching the game at a local pub, your dad's watching at home, your brother's at the game in Zurich, and your best friend is studying abroad and watching in Paris.

"Through this program, when your team scores you can truly be together everywhere in those amazing, crazy moments of goal-induced joy," he said.

"Also, from watching games in bars, we had noticed the behavior of fans calling each on their mobiles shortly after their team scores. We just scaled it up, let them talk to more people at once and gave it to them for free."

Phonevalley will work hand-in-hand with Publicis Groupe's network of agencies to flesh out mobile strategies and campaigns. "We work for local and global clients, brand agnostic, and work across agencies," said Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe.

Phonevalley appointed Angela Steele regional director to head its U.S. operations. "The biggest difference for agencies themselves has been this entire hub, that there will be an agency dedicated to mobile that we didn't have access to in the past for brand execution and strategy," Steele said.

Steele served until recently as VP of mobile activation director at Publicis sister agency Starcom U.S., where she worked with brands such as Sara Lee, Nintendo, ESPN, and Miller. While at Starcom, Steele headed a group that paired off with client teams to implement mobile elements as campaigns were being developed. The strategy will continue in a similar structure.

The U.S. is the ninth market for Phonevalley, which operates throughout Europe and Asia.

Publicis agencies include Publicis, Starcom, Starcom Mediavest Group, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Denuo, Moxie, and Modem.

A mobile Internet site to give a boost to Toyota's viral communication plan

As part of Toyota's partnership with the French Football Federation, which has branded Toyota the "Official Car of the French Football Team", Phonevalley has created a mobile Internet site to support the "Les Bleus" special series through a viral marketing campaign. The site gives you the chance to play the policeman and hand out red and yellow cards to your friends using free customisable MMS messages. The site also lets you discover the "Les Bleus" special series (data sheets and photo slideshow). It is designed as a relay to the Toyota Les Bleus website and has been developed alongside Saatchi & Saatchi.

To create a real stir, Toyota is offering a French football shirt signed by the players in the national team. All people sending a card by MMS or taking part in the competition on the website will be entered into a draw, with the chosen entry winning the shirt.

Phonevalley creates the first skin for the L'Equipe.fr mobile Internet site

Phonevalley is deploying a promotional media plan to support the launch of the site, designed in partnership with Zenith Optimedia. An especially high-quality and innovative initiative underlies the plan: Phonevalley will completely deck out the homepage of the L'Equipe.fr mobile Internet site in the colours of Toyota Les Bleus on 13 June.
Furthermore, Phonevalley has developed a banner campaign in Orange World's Sport section and on Sports.fr. The campaign started on 28 May and will run for two weeks.

The mobile media plan comes as part of a global plan across all the media used by L'Equipe, particularly the newspaper, a special off-print, the Euro Guide, billboards on L'Equipe TV, three skins of the L'Equipe.fr homepage, and presence in the Les Bleus section.

Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and Head of Mobile at Publicis Groupe, adds: "We are delighted to team up with Toyota as part of its support for the French football team. The originality of the viral campaign and L'Equipe.fr skin once again proves that creativity - in terms of designing both original media plans and mobile sites - is the key to inventing new effective forms of mobile marketing."

À chaque fois qu'elle marque un but, tous les amis d'un même groupe seront alertés et invités à participer à une conférence téléphonique avec leurs pairs.

Those signing up to the service via the Puma Football website are directed to download a free ringtone of their team's national anthem or chant. When a goal is scored by their team the ringtone plays and the fan is connected to either a group of friends or random fellow supporters.

Following the competition, all those who signed up to the alerts will receive a mobile voucher that can be redeemed online. Puma has also developed a mobile site to support its activity.

The campaign was developed by mobile agency Phonevalley and US digital agency Beam Interactive, with support from media agencies ZenithOptimedia and Zed Digital.

Paris, June 5, 2008 – In the run-up to EURO™ 2008, PUMA and Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, have unveiled the "Together Everywhere service, bringing together supporters of the 16 national teams in real time. Every time their favourite team scores, PUMA will call the supporters that have signed up for the service on their mobile and instantly let them take part in a teleconference with their friends, whether in the stadium, out in the street, in a pub or in front of the television. The Together Everywhere campaign is a fruitful cooperation of market leaders: Phonevalley, TouchWorks -a specialist in digital One-to-One Communication based in Düsseldorf, Germany-, Zed Digital, Zenith Optimedia and US agency BEAM Interactive. With the Together Everywhere campaign, PUMA is inviting all European football fans to voice their pride and joy as part of the build-up to this major sports event. Together Everywhere, the first European mobile service for PUMA, breaks new ground with its viral concept and its extensive scope: it is the first mobile community marketing campaign carried out simultaneously in 13 countries.

"Together Everywhere": instantly share the pride and joy of each goal

From 29 May, the mobile Internet site designed by Phonevalley and BEAM Interactive (www.pumafootball.com) will allow football fans from 13 European countries (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Austria and Switzerland) to sign up for PUMA goal alerts and invite 10 of their friends. PUMA will set up a special mobile ringtone for each country supported, which can then be assigned to future calls from PUMA.
During the evenings' matches, at the precise moment a team scores a goal, supporters will receive a call on their mobile and will be put in contact free of charge with their 10 friends to share all the emotion of the goal. If so desired, they can be put in contact with 10 anonymous supporters of their national team chosen at random.
Once EURO™ 2008 is over, all fans registered for the "Together Everywhere" programme will receive a discount voucher on their mobile to be used on PUMA's website (designed and developed by BEAM Interactive).

To support the operation and generate traffic over the "Together Everywhere" mobile Internet site, Phonevalley has developed a mobile media campaign (banners), and ZenithOptimedia and Zed Digital have designed a wide-ranging media plan involving the press, posters and the web. In nine countries, advertisements will provide a short code to which fans can send "PUMA" in order to receive the clickable URL of the mobile website on their phone.

A mobile campaign has rarely been more comprehensive: an original mobile Internet site presenting free exclusive content, free teleconferencing, mobile goal alerts, registration by SMS, m-couponing and banners.

Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and Head of Mobile at Publicis Groupe, explains: "We are very proud to have designed and developed this major first for PUMA, the only campaign of its kind which will thrill EURO™ 2008 fans in 16 European countries. Once again, we are demonstrating all the power of mobile phones, their remarkable viral and community-building capacities, as well as their ability to easily convey brand values at times and places that might ordinarily escape advertisers."

For PUMA: "This novel initiative simplifies Puma's communication during one of the major sports events of the year. We are happy to enable fans to share all the excitement of a goal with their friends thanks to mobile phones, which are on their way to becoming a real value-added channel for exchanges, and which we can use to devise innovative marketing campaigns."

Jens Grunewald, Managing Director TouchWorks, points out the innovative character of the campaign: "The mobile phone is more and more becoming the mass medium of the future. It connects people with brands in a faster, more emotional and direct way than any other media is able to. The 'Together Everywhere' campaign is one of the first to utilize the mobile phone as key media and connects football fans on a pan-European level with the Puma online store."

The PUMA operation at a glance

• A comprehensive mobile Internet site
• Free exclusive content
• Free teleconferencing
• Mobile goal alerts
• Registration by SMS
• M-couponing
• Banners

Phonevalley says the media campaign produced excellent results. Over 55,000 people visited the site in the space of a month. 10,000 ordered the free sample or entered the competition (including 68% of opt-in contacts), representing a conversion rate of 18%. The banner campaign produced an average click rate of over 6%. And the WAP Push messages generated a clickthrough rate of almost 12%. Phonevalley also ran a post-campaign trial among 10,000 contacts from the campaign, and found that 94% were in favour of receiving perfume advertisements over their mobile phone. 74% said they were considering buying the fragrance in the weeks following the campaign.

"We are very proud to have lent our mobile marketing expertise to the teams at Procter & Gamble," says Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and Head of Mobile at parent company Publicis Groupe. "We have always maintained that mobile-based communication was all the more powerful, since it was well targeted and delivered a real service to mobile users. We are pursuing this particular approach and offering major brand names targeted mobile marketing strategies, always geared towards the media." Raphaël Roy, Media Manager at Procter & Gamble, adds:

"This campaign confirms the idea that users see mobile phones as a means of exchanging and forging close relations with their brands. It also teaches us that mobile phones should be considered as a way of involving consumers and getting them to play along."

Paris, 26 May 2008 – Phonevalley, the world's leading mobile marketing agency, today unveiled the mobile video campaign for Le Coq Sportif, organised in partnership with Starcom Digital, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of homeboy Yannick Noah's triumph at the French Open. Orange World's 2008 French Open site, which went online on Sunday, 25 May and will be open until 8 June, should generate traffic close to 2.5 million page views. Its daily videos will provide live, simultaneous coverage of the matches on the five main courts, as well as picture round-ups of the day's key matches, behind-thescenes footage and interviews with the players. All videos on the site will be preceded and followed by a five-second full-screen Le Coq Sportif billboard, showing Yannick Noah and the sports equipment manufacturer's motto, "The Pure Spirit of Sport". The mobile video campaign comes in addition to a crossmedia campaign on the web (banners on Eurosport, L'Equipe, My Free Sport and YahooSport), in the press (Sport, GQ, Dedicate, Crash, Optimum and L'Officiel Hommes) and on TV (Eurosport, C+ Sport, Sport +, Infos Sport, L'Equipe TV, ESPN Classic, Ma chaîne Sport, FTV, Canal+, TF1 and Ma chaîne sport). This promotional campaign is leveraging the most innovative and highest-quality advertising medium for a mobile-based brand image campaign. The target group has been particularly well defined, with the campaign mainly reaching out to men and the upper socio-professional category. The advertisements in the media plan have been designed by La Chose.

According to ZenithOptimedia forecasts, mobile-adspending reached $871 million world-wide in 2006 and is expected to reach $1.4 billion this year. "Mobile communications play an increasingly criticalrole in the lives of consumera," said Publicis Groupe Media Chairman Jack Klues.

Associated Press

Ce rachat, dont le montant n'a pas été divulgué, fait de Publicis « le premier groupe mondial doté d'un réseau consacré exclusivement à la communication mobile », a-t-il précisé. Il suit de peu l'acquisition par Publicis de l'agence française Business Interactif, rachetée 137 millions d'euros mi-juin, et la création le même mois de 3dswym, joint-venture avec Dassault Systèmes dans le domaine de la 3D en ligne.

En mettant la main sur Phonevalley, Publicis complète sa palette des métiers numériques, un marché sur lequel le groupe s'est fortement implanté depuis le rachat, en janvier, de l'américain Digitas pour 1,3 milliard de dollars.
Maurice Lévy pourrait aussi annoncer sous peu l'élargissement de sa filiale de marketing services Publicis Dialog à l'Internet en annexant l'agence indépendante parisienne Wcube.

Présente dans cinq pays européens - France, Angleterre, Espagne, Allemagne et Italie -, Phonevalley continuera de déployer son offre en Europe à travers Publicis Groupe Media (PGM), enseigne qui fédère les réseaux d'achat médias mondiaux Starcom MediaVest Group et ZenithOptimedia.

Implantation en Asie Créée en 2000 par Alexandre Mars, qui va prendre à 32 ans la tête de la nouvelle division mobile au sein de PGM, Phonevalley propose une gamme de services mobiles tels que SMS, MMS, l'achat de bannières et de mots-clés, et du conseil stratégique. La société, qui travaille pour la SNCF, Virgin, Mondadori, Air France ou Colgate, compte 60 collaborateurs pour un chiffre d'affaires de 6,7 millions d'euros en 2006 et un résultat d'exploitation de 600000 euros.

Selon les prévisions de ZenithOptimedia, la communication sur mobile pourrait générer 1,4 milliard de dollars en 2007 dans le monde, contre 871 millions en 2006. Un nouvel eldorado qui incite Jack Klues, le président de PGM, à « implanter rapidement Phonevalley sur les marchés asiatiques ».

Avec 2,6 milliards d'abonnés en téléphonie mobile dans le monde, la communication sur mobile est attractive en raison du retour sur investissement immédiat et mesurable », indique Alexandre Mars. Phonevalley est la deuxième start-up française de la pub sur mobile à tomber dans l'escarcelle d'un géant de la communication. En mai, Screentonic était reprise par Microsoft pour un montant estimé à plus de 20 millions d'euros.

Philippe Larroque

Pionnier en France sur ce marché dit de « fidélisation », mais aussi sur la publicité pour les mobiles, la société Phonevalley, déjà implantée en Grande-Bretagne et en Espagne, poursuit son développement en ouvrant des filiales en Allemagne et en Italie. « Phonevalley est désormais présent dans les cinq principaux pays européens, avec la possibilité de répondre de manière locale et internationale aux demandes des annonceurs », explique Alexandre Mars, son PDG.

Créée en 2000, la PME vise un chiffre d'affaires de 7 millions d'euros en 2006 avec une soixantaine de salariés et espère réaliser 50% de son activité à l'international d'ici à trois ans.

90% des SMS sont lus alors que 50 millions de Français possèdent un mobile, le portable est devenu le premier média devant la télévision en terme d'audience potentielle. Grâce aux SMS, MMS (messages avec une photo), et désormais à la vidéo, le mobile permet d'envoyer des publicités ciblées. « Sachant que le taux de lecture moyen de campagnes SMS atteint en moyenne 90%, il est désormais incontournable pour les entreprises d'intégrer dans leurs campagnes médias des opérations de publicité mobile », affirme Alexandre Mars.

Le secret de cette efficacité est simple. « Pour envoyer de la pub sur le mobile de quelqu'un, il faut avoir son accord. Il y a donc très peu de spam. Si des petits malins cassaient cette règle, les opérateurs peuvent tout de suite les repérer et leur infliger une amende. Les gens ne reçoivent pas n'importent quoi et continuent donc à lire les messages », conclut Alexandre Mars.

MARIE-CéCILE