Circle K joined 50 merchants in the Phoenix area in a pilot mobile-marketing program conducted by Visa and JPMorgan Chase & Co, reported the In-Store Marketing Institute. The program, targeted at ages 18 to 34, provides Circle K with the ability to deliver offers and other messages by SMS text. Chase credit and debit cardholders can enroll at online at Chase’s Web site, where they select preferred retailers and offer preferences such as discounts.

Circle K is the largest company-owned convenience store chain in the U.S, and second in overall number of U.S. stores to 7-Eleven.

Yet another promising mobile study:

Mobile is measurable and drives return on investment even more than the Internet, according Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising network.

Quattro partnered with comScore Inc. for a digital marketing intelligence survey about today’s mobile consumer trends. The survey tracked contextual, demographic, behavioral and location information from the Quattro network of premier publisher mobile Web sites such as NFL.com, CollegeHumor.com, CBS News, Playboy and Univision.

Click here for detailed results.

Unilever, a large holding company of various brands, has announced they will be increasing its ad-spend on mobile campaigns following the unprecedented success of a particular campaign centered around its youth brand Peperami.

The core of this success? A mobile-based site that allows its users to send prank calls to their friends, among other things. 

The site has only been live since September 16th, and in its short life has seen over 24,000 unique visitors.  In the eyes of Unilever this represented a huge success, with it being a relatively new idea for the company.

Read on for more details on this success story.

Auto companies have slowly been gearing up towards mobile over the past few years, with many seeing huge benefits from their efforts.  We hear that Lexus has finally thrown their hat into the ring, but not without intense research on mobile practices and how it relates to the consumer experience. Lexus is the first and only car company to participate in a consumer research study lab with the sole aim of understanding and implementing the best mobile-based communications for Lexus guests before attempting to create their mobile campaign.

Perhaps this will set a new standard for national brands, one where planning and patience pays off in a big way down the line.

In the wake of the October 9th disclosure that Verizon Wireless plans to levy a 3-cent transaction fee on text messages to opted-in consumers on its subscriber database, the news left SMS businesses scrambling for answers. On October 10th, the carrier released a clarification that - for the time being - has calmed the storm.

Read more here

Oberon Media, the NYC-based mobile and online casual gaming firm which recently did a restructuring and management changes, has received another $20 million in funding, from the Infinity I-China Fund. This funding will help Oberon expand its publishing and distribution business and establishing new partnerships in China. Infinity IChina is Israeli-Chinese equity fund...it plans to do some more investments in the gaming sector in the region. Some more details in the release.

Founded in 2003, Oberon Media is backed by some big money from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Oak Investment Partners and Lehman Brothers.

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As unbelievable as that sounds, a survey by Omniture shows that nearly 71% of companies do not track mobile-based traffic to their websites- with half admitting to not even knowing how many unique users visit their sites from a mobile device.

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Close to half of all social networking users have now visited destinations like MySpace and Facebook via mobile device, according to an online user survey conducted by market analysis firm ABI Research. Forty-six percent of social networking members have visited their favorite sites on their phones, with more than half of them checking for comments and messages from their friends--about 45 percent have also posted status updates.... Read more >>

Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecom Union (ITU), said he expects the number of mobile phone users to exceed 4bn, or 61pc of the world's 6.7bn inhabitants, in December.

Soaring demand in developing countries has seen year-on-year growth average 24pc between 2000 and 2008. At the turn of the century just 12pc of the world's population had a mobile phone, by early this year the figure exceeded 50pc.

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With so much speculation surrounding the main reasoning behind the Android platform and its intentions, I think it should be obviously clear.  While some argue its Google’s attempt to tread into the enterprise, and maybe some day it will, its main intention is to dominate the mobile-based advertising market like it did on the desktop.

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Timberland has agreed to reimburse people who received unauthorized text messages advertising its products in one of the first nationwide settlements of its kind, according to a law firm involved in the case.

Timberland, the boots and clothing company, and another company, e-commerce provider GSI, were the subject of a class-action lawsuit that charged them with sending text messages to customers in violation of the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Full Story 

American mobile subscribers between the ages of 13 and 29 send an average of 20 text messages each day, compared to just two texts daily for consumers aged 30 to 43 and only one for users aged 44 to...

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This weekend I was at the second annual Blog World & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Naturally, there was a heavy emphasis on blogging and talk of podcasting and video was not far behind. Mobile, the newest new media, only got mentioned a couple of times in the sessions I attended. (There were tons of sessions; and it is entirely possible I missed the ones that did.)

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There will be no shortage of excitement on Tuesday when T-Mobile unveils the first phone powered by Google’s Android operating system. But “the event” is likely only the start of a long effort to “rewrite the rules of the mobile communications industry.”

Full Story

MACTAN,  CEBU — As  more people  use third-generation (3G)       phones and as soon  as mobile phone operators  can provide rich media,       advertising via mobile phones is expected to kick in and provide a new       revenue stream for telecommunication companies.     

Mobile advertising has been touted as the next killer application in      the mobile  industry.  In  the  Philippines,  this  is  still  in  the       "elementary stage"  because  advertisements  are  currently  sent only       through the short  messaging and  multimedia messaging  services, said       Danilo J.  Mojica  II,  head of  Smart  Communications,  Inc. wireless       consumer division.

...Full Story

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Sep 10, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- CTIA -- Ad Infuse, a leader in delivering highly personalized mobile ad experiences, today announced that GoTV Networks(TM), the first and largest multi-platform new media network, selected Ad Infuse as its mobile advertising network. Through this partnership, GoTV(TM)'s multi-platform mobile network will be ad-enabled and will offer cross-carrier, cross-platform mobile video advertising options, giving advertisers unique access to GoTV's extensive viewing audience. Ad Infuse's ad network will serve optimized multimedia advertisements that seamlessly integrate with GoTV's premium mobile video content, including its cutting-edge music offerings, to create an engaging, high-quality user experience.

Full Story ...

MTV Networks announced the launch of its first-ever mobile video advertising effort, introducing pre-roll ads to content available via carrier-operated premium video-on-demand services. MTV will insert U.S. Air Force ads in front of episodes of its made-for-mobile series The How To Show--the USAF will also co-brand the program, which documents musicians, athletes and other celebs as they teach audiences the ins and outs of their respective trades. The mobile campaign, orchestrated by advertising agency GSD&M Idea City, will also span across MTV's mobile website.

... More

We recently told you about Barack Obama's text messaged VP announcement. WSJ has some closure on the story:

The Obama campaign's decision to announce the likely Democratic nominee's vice-presidential pick via text message was perhaps the highest-profile platform yet for the burgeoning medium. The campaign appeared to have largely pulled off the feat.

...

AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, the three largest wireless carriers in the U.S., reported no major issues, though they noted that text campaigns don't send every message simultaneously. A Sprint spokesman said it delivered the majority of its text messages during the first hour, with the last batch delivered about 5 a.m.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal or visit Club Texting to learn about text messaging for political campaigns.

It's always great to hear how text messaging is being used to help others:

The American Red Cross and the Wireless Foundation announced its Text 2HELP program a day after this publication broke news that the system faltered on Labor Day.

The program will let mobile subscribers make a charitable donation to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by texting GIVE to the short code 2HELP (24357). The funds will go toward helping victims of Hurricane Gustav and any others that make landfall this season.

“We are encouraging cell phone users to make a $5 Text 2HELP donation to help the American Red Cross provide our neighbors in the Gulf Coast and people across the country with the help that they need in the face of emergencies,” said Gail McGovern, president/CEO of the American Red Cross, in a statement from Washington.

Read more at Mobile Marketer.

Bad news for bad drivers:

Every day there are thousands who drive on this nation’s highways like they own the road, speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating and blowing their horns in anger. Now, consumers can report them via SMS.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, one-third of all accidents and two-thirds of all vehicle-related fatalities are caused by aggressive drivers, and for the millions who carry mobile phones in their cars, there is now a supposedly easy and safe way to report them. Text Them In lets consumers anonymously report dangerous drivers by sending a text message from their handset.

Read more at Mobile Marketer.