More than 130 attendants gathered at the ballroom at The Arch to celebrate Mobile Friday’s 3rd Anniversary on 21 October, 2011. We apologize that due to the overwhelming response, some of the attendants have to attend by standing throughout the event… Nevertheless, the event achieved unprecedented success and many insightful ideas were exchanged both on stage and off stage.

Keith Lee, the Group Innovation Director of Gravitas Limited, shared the latest trend of mobile marketing by presenting a series of latest figures on mobile usage in Hong Kong, showing people were spending more and more time on mobile devices, which catalyzed the growth of mobile marketing. Some innovative mobile campaigns across the globe were also illustrated with well received response from the attendants. We saw a more integrated approached will be the future trend of mobile marketing.

During the panel discussion that followed, we have probed deeper by discussing the trend of mobile marketing, budget allocation and how services on the internet appear on mobile devices.

Stella Cheung, Sales Director of Google Hong Kong, expressed that there was a tendency towards media changes according to consumers’ behavior, it was projected that in 2013, searches on mobile search engine outnumbered searches on desktop. Google foresaw the consumer behavior change on the usage of mobile phone and its Android operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers definitely help speeding up the mobile devices development.

Penny Wong, General Manager of AMAZE Mobile Media, said acceptance of mobile marketing increased substantially among marketers in Hong Kong in the last year. Unlike traditional media, mobile was accessible anytime and anywhere, so many marketers would think of how to integrate mobile into the media mix, and how to improve business.

Andy Cheung, Architect Evangelist, Developer and Platform Evangelism of Microsoft Hong Kong, commented that the boundaries between web and app will becomes blur moving forward. With the technologies of HTML5, graphics, locations, services are no longer displayed in one way, but through different channels like web or app.

Real time poll engaged attendants to voice out via latest HTML5 technology

Attendants were invited to vote in a real time mobile poll during each topic of the panel discussion, this allowed attendants to participant proactively and voice out their opinion.

Upon entering the mobile site designed with the HTML5 technology, the participants were welcomed by a three-dimensional Mobile Buddy, the mascot of Mobile Friday. The participants of the poll voted with much enthusiasm and the results were shown immediately after the panelist discussed a topic.

We received around 100 valid responses and below summarized the opinion that the marketers voted during the event:

1. When asking if they think traditional media is gradually going downhill and new media like mobile is an irreversible trend, most of the respondents agreed that new and tradition media will merge and integrate but neither one of these could dominate alone.
2. For the trend of marketing budget allocation, most respondents believed that more and more budget will be allocated to digital and mobile media and they would allocate more budget on digital and mobile media if needed..
3. When asked if the web will be dead and replaced by apps eventually, most respondents supported that web and apps are equally important, and neither web nor mobile can replace one for another.

The poll did not only reflect marketers’ opinion on the opinion of mobile marketing, but also fully demonstrated the edge of mobile marketing – immediateness and interactivity. This mobile poll was designed and developed by Gravitas.

Mobile Friday team would like to thank Gravitas and AMAZE Mobile Media as the event sponsors and also the panelists, Keith, Stella, Penny and Andy that gave us invaluable insight on future trends of mobile marketing. Last but not the least, thanks all the attendants who made the event memorable and insightful. Mobile Friday was fueled to do better with all your support and we hope to see you soon in the future.