Chicago Auto Show renews with Text2Drive for Mobile Marketing

Recognizing this shift in consumer behavior, the Chicago Automobile Trade Association (CATA) has partnered with Text2Drive to harness the power of this communication channel throughout this year’s Chicago Auto Show.

PRLog (Press Release) – Dec 28, 2010 – Texting has become the most powerful and effective communication tool in use today. There are more text messages sent each month than phone calls placed. With more than over 270 million mobile phones in the United States and 100 billion texts sent each month, text messaging has become the preferred form of communication for millions of consumers.

Recognizing this shift in consumer behavior, the Chicago Automobile Trade Association (CATA) has partnered with Text2Drive to harness the power of this communication channel throughout this year’s Chicago Auto Show. CATA will incorporate the Text2Drive Mobile Marketing platform to collect opt-in mobile numbers through campaigns that will be incorporated in the CATA’s promotional advertising campaigns leading up to the show. The innovative Text2Drive Platform will be used to drive show attendance and increase attendee’s participation by raising awareness and creating a “buzz” around special events, featured vehicles and show promotions.

“The best part about Text2Drive is that it provides multiple benefits to our attendees and exhibitors,” said Dave Sloan, president of CATA. “Not only can we leverage this technology to help us promote the show and use it throughout the show for marketing, our exhibitors can use it to uniquely promote their brands. Imagine someone at the show looking at the new Chevy Camaro and wanting more information, using Text2Drive they can immediately receive pictures and all the important information about the vehicle right to their phone.”

Text2Drive offers car shoppers a very quick, easy and hassle-free method of obtaining vehicle information without the need of the Internet on their phones. “According to Nielsen only 30-40% of consumers have Internet connectivity on their phones. Text2Drive allows car shoppers to search inventory, receive vehicle information including photos and special incentives, and communicate instantly with sellers via text messaging from their cell phones,” said Gregg Owen, CEO & Co-Founder of Text2Drive. “Text2Drive offers many compelling reasons for consumers to opt-in, resulting in our clients being able to create large mobile networks. Once the network is created we afford our clients the ability to easily collect, track, and organize this data so they can continue to remarket their products and services to interested consumers.”

In addition to the auto show campaign, the CATA has created an introductory Text2Drive program for their dealer members.  This program provides tools for the dealer’s website while incorporating the Text2Drive online mobile number collection widget on Drivechicago.com.

ABOUT QWASI, Inc.
QWASI creates and implements mobile strategy. The company is a leading mobile communications and solutions provider of interactive applications for clients around the globe utilizing SMS / Text Messaging, MMS, Mobile Web, Apps and Social Networks. Specializing in custom enterprise solutions using its proprietary methodology, Synchrosy, QWASI makes complexity simple with turnkey solutions in Mobile Marketing, mCommerce, text ordering, mobile coupons, hyper-local mobile search, mobile chat, social chat, and customized alerting for Fortune 1000 businesses.

See also: Text2Drive Powers Mobile Marketing Campaign for the 2010 Chicago Auto Show

December 28, 2010 in Press Releases   |   No Comments

Mobile Video Usage Continues Climbing

It’s not a mystery, but it is still of interest to those of us who watch trends: Mobile users steadily continue to discovery mobile video on their cell phones.

A recent study by Nielsen shows that the number of mobile video users continued to grow along with their time spent watching video. However, the population remains small – for now.

PEOPLE WATCHING MOBILE VIDEO
According to Nielsen, during the 2nd Quarter, 22 million people watched mobile video on their mobile devices – a 43% increase. That represents about 10% of all mobile phone users, which stands at 229.4 million during the 2nd Quarter of this year — a number that has climbed 4% over a year ago.

MONTHLY TIME SPENT WATCHING MOBILE VIDEO
The time spent among mobile subscribers watching video over each month was 3:37 minutes (three hours thirty-seven minutes) – a gain of 11.3% over the previous year. That is 22 more minutes in the second quarter 2010 versus the second quarter 2009.

BIGGEST USERS OF MOBILE VIDEO
The largest group of mobile subscribers were teens 13-17, racking up 7:13 minutes (seven hours and 13 minutes) a month of video; 18-24 users were next, with 4:20; followed by 25-34 users with 3:37; 35-49 users at 2:53; adults 50-64 at 2:10; those 65 and older, 1:48; and persons 13 years and older (the entire mobile population) at 3:37.

Looking at overall share among each group, 25-54 users comprised 30% of all video usage; 35-49 was next, at 25%; then 13-17 users, 18%; 18-24 users, 15%; 50- to-64-year-olds, 11%; and 65-plus, 2%.

Overall, men use mobile video more than women — 55% to 45%. However, that too is shifting to 50/50 as does most technology patterns as they become widely adopted.

BOTTOM LINE:

As more smart phones hit the market such as iPhones, Androids and Win7 devices, so will the adoption of mobile video. Intermediary devices and tablets will also fuel “mobile” video usage as a higher percent of computer viewing moves from the desktop and laptop into consumers hands.

Read More: State of the Media Report (click here)

December 9, 2010 in Blog   |   No Comments