SmartReply recognized among Yahoo! and Nokia as being a leading force behind mobile marketing.
Irvine, California, January 07, 2007 - SmartReply, the provider of voice and mobile messaging for over 80 major national and regional retailers, announced today that company president Eric Holmen has been selected to speak at Stanford University's Mobile Persuasion seminar taking place at Stanford University on February 2, 2007. Holmen, who was selected after Mobile Persuasion organizers learned that SmartReply won the coveted Mobile Marketing Award in November 2006, will provide a presentation on marketing with mobile phones. SmartReply won the Mobile Marketing award along with its customer, supercenter chain Meijer.
Mobile Persuasion is an event for innovators, researchers and companies creating mobile technologies that change people's beliefs and behaviors. Numerous industry leaders have been scheduled to speak at the event, including Josh Ulm of Adobe Systems, BJ Fogg, Ph.D. of Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, and Mirjana Spasojevic of Nokia Research Center.
"For the past six years, we've been helping companies like the retail supercenter chain Meijer and department store giant Kohls to reach out to customers through innovative mobile marketing and interactive voice recognition technology (IVR)," states Holmen. "Sending customized, opt-in marketing messages to consumers through their cell phones and portable devices is where our nation is headed, there is no doubt about that. It will be good to be presenting on the advances we've been making in this trend, and to do so among other marketing leaders such as Yahoo!, Accenture, Adobe, Nokia, and researchers from some of the nation's top universities."
Holmen's presentation will elaborate on the effects of mobile marketing on the industry, and will highlight issues that include how mobile marketing fulfills the demands of today's customer-controlled and permission marketing, as well as the inherent challenges of the medium. "Companies are having to re-evaluate how they communicate with consumers," explains Holmen. "Today, customers are more in control of the messages they receive. Because they decide which content they want and don't want through products like TiVO and satellite radio, customer-building messages must evolve to be more like a service and less like marketing in order to be effective. There are a lot of unique challenges, and we're finding unique solutions to them. For example, with text messages, you only have 160 characters with which to persuade the consumer that you are trustworthy. That's a serious hurdle that no prior generation of marketer has had to face."
Mobile Persuasion will take place on Friday, February 2, 2007 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Some of the numerous applications for mobile persuasion to be discussed will include health, commerce, activism, social networking, advertising, conservation and mobile gaming. More information can be found at
www.mobilepersuasion.org.
About SmartReplySmartReply's voice and mobile messaging solutions have created breakthrough-marketing results for leading retailers throughout the United States and Canada. As the only voice and mobile messaging company dedicated to meeting the unique marketing challenges and objectives of retail executives, SmartReply's clients now have the proven ability to increase store traffic, lower marketing cost and strengthen brand affinity. Because of this, SmartReply is the provider of choice for more than 80 major regional and national retailers. Headquartered in Irvine, California, more information for partners and clients can be found at
www.SmartReply.com or by calling (800)-785-6769.