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Author Archives: Andrew Grill

Based in London, Andrew Grill is a digital strategist & evangelist and also an experienced Telecoms Senior Executive. The views expressed here are my own.

Find out more at andrewgrill.com or
follow me on twitter @andrewgrill


 

Foursquare and the opportunity for location based social media

Foursquare seems to be in the news a lot recently, and is starting to be exhibit a similar hype curve to that of Twitter.
Update 15 March 2010: with one tweet from @mrskutcher (aka Demi Moore) the battle of the location based social media platforms is now over.  Now that she is on Foursquare and other [...]

Social Media World Forum Europe 15-16 March 2010

There is a great Social Media conference being held in London next week and looking at the conference program,  it looks like being a great event and very timely. From their website…
Europe’s leading social media event. Two day event featuring four dedicated conference streams, workshops and exhibition to be held at Olympia conference centre in London.
Conference [...]

MIPTV in Cannes April 2010 the place to be this year #miptv

I’ve just seen the details for this year’s MIPTV to be held in Cannes April 12 – 16th.
From the conference agenda – where else would you find Shine Group’s Elisabeth Murdoch and Joanna Shields, News Corp’s Jonathan Miller, Sky’s Jeremy Darroch to name just a few in the same room.
MIP Digital kicks off with a [...]

What new skills are required for social media aware marketers?

As promised in a previous post “Why are clients still scratching their heads about Social Media?” I wanted to look at the additional skills that marketing leaders will need to possess from now on to understand the new world of social media and drive real benefit from it.
This post has been prompted by some research [...]

Visible Technologies Secures $22 Million in Funding

I’ve worked with some pretty exciting companies and teams over the years, and I’m delighted to be helping Visible Technologies expand internationally.  Today they have announced a new round of funding ($US22M), and I can tell you that the future looks very bright indeed for this smart company that is helping brands and agencies navigate [...]

Branded applications will drive mobile advertising in 2010

Ever since Rory Sutherland used the term “branded utility” at an MMA event back in March 2009 when talking about how applications could be used to promote products without having to place banner ads all over them I have been using this phrase when describing what will work in mobile advertising.
Those that have seen me [...]

How to prevent your own “Eurostar moment”

No doubt many people around the world are aware that Eurostar passengers were subjected to some fairly uncomfortable experiences over the weekend as 5 Eurostar trains broke down as they entered the Channel Tunnel.
The issue seems to be the rapid change of temperature a the trains entered the channel tunnel from the French side (freezing [...]

Mind the Social Media Gap

This article first appeared in the PointZero magazine, issue 2 October 2009.
It is often said that marketing helps consumers decide which product they should buy, and the customer service and operations department of any company is where this work can come undone in a flash.
As rightly identified by Dave Evans in a recent post titled [...]

Why are clients still scratching their heads about Social Media?

I read an interesting report in the Telegraph yesterday that says London is the “social media capital of the world”.  This is not hard to believe – a city of 8 million people that the Telegraph claim would rather tweet than talk to each other on the tube.
But with such a focus on social media [...]

Are social networks creating a generation of techno addicts?

The short answer is no I do not believe so, otherwise I would not have set up @madeleinegrill’s twitter account for when she is older.
Last week I was asked by Sky News to provide comment on the issue of “Techno addiction”, as a result of a report by Northampton University, where a study of 1,200 people carried out [...]

Forum Nokia launches £20,000 UK developer contest

Nokia calls on UK developers to drive innovation in mobile apps with £20,000 up for grabs.
LONDON UK – The Calling All Innovators competition is back and this time Nokia is looking for talented UK developers to create the next big thing in mobile applications.
The competition was announced  at Nokia’s first Ovi Developer Open Day in [...]

The mobiThinking guide to mobile advertising networks

Andy Favell, editor of mobiThinking from dotMobi has been in touch about a new guide to mobile advertising networks they have just launched.
The guide profiles nine of the most important mobile ad networks giving publishers and advertisers an exclusive insight into who they are, what they do and what geographies they cover.
Considering the rate at [...]

World’s Biggest Coffee Morning donate via text campaign

TigerSpike and MX Telecom were behind the Macmillan’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning with a new charity SMS Short Code range - meaning that UK mobile operators are now coming to the party to allow more of the premium SMS revenue to flow to charities, making charity SMS donations a more attractive proposition.
LONDON, United Kingdom – 25 September 2009 [...]

First look at new Vodafone 360 social media initiative & new apps #vf360

Today Vodafone announced their new Vodafone 360 initiative #vf360 to raise the stakes in the mobile social networking and app store battle between operators.  Designed as a major refresh of their Vodafone Live! initiative, Vodafone 360 aims to go beyond a simple web portal and instead link Vodafone customers with their favourite mobile applications and [...]

First ever Mobile Application Stores Conference at CTIA

News comes from London Calling friend Ajit Jaokar about the first ever Mobile Application Stores Conference at CTIA. From a quick scan of the release, it has a great lineup of speakers. More information is presented below:
The Mobile Application Stores, Strategy and Deployment conference http://www.mobileappevent.com/ is proud to announce its all-star speaker lineup for this [...]

Brands expect investment in mobile marketing to double

ad:tech London 2009 set to address best practice for mobile marketers looking to interact directly with consumers through their phone.
London – 17 September 2009: Marketers are expected to increase investment in mobile this year, as brands continue to recognise mobile as an integrated part of their marketing strategy, according to research from organisers of this [...]

Ovi Developer Event in London September 24

While sadly I won’t be able to attend this event because I will be speaking at the Mobile Marketing Ireland Conference in Dublin, I am happy to support and promote this event happening next week in London.
It has become so popular that the event has moved venues 3 times – and it is now going [...]

The MMA are totally embracing mobile for London event

I have been involved with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) for some time now, and really admire the hard work that EMEA MD Paul Berney has put into developing the UK and European chapters over the last 18 months.
As an example of the MMA “drinking their own champagne” (I like this expression so much better [...]

Why call centres need to embrace twitter & IM for customer suppport

Like many people in the UK, from time to time I have to call a support line for an internet or mobile / service provider about some sort of problem.
I am sure I am not alone at dreading the thought of making this call – being put on hold, having to push 1, 2 etc and [...]

Listen, Learn, Engage and Integrate – 4 rules for brands using social media Part 1

I have been fairly quiet on the blogging front of late (inversely more active on twitter), but in between posts I have been spending a lot of time talking to large, well known companies about their social media strategy.  Like many in the mainstream press, I keep reading that social media / Twitter / Facebook [...]

Perhaps Ocado customers should write their emails for them

This afternoon, I received the following email from home delivery company Ocado – titled
“Important information regarding operational trading hours at Ocado”
The email appears below (click for larger view)
What was amazing to read is that for some good news (they are extending deliveries in our area to include Sunday – which provides more flexibility), the language [...]

3G Doctor wins the Nokia N97 via twitter pitch

Last week, Janaina Pilomia from Forum Nokia who was kind enough to loan me a brand new Nokia N97 for blogging at the Mobile 2.0 Conference in Barcelona in June suggested that instead of returning the N97, I pass it on to someone in the Symbian developer community.
What better way to promote the offer and [...]

Nokia N97 available for a lucky mobile developer via twitter pitch

Please feel free to retweet this via http://tr.im/twitterpitch
The lovely Janaina Pilomia from Forum Nokia was kind enough to loan me a brand new Nokia N97 for blogging at the Mobile 2.0 Conference in Barcelona in June.
The device was put to good use, and is now looking for a new home.  Nokia are prepared to offer [...]

Advertising in 2020 – a sneak peek from Ogilvy and Acision

I have just had the good fortune to be sent a brilliant white paper from Acision and OgilvyOne, developed as part of their ongoing collaboration in the mobile advertising space.
You can download the entire paper or view it on slideshare below.  For quick re-tweeting, use the short URL http://bit.ly/ad2020 to access this blog post.
While the [...]

First look at the new Vodafone Sure Signal

Update January 2010: Vodafone has updated their marketing name for this product and it is now called Vodafone Sure Signal.  They have started to heavily promote it around London on the tube and in other outdoor locations.  This post was first published in July 2009 just after it launched.  Since then it has pretty much [...]

Carnival of the Mobilists 181 is at London Calling

This week the carnival comes to you from a city that has just hosted one of the word’s most famous sporting carnivals – the Wimbledon championships.  Last time we hosted the Carnival, it was the G20 that focused the eyes of the world on dear old London.
As we all know by now, Roger Federer was [...]