Mobile Marketing Association Launches Philippines Local Council in Partnership with IMMAP

Alliance to drive adoption of guidelines and best practice within mobile marketing ecosystem

Manila, August 26, 2009 -- The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) today announced a partnership to launch the MMA Philippines Local Council. The objective of the partnership between MMA and IMMAP is to foster the mobile advertising and marketing industry in the Philippines through local participation from industry stakeholders to drive the adoption of global standards, best practice and guidelines across the mobile marketing channel in the country.

“The Asia Pacific region provides the MMA with great opportunity to add value to our members and companies that make up the mobile marketing ecosystem. We have seen a number of successful mobile marketing campaigns in this region and also identified areas where the Regional and Global scale of the MMA can help accelerate the growth of the local industry. The MMA’s presence in the Philippines strengthens our commitment to the market and highlights the potential for growth. Today, the local advertising industry is worth US$3 billion; we believe mobile marketing can contribute between two and three percent of the pie in a few years,” said Mike Wehrs, President and CEO, MMA. “Through our partnership with IMMAP, we aim to support the industry on key industry issues such as measurement and metrics, best practices guidelines and codes of conduct.”

"IMMAP's partnership with the MMA will allow us to further drive increased adoption of mobile marketing in the country, by bringing together all of the industry's important stakeholders, such as telecom operators, publishers, agencies, media companies, mobile content and service providers, as well as advertisers. In the coming months, we will work closely with the MMA to craft a strategic action plan to accelerate growth of the industry at the local level, with particular focus on research and education initiatives, development of metrics and measurement, adoption of best practices and guidelines, as well as an active partnership with key local regulatory bodies," said Arthur Policarpio, President of IMMAP.

The MMA Philippines Local Council brings together 26 founding member companies, and is the second to be launched in the Asia Pacific region in the last four months, after India. The founding member companies are: AdMob, Affle, BlueBlade Technologies, BuzzCity, DenstuIndio, Egg (Entertainment Gateway Group), Information Gateway, Mediacom, Microsoft, Mobile Arts, Nielsen, Ogilvy, Procter and Gamble, Proximity Phils., Pudding Media, Smart Communications, Snapworks, Tribal DDB, Unilever, Wolfpac, Xurpas, Yahoo! Philippines, Yehey, Zed Worldwide, Megamobile and Trackworks. The partnership agreement was signed during IMMAP’s 3rd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit in Manila this week, which was attended by over 500 industry professionals.

The mobile industry is seeing great success in the Philippines. As of July 2009, the number of mobile phone SIM cards in the Philippines was estimated at close to 70 million. It was one of the first countries to publicize SMS remittance and SMS credit transfer services, which operators across the world have since tried to emulate. The Philippines also remains the SMS capital of the world with over one billion SMS messages sent each day and revenues from text messaging on par with those from voice services.

“The Philippines market has a high mobile penetration rate and strong usage coupled with the planned deployment of 3.5G networks by local operators. The MMA believes that revenues allocated to mobile marketing in the Philippines will grow faster than Internet marketing in the next 12 to 24 months,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director – Asia Pacific, MMA.

“As a dominant market leader in the country, Smart is showing its full support to the MMA by spearheading efforts amongst mobile operators in mobile marketing, not only in the Philippines, but in the Asia Pacific region, as well. The creation of the local council will most certainly give the mobile marketing industry a boost. It will serve as a platform for us to share our best, well-tested practices with our colleagues and learn new and groundbreaking techniques from other MMA members all over the world,” added Jojit P Alcazar, Head – Mobile Advertising at Smart Communications, and Director for International Relations at IMMAP.

The Chairperson of the local association of advertisers, Charmaine Canillas, believes the alliance is a positive step toward market education saying, “AdBoard welcomes the formation of the MMA Philippines Local Council to share global best practice and guidelines on mobile marketing to best serve both advertisers and consumer interest and protection.”

The MMA is the world's largest trade organization for mobile marketing with close to 750 member companies while IMMAP is the Philippines' premiere association for internet and mobile marketing, with 86 member companies. For information on how to participate in the Local Council in the Philippines, please contact the MMA membership team at membership@mmaglobal.com or IMMAP at fiera@info.com.ph.

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About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and it has regional chapters including North America (NA), Europe (EUR), Latin America (LATAM), Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

About the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP)
IMMAP is the Philippines' premiere association for internet and mobile marketing with more than 80 member companies. The organization was founded in 2006 by 15 individuals who saw the potential of internet and mobile marketing. IMMAP's mission is to spearhead the use of Internet and Mobile to become recognized marketing mediums in the industry. For more information, please visit www.immap.com.ph.