Smarties™ Co-Chair, Rodrigo Sobral, shares his views on the Importance of the Event

Rodrigo Sobral, Integrated VP Executive Creative Director, R/GA

The 11^th Annual Smarties™ Awards program is just around the corner. It will showcase the best of the best in mobile marketing from the UK, EMEA and globally, recognising teams and talents that have created new benchmarks and engaged consumers in a way that is only possible through mobile. This year’s jury panel includes an impressive list of over a dozen brand marketers and agency leaders in mobile marketing from Fortune 500 companies. Included on the list is industry guru and R/GA London’s Integrated VP Executive Creative Director, Rodrigo Sobral. As co-chair, Rodrigo has discussed the theme of the awards, lessons learnt from the Smarties™ and shared his personal views on the future of mobile marketing during a Q&A session.

How to effectively use multi-channel messaging whilst adapting to emerging channels

Nicola Pero, CTO, Brainstorm

Mobile engagement has changed. It is now more complex and fragmented, a trend that is set to continue with voice, video and SMS all playing a key role in the industry. We are now seeing different types of communications being chosen for different purposes. For example, if you want communication that is short and to the point, which gets read and acted upon quickly, the likely option is SMS. Many think that with the new forms of communication coming on board that the old ones will disappear, but that isn’t the case. It just means we have greater choice in how we communicate, and companies need to be prepared to use them all.

Successful Brand Marketing Plans Include In-App Native Ads

Eddie de Guia, Co-Founder & Managing Director, PubNative

No brand will ever want to advertise on mobile if the ads through which they are represented are intrusive, disruptive or low quality. For this reason, mobile native advertising has gained considerable attention in the past 12-18 months, and this is good news for advertisers, publishers, and users alike.

An increase in mobile spend, without affecting any of the other channels, will considerably increase the overall ROI of a cross-channel campaign, according to the recent SMoX report from MMA. Further, mobile is a strong driver of campaign performance across the entire funnel.

Now, add the power of native advertising. The ads are relevant and driven to the right audience segments via either keywords or audience insights, but also fit the form and the function of the content in which they’re shown.

We understand the mobile opportunity, but why focus on in-app native advertising? Here’s why.

Becoming A Mobile-First Agency

Tom Farrell, Senior Marketing Director at Swrve

At Swrve we spend a decent amount of time in the company of agencies. I don’ think that’s a surprise – certainly when it comes to some of the more creative mobile campaigns a large number of organizations trust their partners in agency land to work with them on smart, cutting-edge mobile marketing campaigns.