Organised by Plazamedia, MedienCampus Bayern and Medientage München, the congress divided its programme into technology, mobile advertising and mobile content. Around 350 attendees received an overview of current mobile-business trends. In his opening keynote, Wolfgang Kasper argued that the market offered substantial growth potential. Under the slogan “The future is mobile”, the managing director of RTL mobile outlined the path toward future mobile communications. He expected moving images to become an established mobile standard by 2009, opening additional markets.
Gerhard Günther, Commercial Development Manager at Hutchison 3G Austria, Henrik Rinnert, managing director of MFD Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland, Herbert Mittermayr, Vice President Marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, and Bernhard von Canstein, Senior Manager New Business Development at Vodafone Germany, discussed transmission technologies for new services. As at the HD Forum 2005, live demonstrations supplemented the presentations. The speakers showed television pictures and internet data reaching mobile phones through Bluetooth, WLAN, UMTS/HSDPA, DMB, DVB-H and DVB-SH. Most technologies still required substantial investment, and no clear winner had emerged.
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For consumers, content and a transparent pricing model mattered more than the transmission standard. Mobile advertising could succeed if both requirements were met. Jochen Lenhard, managing partner at Mediaplus, expected flat-rate plans similar to DSL to drive adoption. He argued that mobile devices could already perform the functions of a PC and that the phone would become a mouse. Access to internet services including eBay, Google and user-generated content could extend formats such as portal advertising, promotions and branded games to mobile devices.
Thomas Zervos, strategic planner at Jung von Matt, said advertisers still needed to identify the “mobile sweet spot”. A commercial’s message had to reach people emotionally and at an appropriate moment, such as while they waited for a train.
Dirk Ziems, managing partner at the Institute for Qualitative Psychological Market and Media Research, offered a less optimistic view. An exploratory study of mobile television and entertainment found restrained consumer enthusiasm. Everyday mobility primarily meant uninterrupted, routine movement in which people wanted to isolate themselves from their surroundings. Ziems said mobile content could fill idle moments, but users preferred short segments rather than emotional involvement. On-demand services were therefore more attractive than continuous television channels.
The programme’s third section covered services intended to meet those requirements. One showcase was mando.TV’s DailyME TV, a 60-minute programme that customers could assemble individually and receive on a phone through MobileMediaCast. The company expected one million compatible phones in Germany by the end of 2007. The service was in testing and scheduled for a summer launch. Bayerische Medien Technik also favoured personalised programming with a system called Tagging. It allowed viewers to mark television content and assemble individual playlists. Both systems provided stop, pause and skip controls.
MedienCampus managing director Professor Gabriele Goderbauer-Marchner closed the forum by asking participants to work more closely with educational institutions so that curricula could include more practical material.
