FierceWireless editor Brian Dolan recently caught up with Jim Ryan, the former vice president of consumer data services at Cingular Wireless. Mobile marketing firm Mobile Campus recently appointed Ryan as its new CEO. Read on to hear the former carrier executive discuss mobile marketing, the difficulties of mobile advertising and why campus security offerings won't work via SMS.
FierceWireless: Given your background running Cingular Wireless' data services, why did you choose to join Mobile Campus?
Ryan: I saw some significant incremental opportunities evolving in the mobile marketplace around targeting marketing offers to relevant segments that a lot of people weren't focused on. And to take a quality shot at doing mobile marketing, which is a different side of the same coin, for it to be effective it needs to be highly targeted. And, sure, people say that and know that but they aren't doing that. Mobile Campus is focused on serving university students, who are really needy and ripe for the wireless market. We're focused on innovative means to target them. The old online model of "give me some stuff and you'll give me some ads" is a model that's breaking and is fundamentally flawed.
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