Can Clear Channel help mobile marketing take off? Giant's outdoor updates, push to inhibit cellphone spam may spark category.(News)

Advertising Age, November, 2007 by Hampp, Andrew

Byline: ANDREW HAMPP

Next year could finally be the year when mobile marketing takes off. Sure, you heard the same venture-capital-driven rallying cry about 2006 and 2007, but Clear Channel Outdoor is betting that 2008 really is the year. It's updated 1,000 of its venues to take advantage of what Michael Hudes, global director of digital media, calls "Outdoor 2.0,'' a vision of the cellphone as a remote control for consumer interaction.

Outdoor campaigns using text messages and Bluetooth technology have been popular and widely deployed by companies such as Clear Channel, JCDecaux and Kinetic in the U.K. and Asia but have taken longer than expected to catch on stateside. That's probably due to slower uptake of cellphone technologies over here but also,...

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