Business ICT

Colombocity.mobi concept presented to international audience

A high-powered team from Infotechs and BatesAsia attended the first ever Asian Mobile Advertising & Marketing Summit held in Bangkok recently to absorb new developments in mobile advertising & marketing and present a case study of the Colombocity.mobi concept. The presentation was done by CEO of Infotechs Michelle Pinto.

Colombocity.mobi was developed as an innovative city guide and lifestyle directory that provides information and advertising right the in the consumer’s hand, reflecting the shift from push marketing to on-demand advertising.

It became the first commercially marketed made-for-mobile website launched in Sri Lanka, with marketing done by site owners Infotechs, exclusive marketing and sales consultants BatesAsia and mobile service providers Dialog and Tigo.

It has been embraced by several top advertisers and smaller outlets who find this a cost-effective way to communicate and provide access to their shops, restaurants, services and promotional offers. It is easily accessed on the mobile phone using GPRS by a growing number of mobile phone users.

The Asian Summit was attended by delegates from across Asia and had speakers from cutting edge tech companies, digital media and advertising consultancies and clients including Madhouse China, Group M Interaction Asia Pacific, Mindshare, Adidas, Nokia and I- POP Networks the mobile partners of Freemantle Media - producers of the “Idol” TV shows.

Among the exciting sessions and case examples shared were an Adidas “GPS Run” to track consumers and create user communities as they used the brand, development of interactive mobile campaigns, creative mobile marketing campaigns, mobile integration with TV campaigns, and campaigns that activated advertising messages close to point of purchase.

The Sri Lankan team also attended a workshop on Mobile Marketing which covered subjects such as permission based mobile marketing, understanding the different technologies, budget planning and do’s and don’ts of mobile marketing campaigns, which preceded the two day summit.

Mobiles, vital communication tool in Asia - WTM report

Shirajiv Sirimane in London

Mobile phones are becoming one of the most important communication tools between the travel industry and Asian consumers. The World Travel Market Global Trends Report 2007 released in partnership with market intelligence firm Euromonitor International revealed.

The report identified mobile phones as a highly influential marketing tool, calling it the “third” screen following television and the Internet. Penetration rates are particularly high in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, which reached 124 per cent, 103 per cent and 102 per cent respectively and are expected to continue to grow by 3-4 percentage points each year until 2009.

Several regional travel and tourism players have already responded to the importance of SMS as a communication tool. Philippine Airlines and Cebu Air provide SMS ticketing and Singapore Airlines sends SMS ticket confirmation services to local travellers.

Australian based online travel operator, zuji.com has divisions in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia and sends out tailored SMS promotions to subscribers.

“Asians love their phones and as the world’s leading region of users, we expect they will become the new way of doing business for the travel industry in that part of the world,” Euromonitor’s International’s Global Travel and Tourism Account Manager Clement Wong, commented.

An infotainment website from Horlicks

Horlicks has launched a fun and informative website for kids and mothers. The web site, www.myhorlicks.com, was officially launched on November 6. It is a product of the Horlicks team at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Sri Lanka.

“The launch of myhorlicks.com is another pioneering initiative from Horlicks to improve the health and well-being of children in Sri Lanka,” MD of GSK Sri Lanka, Jayant Singh said at the launch.

The website is especially for kids aged 6-16 and mothers, providing a platform for Horlicks to now communicate directly about the kids’ requirements. It is user friendly and has easy navigation options and up loads quickly even on a Dial-Up connection.

The Horlicks Brand Manager commented that this web site will be a link for the Horlicks Brand to further strengthen it’s commitment to quality, strong Brand heritage and focused communication among its consumer base.

The website contains curiosities such as a Horlicks Corner, Fun Corner, Games and Downloads and a dedicated Mum’s Corner.

The Horlicks Corner provides information about the history of Horlicks and about Horlicks today. The Fun Corner show cases current promotions and greeting cards for friends and loved ones.

One of such promotions is the ‘Exam Campaign’ which gives away a useful and attractive exam board with every 400g pack of Horlicks.

In the games and downloads zone there are computer games, exam planners, exam tips and school timetable forms. Mum’s Corner is a useful collection of information for mothers such as nutritional tips and how to help children with their homework, how to help them overcome their worries and how to communicate with them.

Horlicks is the world’s first malted drink and is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare in United Kingdom.

Horlicks is the only malted drink to pioneer the concept of calcium supplementation in a nutritionally balanced drink fortified with most of the essential nutrients.

The calcium content in a single serving of Horlicks is twice the amount of calcium that is present in a glass of fresh milk.

It also has five times more Calcium than the leading malted food drink in Sri Lanka.

Horlicks has a heritage of over fifty years in Sri Lanka and the range has now expanded to include different variants of flavours and packages, including Junior Horlicks1-2-3 which is specially designed for pre-school children and comes in an innovative elephant jar and the Horlicks Busicuits which has Calcium of three glasses of milk.

Tech Distribution; distributor for world’s three top software companies

Adding to an enviable portfolio as Microsoft and Adobe distributor, Sri Lankan based Software Distribution Company Tech Distribution Lanka (Pvt) Ltd becomes the distributor for Oracle in November 2007.

With the Oracle distributorship, Tech Distribution, the first Sri Lankan company to introduce value-added distribution for software, will represent the top three corporate in the world for desktop software.

Oracle Corporation is largest enterprise software company in the world and produces database management systems (DMS), tools for database development, middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software and supply chain management (SCM) software.

After 30 years, Oracle remains the gold standard for database technology and applications in enterprises throughout the world: the company is the world’s leading supplier of software for information management, and the world’s second largest independent software company.

Oracle technology can be found in nearly every industry, and in the data centers of 98 of the Fortune 100 companies. Oracle is the first software company to develop and deploy 100 percent internet-enabled enterprise software across its entire product line: database, business applications, and application development and decision support tools.

As distributor for Oracle, Tech Distribution will liaise between principal and re-seller to provide licensing solutions and a range of support services to the latter.

Support services include email and online configuration solutions, installation support and training of partner IT staff as well as logistics, infrastructure and operational support and various other partner empowerment projects.

Tech Distribution not only serves Sri Lanka but also Brunei and the Maldives and has been in operation since 2003.

Managing Director, Tech Distribution Wasantha Weerakone said his company invests heavily in training for the partner network, in order to enable them to sell better software solutions.

In addition, their head office at the World Trade Centre is fully equipped with an experience centre comprising 15 virtual servers for customers of partner re-sellers to run Microsoft, Adobe and now Oracle products before purchasing.