Frost & Sullivan Report - 2011 Customer Value Enhancement Award for North America1. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
Customer Value Enhancement Award
Mobile Marketing
North America, 2011
Frost & Sullivan’s Global Research Platform
Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800
analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies.
The company’s research philosophy originates with the CEO’s 360 Degree Perspective™,
which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research™ methodology. This unique approach
enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth,
innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost &
Sullivan is proud to present the 2011 Customer Value Enhancement Award for North
American Mobile Marketing to Hipcricket Inc. (Hipcricket).
Significance of the Customer Value Enhancement Award
Key Industry Challenges addressed by Superior Customer Of f er ings
The most significant challenge in the U.S. mobile marketing industry today is convincing
leading brands and agencies to increase the use of the mobile channel for their digital
marketing needs. Frost & Sullivan notes that this can be solved by making it as simple as
possible for these entities to incorporate mobile marketing into their digital marketing and
advertising programs. Specialized industry participants have emerged as early innovators
in this space; however, this has also resulted in disparate processes and approaches
towards mobile marketing.
Mobile marketers and advertisers are best served by providing easy-to-use, unified and
seamless solutions that allow brands and agencies to manage comprehensive mobile
marketing and advertising campaigns through a single platform. The buy-side (advertisers
and agencies) expect maximum coverage for their campaigns, yet they prefer to avoid
working with multiple mobile marketing solution providers for different types of mobile
marketing campaigns). Frost & Sullivan firmly believes that the solution provider that can
offer holistic campaign planning, execution and measurement tools (along with
comprehensive support services) will emerge as the preferred provider of mobile
marketing and advertising solutions. Thus, it will be increasingly important for specialized
(or niche) mobile marketing solution providers to expand their portfolio of mobile
marketing solutions – either organically or through strategic partnerships – to deliver
greater value to their customers and effectively compete.
Advertisers and agencies want to execute integrated, multi-channel mobile marketing
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 1 “We Accelerate Growth”
2. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
campaigns across different mobile data environments – including messaging, mobile
applications, mobile web, and other channels. The challenge is to be able to measure the
performance, effectiveness and overall spend for each of the individual device types and
mobile environments. This is certainly not an easy task. Industry participants that have a
long, proven record of successful campaign planning and execution are best positioned to
achieve these objectives and can help develop the appropriate tools to help their
customers gain cross-channel visibility into their marketing campaigns.
Other important industry challenges include enhancing automation in targeted campaign
creation, execution and management; providing greater integration of mobile messaging
with other channels; improving integration of mobile commerce into the mobile marketing
and advertising mix; and providing reliable and efficient service and support to customers.
Impact of Customer Value Enhancement Aw ard on Key Stakeholders
The Customer Value Enhancement Award is a prestigious recognition of Hipcricket’s
accomplishments in the mobile marketing space. An unbiased, third-party recognition can
provide a profound impact in enhancing the brand value and accelerating Hipcricket’s
growth. As captured in Chart 1 below, by researching, ranking, and recognizing those who
deliver excellence and best practices in their respective endeavors, Frost & Sullivan hopes
to inspire, influence, and impact three specific constituencies:
Investors
Investors and shareholders always welcome unbiased and impartial third-party
recognition. Similarly, prospective investors and shareholders are drawn to
companies with a well-established reputation for excellence. Unbiased validation is
the best and most credible way to showcase an organization worthy of investment.
Customers
Third-party industry recognition has been proven to be the most effective way to
assure customers that they are partnering with an organization that is leading in its
field.
Employees
This Award represents the creativity and dedication of Hipcricket’s executive team
and employees. Such public recognition can boost morale and inspire these
stakeholders to continue the best-in-class performance for superior innovation for
Hipcricket.
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 2 “We Accelerate Growth”
3. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
C har t 1 : B es t P rac t i ces L ev e ra g e fo r Gr ow t h Ac ce l era t i on
Best Practice Award Analysis for Hipcricket
The Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award is presented each year to the
company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively
create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that
customers make in its services or products. This Award recognizes the company's
inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good
customer service, leading to improved customer retention and ultimately customer base
expansion.
Hipcricket’s Performance in Mobile Marketing
Hipcricket is a one-stop mobile marketing and advertising company that empowers brands,
agencies and media properties to engage customers, drive loyalty and increase sales.
Hipcricket’s customers connect with consumers across every mobile channel, including SMS,
2D/QR codes, mobile Web sites, advertising networks, social media and branded apps. The
company’s proven technology, strategic marketing services and experienced account
management teams have provided measurable successes through an industry-leading
130,000 campaigns for clients such as Macy’s, MillerCoors, Nestle, KFC, and Clear Channel.
Hipcricket was acquired by Augme Technologies in the summer of 2011.
Key Performance Drivers for Hipcricket
Among the competitive landscape, Frost & Sullivan independent benchmarking has
consistently tracked Hipcricket’s proven record of executing integrated mobile marketing
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 3 “We Accelerate Growth”
4. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
(and advertising) campaigns for leading brands and agencies in the United States.
Frost & Sullivan has identified the following critical factors for Hipcricket’s success:
Comprehensive Product Portfolio
Hipcricket offers a full range of mobile marketing and advertising solutions – including
mobile messaging, IVR, WAP and mobile web, mobile applications, mobile coupons and
others (including Hipcricket’s SocialConnect social media marketing tool). The Hipcricket
mobile marketing platform offers comprehensive reporting and segmentation capabilities
and can be integrated easily with other email and web platforms to deliver integrated digital
marketing campaigns. The ability to provide a broader, richer solutions for mobile marketing
ranging from geo-fencing to mobile messaging and websites and apps has been key to the
continued success of Hipcricket. Hipcricket’s offerings are particularly appealing for larger
brands and agencies that want to use the risk-free services of a trusted solution provider for
all mobile marketing, mobile advertising and m-commerce initiatives.
Hipcricket Mobile Advertising Solutions Group
The Hipcricket Mobile Advertising Solutions Group provides mobile media strategy and
tactics, media planning, campaign execution, reporting, and optimization that effectively
drives results for both agencies and brands. Offering a rich toolset of technology and
professional services, this group of mobile advertising experts delivers laser-targeting and
optimization tactics that reach distinct audience segments at various points along the
decision path.
From standard mobile display to rich media, interstitial and video units, the core offering
also extends to unique sponsorship opportunities across handsets and tablets and
transcends to other media through transmedia tactics and interactivity enabled through
wireless solutions. Hipcricket’s Mobile Advertising business has grown tenfold in just 24
months and has been adopted by Fortune 1000 companies in more than 15 industries –
including quick service restaurants (QSR), retail, travel, technology, and consumer
packaged goods (CPG). More than half of the ad campaigns so far have been implemented
by existing customers who have experienced proven results and measurable ROI from their
initial mobile advertising campaigns. With a single buy, agencies and brands have access to
over 120 million consumers on the go and across any wireless device.
Hipcricket’s focus on delivering the right audience at the right time allows advertisers to
target by geography, device, operating system, carrier, demographically-salient content
verticals and day part mix. As the mobile advertising space continues to ramp, more
brands and agencies turn to the expertise and guidance of the Hipcricket Mobile Advertising
Solutions group to leverage the mobile advertising channel as a critical component of their
of their overall marketing mix.
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 4 “We Accelerate Growth”
5. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
Hipcricket Services - Strategic Services, Account Management, Integration
Services, Reporting and Feedback
Hipcricket offers a wide range of services to help customers develop, design and manage
effective mobile marketing and advertising campaigns – including strategy formulation,
creative campaign design/execution, measurement, analytics, and reporting. For example,
Hipcricket’s dedicated account managers help guide the process from start to finish and
address any questions or concerns at any point during the campaign. Hipcricket’s
Integration Services include SMS, email, mobile web/WAP, IVR and website integration
services that allows organizations to leverage existing digital assets to offer unique
personalized experience to existing and potential customers. Finally, Hipcricket offers a
dedicated customer web reporting tool called Hipcricket Interaction Planner (HIP) that
allows brands and advertisers to measure the true effectiveness of their mobile marketing
campaigns.
Speed of Execution
Hipcricket has admirably developed over industry-leading 130,000 campaigns, using
elements ranging from SMS to MMS to CRM to mobile-social programs, mobile coupons, QR
codes, branded applications, mobile web, and more. Hipcricket’s team can turn creative
briefs into executable programs in 48 hours or less by leveraging the extensive in-house
database of information about thousands of mobile marketing campaigns managed
previously. Frost & Sullivan believes this is one of the fastest turnarounds in the U.S. mobile
marketing and advertising industry and is a key differentiator for the company’s offerings.
With thousands of campaigns under its belt, Hipcricket has acquired an unmatched
understanding of the best practices in mobile marketing which helps the company improve
its services to both existing and new customers.
Roadmap – Product Enhancements, Augme Technologies Acquisition
Hipcricket continues to invest in appropriate technologies and systems to offer innovative,
next-generation and integrated mobile marketing and advertising solutions. Its recent
acquisition by Augme Technologies (Augme) is expected to further consolidate the
company’s position as an industry powerhouse in mobile marketing. Frost & Sullivan opines
that the combined Hipcricket-Augme entity will have one of the most capable, innovative
and complete sets of mobile marketing and advertising solutions in the industry and will
enable the company to realize its vision of providing end-to-end service and support to
mobile marketers. The combined client roster is expected to include over 300 customers –
including ten of the world’s top twenty pharmaceutical companies, six of the largest media
companies in the world, four of the largest advertising agencies in the world, three of the
leading fast service restaurant groups in the world; and, one of the largest food companies
in the world. This acquisition also strengthens Hipcricket’s position in mobile web based
marketing and advertising. With Hipcricket’s management retaining the key positions at the
new entity, Frost & Sullivan expects that Hipcricket will continue to exceed performance
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 5 “We Accelerate Growth”
6. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
expectations in the coming months and years.
Conclusion
Hipcricket has emerged as the preferred provider of high-impact mobile marketing
solutions in the United States. Key reasons for its strong performance include strength of
its product portfolio, strong service and support capabilities, exceptional speed of
execution, and overall strategic acumen of its leadership team. Hipcricket is a unique
company that has successfully adopted a full-service approach to help marketers
understand and leverage the potential of mobile marketing. Frost & Sullivan believes that
Hipcricket is poised for continued success in the U.S. mobile marketing and advertising
markets, and presents the company with the 2011 Customer Value Enhancement Award in
recognition of its ability to deliver the best results to its customers and partners.
The CEO 360 Degree Perspective T M - Visionary Platform for Growth
Strategies
The CEO 360 Degree Perspective™ model provides a clear illustration of the complex
business universe in which CEOs and their management teams live today. It represents
the foundation of Frost & Sullivan's global research organization and provides the basis on
which companies can gain a visionary and strategic understanding of the market. The CEO
360 Degree Perspective™ is also a “must-have” requirement for the identification and
analysis of best-practice performance by industry leaders.
The CEO 360 Degree Perspective™ model enables our clients to gain a comprehensive,
action-oriented understanding of market evolution and its implications for their companies’
growth strategies. As illustrated in Chart 5 below, the following six-step process outlines
how our researchers and consultants embed the CEO 360 Degree Perspective™ into their
analyses and recommendations.
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 6 “We Accelerate Growth”
7. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
360 D e gr e e P ers p ec ti v e ™ M o de l
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 7 “We Accelerate Growth”
8. BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
Critical Importance of TEAM Research
Frost & Sullivan’s TEAM Research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our
research process. It offers a 360 degree view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by
integrating all seven of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Our experience has
shown over the years that companies too often make important growth decision s based on
a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Frost & Sullivan contends that successful growth strategies are founded on a
thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best
practices, and demographic analyses. In that vein, the letters T, E, A and M reflect our
core technical, economic, applied (financial and best practices) and market analyses. The
integration of these research disciplines into the TEAM Research methodology provides an
evaluation platform for benchmarking industry players and for creating high-potential
growth strategies for our clients.
C har t 3 : B e nc h mar ki ng P e rf or ma nc e w i t h TE A M R es ea rc h
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth
and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's
Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined
research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation
of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in
partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment
community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,
please visit http://www.frost.com.
© 2011 Frost & Sullivan 8 “We Accelerate Growth”