Derek Handley, co-founder, chief executive and rather patriotic chap who can often be found extolling the ingenious virtues of his homeland, says the completion of the deal is evidence of the ability New Zealand entrepreneurs have to make it on the world stage, and in one of the most competitive and fast-paced industries.

He believes Kiwi companies are at the cutting edge when it comes to the use of new technology, and by having the courage to take ideas and capabilities off shore, the tale of the Hyperfactory—which “powers businesses and brands through the mobile medium with award winning, innovative and strategically creative initiatives”, has worked with Coca-Cola, BlackBerry, L’Oreal, Vodafone and Disney and employs more than 100 mobile technology and marketing experts around the world—shows it’s possible for Kiwi outfits to play significant roles within some of the world’s leading corporations.

Setting up dual headquarters, with offices in both New York and Auckland able to support expansion domestically and into other international markets, was crucial Derek says. The company also has standalone offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Sydney and Hyderabad, India. And he believes the new relationship presents significant opportunity to grow these offices.

“Key to our definition of success on this sale has been our ability to retain leadership at the helm. It’s important to us to be able to continue the tremendous flow of creativity across our client base, and into all the opportunities Meredith Corporation provides. They are why we have a history of winning more industry accolades than any mobile agency worldwide. This partnership is designed to entrench that leadership in every market we operate, including New Zealand, and it creates opportunities to compete for a whole new tier of clients.”

Handley says the completion of the remaining 80 percent investment was always part of the brothers’ vision for the company. And while terms of deal were not disclosed, Derek says it is comparable to recent leading technology deals for Kiwi companies, and “sets a significant benchmark for the sale of a New Zealand business in the emerging technologies sector”. Ah yes, the old unknown benchmark trick.

In the last year, as the demand for mobile marketing solutions has increased, he says the two companies have joined forces to offer mobile marketing solutions to leading companies and brands such as Kraft, Nestle and Honda. Additionally, The Hyperfactory helped to accelerate Meredith’s consumer brand efforts in the mobile space by developing the mobile platforms for some of its magazines, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents and Fitness.

Google bought NZ$1 billion in stocks in mobile advertising platform Admob last year, which gave the industry as a whole a bit of a fillip, as Run The Red’s Jono Tucker said in this article. Apple had its eyes on Admob too, but it ended up buying another mobile advertising company Quattro wireless for about half that much. And, with increasing smart phone penetration and decreasing data prices around the world, it doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon. In fact, US research company Berg Insight predicts the global mobile advertising market will grow at an annual compound growth rate of 43 percent to €8.7b by 2014.

For Meredith, the acquisition further enhances the capabilities of Meredith Integrated Marketing arm, the company’s business-to-business arm that provides leading corporations and brands with custom marketing solutions.

“Mobile is becoming a vital ingredient in integrated marketing campaigns, giving consumers access to brands at key decision points in the purchasing cycle for awareness, consideration and calls to action,” said Meredith Integrated Marketing president Martin Reidy. “The Hyperfactory is the ideal partner to help us better serve clients seeking to capitalize on this trend.”

And if you still don’t know what the hell we’re on about, here’s Derek.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For New Zealand Music Month, Fly Buys and Adshel offered passersby the opportunity to download free Kiwi music on their phones at  bus shelters around New Zealand, either through Bluetooth technology at one of the 20 Bluetooth Hotspots, by photographing the QR code or following the SMS instructions provided on the posters.

The integrated campaign, which was conceived by Clemenger, OMD and Adshel, with Bluetooth technology by Qwikker and SMS and QR code technology provided by Run The Red, ran for two weeks in May, reaching 28,500 Bluetooth handsets in total and engaging many more New Zealanders through a medium-weight broadcast campaign.

Of all the Bluetooth handsets detected during the campaign, close to 5,500 people opted to download one of the three songs, an opt-in rate of 19 percent (while there isn’t too much research on the topic at present, this is broadly in line with initial campaign results from Australia). A further 658 interactions resulted from the SMS and QR code component of the campaign and of those who engaged with the campaign using text or via QR code, 85 percent then clicked through to the mobile website and downloaded their free music.

Chris Lamers, head of marketing and product development at Fly Buys, is stoked with the results (it had estimated a few hundred downloads), the awareness it has brought to Fly Buys Music and the measurability of the campaign.

“Song downloads from Fly Buys Music increased by more than 200 percent that fortnight, plus thousands of Kiwis scored free New Zealand music. ”

Pauline Hanton, Adshel sales director, says this campaign shows how consumers can be prompted to experience mobile content and, as mobile marketing continues to come of age in the New Zealand market, she expects to see more interactions and higher opt-in rates.

On the SMS and QR code component of the campaign, Ben Northrop, chief executive of Run The Red, says the ability for consumers to select how and when they engage with brand messages is a powerful opportunity for advertisers.

“I believe we will see the number of interactions via mobile Adshel site increase as consumers become more aware of the additional value offered.”

Disney’s Toy Story 3 campaign hit two Adshel Mobile sites last week, in addition to a national medium weight broadcast campaign to promote ticket sales ahead of the film’s release. Mobile phone users who opt in can download the movie trailer, PC and Mac wallpapers and mobile screen savers.

TXT2GET is also celebrating the growth of mobile marketing in New Zealand, reaching the one thousand campaign mark. And executive chairman Marty Verry says it’s the power of online services that is fuelling the 100 percent year-on-year mobile marketing growth he has seen.

He says ‘software as a service’ platforms have eliminated much of the sales and delivery cost structure of technology, and this saving has been passed on to businesses. And with a lower price-point and easy to use web applications, he says services that previously would have only been affordable to corporates are now available to everyone, with clients ranging from Westpac, Samsung and Red Bull, to local companies like Les Mills to other one person operations.

Verry says one of the main reasons businesses are adding text response keywords in their advertising is to increase the response rates, especially to advertising outside 9-5 when consumers assume 0800 numbers will not be answered (TXT2GET conducted a survey and found 70 percent aren’t).

Every text is a lead that can be followed up on, and Verry points out that often three times as many people text compared to calling.

“It’s about making it easy for the consumer to react when and where they see or hear an ad”, says Verry.

Using keywords on advertising also allows business to check reports online to see which creative works best. Others, such as Child Youth and Family’s promotion of March’s Family Day, used it because they got to talk to people and answer their questions, rather than just send them to a web site and the organisation had 2,888 text enquiries compared to 540 callers to its 0800 number.

Verry says businesses are using the service to run everything from simple text for information, to vote, to access mobile websites (MetService – text ‘weather’ to 244), to get free samples (Johnson&Johnson) and to enter competitions, which he says has been particularly popular with clients such as Red Bull, Wrigleys, Westfield, Samsung, Citizen and Independent Liquor.

The campaign sent out messages on behalf of Vodafone in a number of different languages, including English, Arabic, Hindi and Urdu. And, as a result of the international calling promotion, Vodafone customers made international calls amounting to over 50 million minutes. Its success also means Modica will continue to work with Vodafone Qatar on a number of initiatives this year.

Modica Group chief executive Stuart Wilson says it is a significant project with an internationally recognised brand that supports the company’s core strategy of providing a mobile platform as a service to organisations. It also builds on the company’s recent hard work in the USA.

“We hope it will open more doors to other mobile operators and their agencies,” he says.

Mike Button, Vodafone Qatar’s product marketing manager says Modica’s campaign management platform was able to deliver a one-to-one targeted ‘push campaign’ to customers.

“The success of this project has been built on two teams of experts on opposite sides of the globe working together to pull together an innovative campaign in a tight timeframe.”

Jono Tucker, from digital mobile marketing company Run the Red, sees the purchase as a catalyst for the mobile marketing industry around the world and in New Zealand, simply because Google’s involvement is likely to increase the medium’s legitimacy and remove any hesitancy about it in the business community.

“It’s great news for the industry. It’s great that Google are looking in that space and it signals their intent,” he says.

Cellphone-based advertising is set to grow at a much faster rate than internet ad revenues in the coming years, but he doesn’t call mobile marketing the new dotcom (too many negative boom’n bust connotations, he says).

Even so, there are similarities between the two realms and he thinks businesses will be criticised if they’re not in the mobile internet space soon, just as they were criticised if they didn’t have an online presence.

“I think brands are going to take more notice of their mobile internet presence [as a result of this],” he says. “We are in a position to help brands mobilise,” he says, and Google and Admob can help drive traffic.

He doesn’t think mobile internet marketing spells the end of SMS campaigns just yet (despite their spammy overtones), however.

“They’re still the broadsword of engagement,” he says. But as data prices fall and mobile internet becomes more commonplace, he says mobile is slowly heading in a more targeted, relevant direction.

Derek Handley, founder of mobile marketing company Hyperfactory, told he NBR that “mobile is not online … and that if the king of online needs to buy their way into mobile, it further underscores the difference between the mediums”.

Omar Hamoui, Founder and CEO of AdMob said in the Google press release: ”I think people underestimate how important ads have been to funding the development of innovative content on the Internet. Our goal all along at AdMob has been to make it possible for developers and publishers to bring their products and ideas to mobile with the same business model.”

And, according to the release, this is what will change:

The deal will help Google in its efforts to develop more effective tools for creating, serving and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats. As this ecosystem continues to grow, the company expects these new marketing media to offer significant benefits:

Users will see more relevant ads and ultimately get access to more ad-supported content and applications – improving their mobile experience.

Advertisers will be better able to engage mobile users with AdMob’s ad formats.

Publishers and developers will be able to monetize their content more effectively, which has benefits for the wider mobile ecosystem.

Adshel, which operates a furniture network of over 3,500 panels, says the new suite of campaign packs targets key consumer environments, pushes creative boundaries beyond the ad poster and encourages added brand engagement through mobile interaction.

Scheduled to launch in the first half of 2010, Adshel’s mobile package represents an integrated strategy of mobile and outdoor media as it triggers consumers to interact with a brand outside their homes through a network of 20 Bluetooth shelters and various mobile technologies like QR codes, MMS and SMS.

In what’s been a challenging year for advertisers and the media industry, Adshel says the significance of accountability and effectiveness is significant going into 2010.

“By living our brand values – innovative, creative, forward thinking and dynamic – we have been able to perform strongly this year and thrive in a difficult market,” sales director Pauline Hanton says. “We will continue to build on this in 2010 and are very excited about the pending launch of our mobile offering.

“Street furniture is the most effective outdoor medium to prompt consumers to experience mobile content, instantly trigger a call to action and effectively deliver interactive mobile campaigns. Advertisers will be able to measure the number of interactions and the most popular downloads for each location. At a time when accountability is key, an integrated strategy of mobile and outdoor has never been more relevant.”

Of course, social media is in there, as well as the importance of trademarking, mobile marketing and ethical consumerism.

It’s sober, essential reading. Visit www.trendsinbranding.com.

Salt’s Top 10 Branding Trends:

1. Branding in a recession
2. Befriending a brand
3. Naming by numbers
4. The best defense is a strong offense
5. Inspired in America
6. We know where you are
7. Intelligent design
8. Be careful what you ask for
9. Show them you care
10. The perfect match

CAANZ CEO, Rick Osborne, says, “Our combined goal is to help New Zealand agencies excel in the mobile channel over the long term.”

This follows Vodafone’s sponsorship of two industry awards – the Axis Awards’ Mobile Category and the Effie Awards’ Most Integrated Campaign.

Stay peeled for an opinion piece on mobile marketing in StopPress very soon.