**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA — “No doubt about it, to some extent we’re selling change,” Tim Sefton, customer director of Telefonica O2 UK, said today on a mobile marketing and advertising panel.

That fact more than anything may be why for nearly the past decade, executive after executive has defined this and each subsequent year as the year of mobile marketing and advertising — and been so very wrong.

Personifying the problem the mobile industry has when it comes to convincing marketers, media buyers and ad agencies to direct more of their spend to mobile wasn’t hard to find in the audience. When asked how many in attendance were advertisers, only one or two raised their hands. Equally troublesome for mobile advertising as a whole, only two or three people raised their hands to identify themselves as someone representing a brand or ad agency. Read more

** As published in FierceWireless **

Mobile advertising has had its share of fits and starts. It hasn’t really taken off–and not for lack of want or opportunity, but rather confusion and a justifiable perception that wireless subscribers’ personal information could land into the wrong hands.

How can network providers overcome the perception that advertising might impede on customer privacy?
Mike Wehrs, president and CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, said it’s all about disclosure. Network providers should make their privacy disclosures permanent and readily available, he said. End users also need to feel like are in control through a simple opt-in or opt-out mechanism, and be given the ability to purge all the information that’s been held about them. Read more