Denny |
February 20, 2014
This recent news development will bring the latter company’s platform to a close on March 30.
In a recent news posting on the Distill website, it has announced that it has been acquired by Yahoo, in a move that many in the industry are assuming that has a great deal more to do with obtaining the mobile marketing talent from that company anything much else.
The platform for the company will remain fully operational through March 30.
The Distill service had been in a private beta phase and had been working with companies such as Box and Disney. Now, Yahoo has purchased this startup, which has come up with a collaborative system based on video, which is targeted at hiring technical talent. However, instead of putting that approach to use for drawing their own engineers, Yahoo plans to shut down the company altogether and simply hire the leading engineers who worked there in order to work on mobile marketing development.
The terms of this acquisition (which is also seen as a mobile marketing deal) have not yet been released.
About five months ago, Distill had just finished securing investments worth $1.3 million and had developed and created a system that made it possible for a potential new hire, such as an engineer, to be interviewed through a video conversation comparable to Skype. What made it stand out from a standard video conversation is that it could provide programming challenges to the candidate during the interview, itself.
Therefore if the interviewee was, for example, a graphic designer, then the video interview would be able to include a collaborative walk through of a portfolio so that its contents could then be discussed.
As the interview can be scheduled online and the prospect is sent a direct link in order to “meet” with the prospective employer, there is no need for exchanging user names or other contact details.
The engineers from Distill, who will now be working for the purpose of mobile marketing at Yahoo, have also worked on other major projects such as Tapjoy, which is a smartphone ad platform that is performance based.
The latest smartphone statistics are showing that advertisers can’t use a one size fits all mentality.
Smartphones are rapidly becoming one of the best ways for brands to be able to communicate an interact with consumers in a relevant way, as mobile marketing techniques become better understood and employed, but marketers are discovering that there is no single solution to reaching everyone.
There are massive opportunities through smartphone advertising, but a cookie cutter strategy does not exist.
While promotions and ads over smartphones can be extremely effective in emerging markets, mobile marketing firms have come to note that when focusing on emerging markets, they must not only work on engaging consumers, but also in converting new customers. Among the emerging markets where the growth has been greatest are Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. In those markets, mobile ad revenues have risen by over 60 percent, year over year.
It is clear that these are very promising areas for mobile marketing, provided that it is done correctly.
The latest projections are that these markets will make up the majority of mobile connections within three years from now. Marketers are boosting their advertising budgets in order to focus on these customers and reach them through their smartphones. This is especially true in the areas in which there is a rapidly growing middle class. The reason is that it is building the number of people who have a disposable income.
In these emerging markets, the use of mobile devices is considerably greater than that of laptops and desktops. In fact, smartphones are used broadly over tablets. The reason is that they did not have the infrastructure or disposable income available for widespread computer use as developed nations saw those machines become ubiquitous. Therefore, targeting consumers over smartphones is essentially the only way to go when it comes to digital marketing in those regions.
The key is to avoid the belief that mobile marketing in the West and in these markets can be conducted in the same way. Duplicating campaigns leads to a direct failure in emerging markets, nearly every time.
