Catalina acquires Mobile Commerce innovator Modiv Media (USA)
Catalina Marketing Corporation, the leader in precision consumer marketing, announced that is has completed its acquisition of Modiv Media, the industry-proven provider of mobile commerce solutions. The integration of Modiv into Catalina provides brands and retailers the ability to engage shoppers, influence their behavior, and boost loyalty with a unique mobile experience that saves shoppers time and money.
Catalina helps manufacturer and retail brands deliver unprecedented performance and healthier outcomes with integrated in-store and online marketing platforms. The acquisition extends Catalina’s targeted consumer engagement to include shoppers’ smartphones.
Jamie Egasti, CEO, Catalina Marketing said that they have been watching Modiv for quite some time now. Their success in driving in-store innovation is unmatched and their ability to deliver a scalable mobile commerce solution is exactly what retailers are looking for. The acquisition will allow Catalina to drive greater consumer engagement before and during the buying experience for brands, and deliver increased revenue and shopper loyalty for large-scale retailers.
Mike Grimes, SVP of mobile commerce for Catalina and former CEO of Modiv Media, said that Modiv’s retailer-proven mobile commerce solution, coupled with Catalina’s scale, analytics and content, provides an unmatched mobile shopper marketing solution for large retailers. Helping shoppers save time and money through an intuitive and relevant mobile experience is paramount to the future of retail. When combined with Catalina’s deep targeting and large CPG-funded offer pool, this becomes a must-have for retailers.
Egasti added that Modiv has spent the last several years building in-store mobile solutions from the ground up, engineering for a very complex environment. Today, they have the only mobile commerce solution designed to meet the demands of high-frequency retail. From comprehensive integration with POS systems to leveraging loyalty and CRM to influence behavior, this solution integrates perfectly with Catalina and will change how retailers and brands engage and empower consumers.
Since its founding in 2001, the Modiv solution was built on the premise of connecting the physical store with the shopper via a mobile device. Already in over 350 locations, their retailer-branded solution influences over 1 million shopping trips per month that drive over $1 billion in retailer sales annually.
This February, Modiv introduced Modiv Social which enables retailers and brands to offer shoppers an integrated mobile coupon wallet experience that aggregates coupons from any couponing source (web, retailer, mobile, digital, etc.) and gives shoppers the unique ability to share select mobile coupons via Facebook. Going far beyond simple sharing, Modiv Social enables retailers and brands alike the ability to track, monitor, manage and analyze the lifecycle of a socially shared coupon, as well as identify ëshopping influencers’ and rewarding those who share these coupons.
The entire Modiv team will remain in the Boston area and will be the foundation of Catalina’s mobile efforts. The company is currently evaluating a new office location in Boston’s Innovation District to support expansion plans for the mobile team.
Motorola one of the most trusted wireless brands in U.S.
What kind of cellphone do you use? If you’re in the majority, it’s a Motorola handset. Motorola now has — by far — the largest share of the handset market in the U.S. and appears to be making a global run at Nokia to try and regain the top global spot for the first time in a decade. The jury is still out on whether Motorola can do this, but if the ultra-popular RAZR phenomenon continues — and it does almost two years after release — then Motorola will continue to make headway. It’s rare that a single product carries a company like this, but just like Apple’s iPod, Motorola’s RAZR re-defined the category.
But it does not stop there. According to Forrester Research, Motorola is one of the top trusted brands in the wireless market, which includes hardware manufacturers and wireless carriers alike, from Motorola and Samsung to Sprint Nextel and Cingular Wireless. Samsung and Sprint Nextel rank among the least-trusted brands in the U.S., while Motorola and Verizon Wireless coming in at most-trusted levels, with Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile also pulling the same score. Just slightly off was Sprint Nextel, but that slightness was enough for a “least trusted” rating.
How about wireless handset manufacturers? In what I consider more perception than actual reality, handset makers Palm scored 4.3 and a B+ overall, while Motorola — maker of the RAZR and other popular offshoot handsets, scored 4.2, for an overall grade of B. LG Electronics and Samsung fared the worst, both scoring 4.0, for overall grades of C- and D-, respectively. The “aura” around the Treo line of smartphones and the RAZR line of phones is probably due to the enormous loyalty customers have to both brands when such a subjective topic of “trust” comes along.
Samsung and LG and other makers have wireless handsets that topple the Motorola RAZR and other phones in terms of features and ease-of-use, but the sheer popularity and loyalty Motorola users have cannot be underestimated. If you create the market — like the RAZR did for slim phones and the Treo did for on-the-go productivity — then customers will always have “trust”. MOT shares seem happy these days as a result.
Source- http://www.bloggingstocks.com
Technorati : LG, Motorola, Samsung, USA, Verizon Wireless, operator
