Wireless Marketing Bodies Merge

The Wireless Advertising Association (WAA) and the Wireless Marketing Association (WMA) have merged in an attempt to provide a unified body for the mobile marketing industry.

The new body, which will be known as the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), will focus on promoting the growth of the industry and on establishing universal standards to govern privacy and consumer protection. The expanded organisation will bring together the global members of the WAA such as AOL and Unilever (see AOL And Unilever Strike Global Cross-Media Deal) with the WMA’s UK members, which include media owners, content providers and mobile phone operators.

The new MMA European committee will be led by Cyriac Roeding of 12Snap, with co-chairs Steve Wunker from Brainstorn and Booky Oren of Comverse. Following on from his role a chairman of the WMA, Steve Wunker will be responsible for developing the MMA in the UK.

Commenting on the merger Steve Wunker said: “The MMA now has a much broader membership base, which is vital if we are to gain mass acceptance of mobile as a marketing medium. Over the coming months we will be working together on a variety of research projects to better understand how consumers react to the medium in the long-term and how best to control key issues like privacy and fraud.”

The MMA will hold its first meeting at the end of this month and is currently working towards the creation of a self-regulating forum for the industry.

MMA: 020 7074 7060 www.waaglobal.org

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