Member News

ITV partners with Spoke as Text Santa increases Charity donations

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Customer engagement specialist Spoke provided automated donation processing for ITV’s recent Text Santa campaign to allow viewers to pledge donations of differing amounts via the 03 number which was promoted as part of the Text Santa appeal.  The number featured on a range of ITV programmes in December, as well as the actual event night of Text Santa 2014. Across all the donation platforms, over £6.3 million was raised for Text Santa 2014’s six UK-based charities.

Spoke has worked on many high profile charity appeals in the past, and following recent platform improvements saw the Text Santa campaign reach an all-time high for effective calls to date for this type of activity. Darren Worrell, Head of Technical Services Director at Spoke commented, “We were delighted with the outcome of this campaign. During 2014 we made a significant investment in our platform and it was great that we saw such high effective call rates, as this had a direct impact on the money raised for Text Santa”.

Spoke’s PCI solution provides charities with a secure facility to take donations at all times of day, as illustrated during Philip Schofield’s unique 24-hour presenting challenge, where calls were received and donations processed through the night.

Fiona Robertson, ITV’s Head of Charity Projects, commented “Our key objective with Text Santa is to maximise donations for our six chosen charities.  Having robust, efficient, cost effective platforms for processing donations is at the centre of our requirements and we welcome Spoke’s excellent contribution to our most successful Text Santa campaign to date.”

Damon Russell, Chief Executive at Spoke, added “We’re very proud to be part of ITV’s successful 2014 Text Santa campaign which allowed us to illustrate our ability to provide both technology platforms and management services for automated donation processing”.

 

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

About Spoke

Spoke (www.spoke-interactive.com) are consumer engagement experts, specialising in mobile and interactive solutions for brands, agencies, media owners and charities. Spoke provide everything from strategy to implementation, management and analysis for a broad range of interactive and mobile services, Social TV and donation and payment solutions. Clients include BBC, Channel 5, UKTV, STV, Time Inc. News International and many others.

About Text Santa

Text Santa is ITV’s annual charity fundraiser appeal, raising money and awareness for six UK based charities each year. The selected charities for the 2014 appeal were Alzheimer’s Society, Guide Dogs, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Teenage Cancer Trust, Together for Short Lives and WellChild. 100% of donations made by ITV viewers are evenly distributed to the chosen charities, and over £21 million has been raised in the last four years.

2015 AIME Board announced

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

AIME welcomes Ibs Ali of Open Market, Alan Partington of Telecom 2 and Alex Haffner of Dentons to the Board

The Association for Interactive Media and Entertainment –AIME is pleased to announce the addition of three new members, Alan Partington, Ibs Ali and Alex Haffner to its Board of Directors.

AIMEs Board directs and oversees the operation of the Association as well as playing an active role in managing working groups and providing feedback regarding the industry sectors that AIME represents. AIME attempts to ensure that the board represents every vertical market that comprises membership.

Alan Partington from Telecom2 (www.telecom2.net) is a welcome addition to the Board to ensure that AIMEs focus on fixed line services remains strong as the industry enters its most significant transitional period with the introduction of split charging for consumers for calls to non-geographic service number ranges such as 09, 08 and 118. Alan replaces BT stalwart Graham Pottie and was uncontested.

Ibs Ali from Open Market (www.openmarket.com) is the Head of Account Management with responsibility for the commercial and operational delivery of mobile messaging and mobile payments solutions across OpenMarket’s client base. The client base includes AIMEs membership in Charity and Broadcast. Ibs previous experience includes News International, MINICK and Net Mobile and is an active participant in AIMEs working groups.

Alex Haffner from Dentons  (www.dentons.com ) is a Senior Associate at Dentons and has been opted on to the AIME Board to bring in his experience in the Regulatory and Competition Law fields. Alex will also be beneficial for the AIME board for his ability to assist with broader Board level discussions around the evolution of financially regulated micropayment services such as eMoney and Payment Services. Alex brings with him broad experience in the areas that AIME operates and his expertise in competition law relates to AIMEs strength in putting competitors together to examine common issues or opportunities

Chairman Edward Boddington stated today “We have a superb board with represented expertise from across the membership covering Broadcast, Mobile, Fixed line, Service Provision and Digital services promotion. These new Board Members, help us to complete the picture, replacing other board members that we have sadly lost due to changing roles. I am very excited to be working with Alex, Ibs and Alan to strengthen AIME as a valuable and important trade association for the interactive media and entertainment industries.

Mobile Life Appoint MCP as Regulatory & Compliance Technology Partner

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Mobile Life have today announced the appointment of Monitoring & Compliance Partners (MCP) to act as a Regulatory & Compliance Technology Partner for Mexico effective immediately.

MCP were formed in April 2014 as a result of a joint venture between Etx & Enarpee Services to create a new regulatory services company, offering a suite of products designed to provide peace of mind for the payments industry.

Formed in 1997 by brothers Declan and Brian Pettit, eTX’s core offering is the ‘Touchpoint’ Application Development platform, a hardware/software system that intelligently manages information/events in a real-time environment. This platform comprises proprietary technology which is the result of fifteen years research and development, and which is particularly suited to fast-moving environments. Our products such as Goverifyit, VeriAudits and Veriscanner have all been developed using this platform.
Enarpee Services are the world experts in Regulatory Advice, Due Diligence, Compliance and Product & Service Audits for companies utilising Premium Billed mechanisms in support of their services to Consumers. Run by Neil Penny and Toby Padgham, Enarpee Services are the appointed Regulatory & Compliance partner for the UK’s largest Mobile Network Operator, EE (which also incorporates the T-Mobile & Orange Mobile Network brands) as well as providing direct client support across the EU, Africa, Australia, APAC and now Central America with LatAM support available during 2015.

Commenting on the appointment, Warren Platt the CEO of Mobile Life said “We are delighted to be working with MCP to take us to the next and most exciting stage of our growth and development in the Mexican & Latin American Markets. We have an exciting strategy and see MCP as the ideal partner to assist us in achieving all our commercial objectives.”

Neil Penny & Declan Pettit from MCP issued a joint statement – “We are more than excited to be invited to assist & support Mobile Life in the Mexican market and we’re very confident our experience and expertise will deliver and exceed Mobile Life’s expectations. We’ve admired Mobile Life’s growth ever since they entered the market and to be part of their future growth is incredibly exciting”

MCP’s expansion accelerates to satisfy demand for Worldwide Compliance & Auditing Services

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

MCP_world_logo_mcp Feb15-WEB

MCP (the recent Joint Venture between eTX and Enarpee) has expanded rapidly in the last 8 months to a team of 24 personnel. This includes the management team in London, together with development and testing teams across Europe, Asia and Australia. USA resource has also been recruited to support the level of interest in their services in North, Central and Latin America. To learn about MCP’s product suite and to read their company information click here: MCP_PR_Final_170215

BBC Children in Need break text donation record with Harvest Media UK and Fonix

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Fonix’s mobile billing and campaign management platforms provided audiences with the opportunity to donate and interact via mobile. The 2014 campaign delivered a record ‘on the night total’ for BBC Children in Need, with over £5m generated over text.

“We are delighted with the record breaking results” said Susan Johnston, Director of Operations and Finance, BBC Children in Need.  “We had a very collaborative relationship with Harvest and Fonix who embraced our desire to innovate and optimize both donation levels and gift aid conversion. Working collaboratively with suppliers in this fragmented mobile ecosystem is essential”

Data-driven CRM and mobile marketing mechanics allowed BBC Children in Need to provide consumers with a tailored experience, resulting in over a third of users declaring their eligibility for Gift Aid.

Rob Weisz, CEO of Fonix Mobile commented, “The 2014 Children in Need campaign was a huge success which we were delighted to be a part of.  We understand the importance of engaging donation mechanics with high conversion of gift aid declarations, something we continue to optimize. We worked on solutions that focused on specific objectives and were thrilled with the results achieved”.

Edward Boddington, CEO of Harvest added, “ Since we started working with BBC Children in Need in 2011, the charity has always strived to innovate.  Using mobile text short codes for charity telethons is a high growth area as it allows charities to keep 100% of whatever the donor texts, in this case £5 and £10 price points.”

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Fonix Mobile is the UK’s leading mobile messaging, mobile payments and interactive services business.   For more information, please email hello@fonix.com

Harvest Media is the UK’s leading provider of participation media services and is the preferred partner for many large media companies in the industry. For more information, please visit www.hmg.tv

The BBC Children in Need Appeal is a charity registered in England and Wales (802052) and Scotland (SC039557) whose aim is to make a positive change to the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK. For further information about BBC Children in Need, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/Pudsey