It may be the dog days of summer but don’t be fooled – back to school is just around the corner! And mid-July was the perfect time for TELUS to officially unveil its new Back-to-School smartphone line-up.

Taking place at the swanky new TELUS building on 25 York Street in Toronto, the exclusive showcase was the perfect opportunity for media to get the scoop on the new devices – all while continuing to educate traditional consumer and lifestyle journalists on TELUS’ growing brand leadership in the smartphone market space.

The secret to the event’s success? Simple. Offer something for everyone. The event was comprised of several exciting components, such as:

• A presentation from Hilen Wong, Marketing Director, TELUS Consumer Solutions, outlining the trends in smartphones on the market today and an over view of the new Back-to-School device line-up. The presentation showcased the hot new line-up of devices exclusive through TELUS this Fall along with existing handsets from the Pink breast cancer campaign.
• The announcement that TELUS is the official national wireless provider for the CFL. As part of a new two-year partnership, TELUS will bring CFL fans live games on the go, stats in real time and highlights through the first-ever Canadian Football League (CFL) mobile app.
• Media mingled with TELUS spokespeople and demo’d the devices through a series of demo bars set-up in the cocktail lounge

And this was set against the aural backdrop of DJ Brendan Canning (of Broken Social Scene fame) spinning some wicked tunes for media to vibe to. With more than 35 journalists in attendance from various Consumer/Marketing/Mommy Blogs media outlets (Media in Canada, MobileSyrup.com, Canwest, CTV, Wee Welcome, MSN Canada, BlogTO, PEACE Magazine and Branchez-Vous to name a few) the event was a stirring success. This includes over 90 articles to date!

Is the Recession Partly Responsible for the Twitter Explosion?

If it seems as though more people are “tweeting” these days, it’s because they are. Twitter currently boasts more than 4.5 million users—70 per cent of which joined in 2008 alone. So what’s driving Twitter’s exponential growth? Some believe the recession has been a main contributor to Twitter’s recent growth with many marketers cutting back on traditional media spending in favour of social media.

In a time when many marketing budgets are being trimmed, Forrester research has found that 53 per cent of marketers plan to increase their social media budget during the recession, while 42 per cent will maintain their spending on social media. Compared to most traditional media, Twitter is inexpensive and many marketers are finding real value in the word-of-mouth generated from the social media site.

Even traditional media organizations have embraced Twitter to market themselves. Of the mainstream media players on Twitter, CNN, The New York Times, and BBC currently have the greatest reach. With marketers and even traditional media outlets themselves adopting Twitter and other social media sites into their marketing plans, one can only wonder if what the impact on traditional media will be. With social media on the upswing, traditional media will likely have to adapt or get left behind.

What was once a dream is now reality.

The ability to push tailored content and market relevant products and services to interested individuals, all happening on screens they take with them everywhere, has finally arrived. The true mobile generation.

Marketing to all of those handsets has advanced some big steps with the introduction of new smartphones and networks upgrading towards 3G. That was 2007.

2008 should see enormous momentum (R word or not) and competition for share of mobile marketing dollars. With a bevy of new devices, software and services to make it all sing, the future looks quite bright for MM.

A future replete with new tools, (and terms) for would be mobile marketers to add to their ever expanding toolboxes.

Disclaimer: LG and Microsoft are clients.