Why enter the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards?

The Global Mobile Awards is the most highly sought after awards in the global communications industry. Established in 1996, the Awards attract entries from across the world and are judged by a panel of independent, highly respected experts. They are presented at the Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s annual gathering of around 60,000 senior industry leaders, executives, media, analysts and influencers.

Winning a Global Mobile Award brings with it many benefits, including:

Competitive differentiation – an Award win helps to differentiate products and services in intensely competitive global and domestic markets.
Increased awareness amongst sales prospects – the Awards ceremonies are attended by dozens of C-suite executives from all the major mobile operators, vendors, app developers, content providers and executives from a host of converging industries
Global media coverage – winners are promoted by key on-line and print media partners around the world.
A unique promotional platform – The awards are promoted to thousands of media representatives both pre, during and post the Mobile World Congress
Global recognition for local projects – the Awards shine a spotlight on best practice in markets around the world, drawing attention to innovative applications and services
Recognition of excellence – for employees, investors, customers and partners. The awards provide unique recognition of leadership and recognition at the single most important event for the industry.

Here’s what some of our previous winners say….

The Green Mobile Award – Flexenclosure for E-site, featuring Chioma Opara, Regional Sales Director, West Africa.

Most Innovative Mobile App – SwiftKey’s , featuring co-founder and CTO Dr Ben Medlock

Best Mobile Innovation for Automotive, Transport or Utilities - Ford MotorCompany Ltd. for Ford SYNC with Emergency Assistance

Why did you enter the Global Mobile Awards?

Ford was attending MWC for the first time and was keen to be viewed not just as a well-established automotive company but also for as an innovative leader in technology. Entering the GSMA gave us the perfect platform to demonstrate SYNC with Emergency Assistance and position us credibly within the technology space at this event. Emergency Assistance has won a number of awards in the US and we hope to replicate this in Europe and felt the GSMA offered Ford a great opportunity to do just that.

How do you think your entry stood out?

Ford SYNC with Emergency Assistance itself is incredible and always seems to get people talking when they hear about it. The product stands out because it is an innovative and unique piece of technology. Ford has received numerous communications from customers and emergency call centres telling Ford about their appreciation of the system. There is no more rewarding feedback than receiving words of gratitude for developing a system that has helped save people’s lives. Now that we have launched in Europe, we aim to have this installed in over 2 million vehicles in Europe by 2015.

What advice would you offer to other entrants?

Provide well put together content to bring your entry to life, compel others to feel your passion with emotive video, stills and testimonials. Bring in passionate spokespeople who really know the product and can confidently demonstrate its assets.
Reflect in your entry the themes of your stand at MWC – what are people excited about? What are they talking about at MWC? What is getting consumers and media alike fired up?

What benefits has your company had since winning?

It is certainly an a useful award to be shouting about, especially as we now roll out the Ford B-MAX, which will be kitted out with Ford SYNC with Emergency Assistance. – Jay Ward, Senior Manager, Ford of Europe Technology Communications.

Best Customer Care & CRM – Airtel Africa and Tango Telecom for Tango Telecom’s ‘Dynamic Pricing Service’

“Tango Telecom was very proud to win this very prestigious Global Mobile Award. The recognition endorses our commitment to bringing highly innovative and advanced solutions to the market. Winning has increased our global visibility, opened doors to sales leads and provides a serious ongoing endorsement of our company and solutions to the marketplace.” – Rory O’Toole, CMO & EVP Alliances, Tango Telecom.

Green Mobile Award for Best Green Product/Service or Performance – Bharti Infratel for GreenTowers P7 Project

The GSMA Annual Mobile Awards are akin to the ‘Oscars’ for the Telecom Community. Winning the ’2011 Green Mobile Award’ is not just a validation of Bharti Infratel’s commitment towards Green Telecom, resonating to our clients and the external world, but also a catalyst for the team to take on more such bold initiatives. Infratel has today expanded its green footprint to a record 7500+ sites and is now also working with its partners to develop and trial additional innovative models like wind power. – Devender Singh Rawat, CEO, Bharti Infratel Limited

Best Technology Breakthrough – Seven Networks for SEVEN Open Channel

“The GSMA Awards recognize the best of the best in mobile worldwide and to be chosen as the technology breakthrough winner raised the profile of SEVEN as an innovator for the next generation of mobile technology. This recognition gave the company visibility and credibility on a global scale, generating interest from industry key players as well as immediately opening new business opportunities.” – Ross Bott, CEO, SEVEN Networks

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Solution – Antenna for Antenna Mobility Platform (AMP)

“It was a great honor to accept the award for Best Mobile Enterprise Solution for Antenna at the GSMA awards this year. The award recognizes the Antenna Mobility Platform (AMP) as the market’s leading solution for cross-device mobile apps and websites. But most importantly, it shows how our customers and partners have embraced mobile and are driving innovation, empowering employees and customers through the mobile channel. Our profile has been raised in the global community through this prestigious award and we look forward to participating in the event again in 2012.” – Jim Hemmer, President & CEO, Antenna

Best Mobile Advertising & Marketing Campaign – Mobilera – Outeractive for Unilever Cornetto Multiplayer Interactive Wall Projection Mapping Game

This prestigious award highlighted our commitment to innovation and extensive solutions. Since the project was a major achievement and a “first–of- its-kind” in the world; many brands, telecom operators and media clearly stated that it pushed the limits of creativity in the mobile marketing industry.

Winning the “Best Mobile Advertising & Marketing” award created a huge social media buzz. The best practice video of the project was featured on some of the most recognized blogs such as The Next Web, Mobiadnews. Hence we constantly receive invitations from many international events to share our story. It also was a testament for us to be listed amongst “The top ten mobile marketing agencies”, as pointed out by digital marketing experts of mobiThinking.com.

GSMA Global Mobile Awards are the “Oscars” of our industry and they bring all the winner agencies and brands up to another level of recognition. Although this was our first ever year of participation to the GSMA Global Mobile Awards, we are proud to become shortlisted with both of our projects amongst 6 finalists.(where the other one was “Kraft & Vodafone Turkey – Deal or No Deal”)

We keep enjoying the benefits of this prestigious award and still receive new interests from various clients from all over the world, to create such innovative projects for them.

We would like to thank Unilever and their marketing & brand building team for giving us this opportunity to make such a digitally holistic & innovative project come true.
- Arda Kertmelioğlu, Co-founder & VP Marketing, Mobilera Holding BV

Best Product, Initiative or Service for Underserved Segment – BBC World Service Trust for BBC Janala

“We were thrilled to win the Underserved Segment award for BBC Janala – such recognition from the industry helps makes the case for what we see as the great potential mobile phones have to provide information to poor people.

Beyond Bangladesh, we continue to work with GSMA and mobile operators on some of the most innovative uses of technology in the developing world today.”
Caroline Nursey, Executive Director, BBC World Service Trust

Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked Service – Vodafone Group, Safaricom, Vodacom, Vodafone Essar Limited and Roshan Ltd for M-PESA

“Mobile money continues to be an extremely fast moving growth industry and our strategy of “Power to You” and placing customers first, was paramount in our decision to focus on the unbanked communities. For Vodafone’s M-PESA service to be selected by the GSMA Global Mobile Awards as the leading mobile money service for the unbanked is a high accolade indeed and has been a huge boost for our employees, partners, customers and supporters.” – Greg Reeve, Head of Mobile Payment Solutions, Vodafone Group

Smart Phone Tier Winner – Frogtek for TiendaTek

“We couldn’t believe our luck when we learned about the Best Smartphone App distinction that the mWomen program awarded Frogtek last 2010. The Global Mobile Award has helped us tremendously as we seek partners to roll out our Tiendatek application, as we could benefit from the prestige and credibility of the GSMA in this space.
Also, the GSMA staff have continued to reach out about new follow-on opportunities. This is one of the best things that have happened at Frogtek.
– David del Ser – Founder & CEO, Frogtek