Give beleaguered General Motors a few points. Its all-American Chevy brand had a major presence at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. In March, the 2011 Chevy Volt electric car and Chevy Cruze sedan were front and center at the Austin, Texas–based confab of cool as the brand tapped mobile media to bond with the tech-savvy, early-adopter attendees. SXSW took place March 11 to 20, its interactive track March 12 to 15.

Challenge: As a super sponsor of SXSW, Chevy used the event as a showcase for the Volt and the Cruze and test bed for mobile marketing. That neither vehicle was available presented a challenge for Chevy. “We recognized that to be effective with a digital, social media audience you can’t just go in and put a logo all over something. That’s not engaging and it wasn’t an automotive event,” said Christopher Barger, General Motors’ director of global social media, in an interview with eMarketer May 20.

Chevy wanted to build awareness among attendees for both the vehicles before the major marketing pushes began, but it didn’t necessarily see SXSW a near-term lead-generating opportunity. It decided to offer experiences that would inspire attendees to associate the brand with cutting-edge cool. (Read more…)

While the buzz in 2009 was all about social networks as a function of the Web, in 2010, marketers’ attention will focus increasingly on the ways social networks are becoming the medium for communicating on mobile devices. Video is likely to play a key role as well, as mobile users are “socializing” video from their devices to a far greater extent than they are watching it.

I wrote about this phenomenon and other key trends in mobile marketing in my latest iMedia Connection column, which went live today. Following is a clip from the full article:

Consolidation among mobile ad networks is clearly lining up to be a major theme in the year ahead. Even so, achieving scale in display advertising on mobile devices is just one piece in a much larger puzzle — that of using mobile to showcase full-blown marketing and commerce experiences.

Marketers often talk glowingly about mobile’s flexibility and how effective it is at activating other media. However, mobile has traditionally been a less effective vehicle than other media for end-to-end consumer experiences. In order for mobile to reach mass adoption among marketers, the medium has to develop beyond its core strengths in communication and messaging.

Fortunately, startup activity is rife across many keys areas of the mobile sector, and the next 12 to 18 months should see many of the missing pieces fall into place. The continued fusion of mobile and social and the appetite for apps (among both consumers and brands) will facilitate more involved marketing experiences. In fact, location- and social-aware apps and utilities will be a key avenue for brands looking to engage consumers on the go.

Mobile advertising will likewise grow more sophisticated, with improved targeting capabilities and richer, more engaging options across multiple channels, from apps to browsers to SMS. Augmented reality (AR) seems destined to generate more ink than activity or revenue in 2010, given the limited number of mobile handsets that support it, but AR is worth keeping an eye on nonetheless because of what it portends for the future of mobile marketing. It represents an innovative way of creating a virtual overlay to the physical world by combining and maximizing on-board device features (e.g., camera, GPS, accelerometer, broadband connectivity).

With the rise in mobile broadband access and the proliferation of multimedia smartphones, video viewing (and consequently, video advertising) is set to become a more integral part of the mobile experience. Paid content models such as iTunes will continue to expand to mobile devices, but the growth in mobile web and application usage will also create opportunities for marketers to engage with viewers in both professional and user-generated video content.

The article takes a detailed look at different segments in the mobile marketing space and profiles a number of companies to watch, so be sure to read through to the end to get the complete picture.