New Mobile Researcher Up and Running on 3 Continents

Former TNS exec James Fergusson has launched a mobile and digital insights agency, Mobile Digital Indaba (MDI), based in Melbourne, Australia and already with offices in Singapore and Cape Town, South Africa.

Clive Little will lead the firm's operations in Asia, and Kirsty Smit in Africa.

The firm boasts a big data analytics capability and a mobile app which works on feature phones as well as smartphones, allowing clients 'to engage with all consumers across emerging and developed markets' - the firm says this represents a key advantage for emerging markets, over survey systems which only work on smartphones. App features include quant surveys, qualitative chat, image capture, passive measurement and geo-fencing.

MDI, which urges clients to 'Embrace mobile - don't flirt with it', says it is also building mobile access communities and proprietary customer mobile communities for engaging with customers 'in the moment'.

CEO Fergusson says the MR industry has been 'slow to react to mobile - as a result failing to meet client needs and failing to interact with consumers in a meaningful and engaging manner', and believes that mobile 'challenges the validity and essence of much of the theory and practice underpinning consumer insights.'

Web site: www.mdindaba.com .