PHILADELPHIA, PA - LONDON, UK & LOS ANGELES, CA (Live 8 and Mobilium Group/ www.live8live.com) - Live 8, the international musical superconcert aimed at building massive global awareness on the eve of the G8 meeting of the leaders of the world's eight largest economic powers, has announced that it will simulcast the world's biggest call to action in the form of an outreach worldwide and to an expected two billion global TV viewers to text message (SMS) their footprint and voice to the march to make poverty history.
The SMS service is being coordinated globally by Ralph Simon, whose Los Angeles and London-based Mobilium Group has assembled a team of mobile messaging experts to craft and execute what is hoped to become the world's largest-ever SMS messaging campaign. Simon, who currently serves as chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) in the USA, has been drafted in to provide the global mobile layer to all of the Live 8 events taking place on July 2nd in Philadelphia, London, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Toronto and Johannesburg.
Popularly known as one of the founders of the modern ring tone business in the USA, Simon has a close working relationship with Sir Bob Geldof and Bono of U2, as well as Live 8 executive producer Tim Sexton of the Sexton Company, Beverly Hills, CA, and New York. They are leading a team as the primary drivers of the global campaign to influence the heads of state attending the forthcoming G8 Summit in Scotland on July 6th, and help reduce global poverty in Africa and the underdeveloped world. In an unprecedented display of international cohesion, Geldof and Bono have marked the 20th anniversary of the original Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia by assembling what is probably the greatest aggregation of global superstars and artists in free concerts in eight cities on July 2nd.
The complexity and collaboration for a project of this magnitude calls for the best brains in the mobile entertainment business, bringing together USA Wireless, Minick AG Europe and Starcut, of Helsinki, to build the messaging and delivery platform that will create this unique "call to action" with a target of 20 million text messages urging TV viewers and mobile users worldwide to add their mobile footprint to the march on poverty and their impact to the eight world leaders assembled at Gleneagles, Scotland, on July 6th.
It is expected that this unprecedented text messaging drive will establish a new world record for the most SMS messages ever sent in a single day around one global event. The current world record is believed to be 1.8 million text messages sent in Germany.
It is not surprising that mobile messaging should be a central theme of the call to action. This week, Nokia, the world's leading cellphone brand with its eagerly anticipated N-series handsets, announced it has become one of Live 8's primary sponsors in a deal that was assembled by Simon and Helsinki's Starcut Group.
Here's how it works: the eight Live 8 free concerts will bring together more than two million people in person on Saturday, July 2, 2005, as well as an estimated television audience of two billion in 130 countries and major network TV exposure on ABC in the US. This unprecedented broadcast will be among the widest ever telecast, with viewership rivaling the Olympics, Academy Awards and the World Cup soccer finals.
TV viewers around the world will receive on-screen messages throughout the television broadcast to text message (SMS) their support of the Live 8 cause through typing the words "Live 8" into their cellphone keypad. Each cellphone user can have their voice of support seen on the tickertape of names running as a backdrop to the live events in each city.
"We don't think that the world leaders can ignore either two billion people being exposed to our message nor, more importantly, a possible 20 million constituents actively text messaging their demand to end world hunger to their respective governments," said Ralph Simon, President & CEO of Mobilium Group, which arranged for this worldwide effort in concert with Sir Bob Geldof, Bono and the global committee for Live 8.
Simon is generally regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on mobile entertainment and has been active in the mobile entertainment space for the past seven years. Prior to that he had a successful career co-founding the pioneering Zomba group of companies and its Jive Records label, and in the past two years has guided and advised the mobile strategy for major entertainment and content companies and select artists, including U2 and Justin Timberlake.
He is also credited with coining the new science of "Mociology" (the sociology of mobile lifestyles) and "mocio-economics" (the underlying economics that drives the fast emergence of mobile entertainment revenues and economics). For more information on Live 8, please visit www.live8live.com. For more information on the Mobilium Group, please visit www.mobilium.com.
