• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 2, 2008

A television and print advertising campaign dubbed "OK" showcased at CTIA Wireless 2008 and kicked off the trade show Tuesday with CTIA Chairman and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam highlighting the ads.

The 60-second spot opens with a cowboy sitting on a horse in the middle of a field talking on a mobile phone. It transitions to a twenty-something male stuck on the side of the road, smoke pouring out from under the hood of his car.

The visuals quickly go through several scenarios as an announcer says: "You wanted it to work out here. You wanted it to work right now. You wanted free weekends and free hands. You wanted it to do more and cost less. You wanted your email and your text messages. You wanted high speed and GPS. You wanted videos and MP3s. Your favorite Web sites. Your favorite colors. ... And tomorrow you'll want even more. OK." The end text reads: "Your wireless companies. Ready for whatever America wants next."

Companies came together to create the awareness campaign, but the industry stands at a crossroads and must work together to "prevent being made into a 21st-century version of a regulated telephone company," McAdam says. "This is a clear and present danger if public policy leaders interfere with a customer-driven marketplace and if our industry gives them a reason to. We need to make sure there's no need for regulation."

The industry needs to listen more closely to consumers and respond quickly, otherwise "we get uninvited potential intrusion by regulators," McAdam said, suggesting that the wireless industry remains the only economic growth engine in the United States. In the worst-case scenario, he explains, 50 sets of rules would emerge from 50 states--and going backward is "dangerous and dumb," creating less competition and choice and higher prices.

The mood switched from economic stimulus to discussing the CTIA wireless survey--numbers that reflect a bright spot for the industry. Steve Largent, CTIA president and CEO, took the stage to rattle off numbers from the survey released today showing that the U.S. subscriber rate jumped to 255 million, up 22 million from the year-ago period. Consumers now use more than 2 trillion voice minutes annually. Wireless data service revenue for 2007 rose to more than $23 billion, up 53% from the prior year.

When Virgin Group founder and Chairman Sir Richard Branson took the stage, it wasn't clear whether his description of a new Mars expedition with Google was fake or real, considering that details followed an update on Virgin Galactic, a real Virgin company aimed at taking passengers into outer space.

The project called Virgle--the first planetary colony on Mars--would include animals, humans and plant life, Branson says. Asking for volunteers to take the one-way trip, more than 50 CTIA attendees jumped from their seats and headed to the stage. "Last night at dinner I was saying to my friends, 'I want to be a pioneer'," Maggie Mosteller, senior director of marketing at Visage Mobile, told Marketing Daily after returning to her seat. "I would go. My uncle John Young is an astronaut."

Nearly the last keynote speaker for the morning, Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Robert Bach told conference attendees they must stop thinking about Microsoft Windows Mobile as just an operating system--announcing Windows Mobile 6.1, the next generation of the mobile operating system scheduled to ship during the next few months.

Enhancements to the mobile platform make it easier to pan and zoom through Web pages and access the Web from the phone. The plan is to add desktop-browsing quality this year--features typically seen in Internet Explorer 6 for new smart phones. Microsoft will add technologies found in IE 6, such as Adobe Flash, H. 264 video and Silverlight.