• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 16, 2012

Taking a play out of his old Interactive Advertising Bureau playbook, Mobile Marketing Association CEO Greg Stuart this morning announced an ambitious initiative to research the role that mobile media plays in the marketing mix. The initiative, dubbed SMoX.me, stands for Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness, and is modeled after XMOS, or Cross Media Optimization Studies that were funded by the IAB’s members.

The initiative, which is being unveiled by Stuart today at the MMA’s Mobile CEO & CMO Summit in the Dominican Republic, has secured more than $1 million in initial funding to conduct research that will prove the “ROI” of mobile in marketing mixes.

The MMA said an RFP, or request-for-proposal, has been sent to research organizations interested in conducting the studies and that a consortium of companies would be involved in the selection process, which is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2012. The selection process will also determine which brand marketers’ campaigns would be used as the basis of the research.

The IAB’s XMOS studies were conducted exclusively by Marketing Evolution, whose founder Rex Briggs co-authored a book -- “What Sticks” -- with Stuart based on the culmination of the research, which was funded by IAB members.