Snipp Interactive enters Mexican mobile marketing market via strategic partnership

Mobile marketing services provider Snipp Interactive (CVE:SPN) unveiled Wednesday an agreement with VirKet S.A. to offer its "Mobilize Me" technology platform in Mexico in the Spanish language.

"VirKet is a marketing leader in Mexico with an impressive client list, and demonstrated ability to take advantage of emerging technology and marketing trends," said CEO of Snipp, Erik Hallstrom.

"This is a key relationship for Snipp as we continue to expand our international market footprint."

Under the strategic partnership agreement, Snipp will license its platform and provide mobile marketing services with VirKet in the Mexican market - on a exclusive basis.

VirKet, a Mexican provider of digital marketing services, will correspondingly use Snipp as its exclusive provider of mobile marketing technology.

Snipp's “Mobilize Me” platform supports several input mechanisms for mobilizing marketing campaigns for companies, including text message, QR codes, Microsoft tags and Snapp tags.

The platform then delivers a variety of content experiences to customers as part of sales tactics, including SMS, mobile web pages to collect data, emails, mobile videos, audio, sweepstakes, coupons, and ringtones, among others.

Already, without any dedicated full time sales resources, the business, which was established in 2007, has provided its services to several Fortune 500 companies and other major brands, advertising agencies and publishers, including Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), ESPN, Time Inc, Ford (NYSE:F), Nike (NYSE:NKE), Wendy's (NASDAQ:WEN) and Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB).

The initial term of the deal with VirKet will be for one year, with an option for VirKet to extend for a second year and a right-of-first refusal for an extended exclusive license beyond the initial two-year term - all subject to reaching certain business performance targets.

Under the deal, VirKet will also commit to making investments required to launch Snipp's "Mobilize Me" platform in the Mexican market, while Snipp has granted VirKet up to 3.33 million warrants to purchase company shares.

The warrants are exercisable at a price of 22 Canadian cents per share and vesting will be subject to VirKet achieving certain agreed business performance targets, Snipp said.

The two parties have also agreed that VirKet will provide Snipp with its expertise and services for search engine optimization.

This agreement makes Snipp’s mobile marketing technology available for implementation and interaction throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico.

"With Snipp's mobile marketing platform, we can effectively merge the offline and online marketing solutions we build for our clients across a range of industries in Mexico including some of the leading retail, consumer and publishing brands in the country," said CEO of VirKet, Pedro Quinzaños Cancino.

"More and more clients in Mexico are looking for mobile solutions.  Snipp’s scalable technology is ideal to support our growth and we really like the dynamic ideas and solutions they can quickly bring to market."

Washington, D.C.-based Snipp generates revenue by designing, constructing, implementing and managing mobile marketing services for its customers. The company also has international operations in Canada, Mexico and India.