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The Next Mobile Marketing Wave is Hiding in Plain Sight

Posted by Randy Haldeman on November 10, 2008 at 01:50 PM PDT

The numbers are starting to add up. More than 250 million mobile phones are deployed in the United States. Mobile usage is growing at healthy rates. SMS usage is growing as well. More marketers are beginning to use text messaging technology as a channel, particularly when trying to reach the tech-savvy, trend-spreader crowd from the ages of 17-35.

In fact, the cell phone is such a vital piece of our lives that I’d be stunned if any of you didn't double-check that you had yours before leaving for the office this morning.

Marketers are rushing into mobile. They’re trying to get ads on WAP sites, and they’ve hopped on the SMS advertising wagon in a big way. But these approaches consider the mobile phone simply an extension of the Internet. Or, to put it another way, they see the phone as the next generation of computing, rather than communications. In fact, it’s both, isn’t it?

That’s why I think the next huge marketing wave is hiding in plain sight. People do use their phones to access the Web and to connect with friends through SMS text messaging. But they also use them to talk to people. An effective marketing campaign needs to take both of these mobile phone utilities into consideration - to marry them.

In the mobile world, SMS advertising has broad ubiquity but low richness of media. WAP sites have low ubiquity and medium richness, while voice has 100% ubiquity and very high richness of messaging capabilities.

The upside to this market is one in which voice and visual (text) technologies converge with geography and demographics. Let me explain.

A consumer uses his mobile phone to call for movie tickets and asks for show times for a new action flick from Paramount Pictures starring Dustin Hoffman. Before those times are delivered, the studio places an 8-10-second ad for another action film, starring Al Pacino, coming out next month, and asks it he wants a text-message reminder shortly before its release. That’s demographic targeting.

Another consumer calls in and hears an ad offering a coupon for a local restaurant two blocks from the theater they choose. The coupon is sent via SMS to the phone. That’s geographic targeting.

Ads delivered through the ear are arguably the most intimate and personal of all ad forms. Voice ads get five to 10 times higher click-through rates than banner or keyword ads; and thus, deliver compelling ROIs. In fact, a recent SMS reminder campaign delivered a 133% uplift in the number of callers asking for the movie advertised, as compared to those that didn’t hear the campaign.

Cell phone use is high and people are actively using both the voice and visual aspects of their phones. This is where rising demand meets the killer app. And it’s all hiding in plain sight.