Why your marketing department should seriously be thinking about mobile advertising!

By Patrick Mayoh

Apologies

I was going to conclude my series on the need to have more corporate female leaders in organizations when I was distracted (I believe for the good reason) by interesting and edifying reports about the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas last week end and a very fascinating article I read in the last edition of the Reader’s Digest by management guru Belden Menkus on the “age of discontinuity”.

As a result, I am sorry to say that those of you guys that have been following with keen interest my reasoning on the need for more corporate female leaders will be disappointed as I have chosen to discuss in my post this week, the need for marketing departments or consultancies to seriously consider the possibility of introducing mobile advertising to their portfolio of promotion activities.

The main reason why I have chosen to discuss about this topic is to highlight the ever-fast growing influence of technology especially how it affects the promotion and distribution of product and services. The Consumer Electronics Show reinforced this fact with hundred of futuristic new gadgets that will change the way we do business in the future and mobile advertising our topic for this week is just one of the many ways in which technology continuously revolutionize our business processes and activities.

Now about Mobile Advertising

Reading about the Consumer Electronics Show in my copy of the CITY A.M last Monday I was quite struck by what marketing and advertising guru Martin Sorell C.E.O of WPP declared about traditional advertising strategy processes. In his words he revealed “we used to perform three fundamental tasks: work with our clients to develop strategy, execute the strategy and distribute it. While we still perform these functions we are now far more focused on the application of technology and how we can use to interact with clients and their customers”. Sorell then went on to declare that mobile advertising had become the most important trend in the industry minimizing the traditional roles played by TV advertising and Internet advertising via personal computers. I fully agree with Martin Sorell for the following reasons:

• · The fast growing number of mobile phone users on the planet
• · Cheap internet access on mobile
• · Smarter mobiles

Fast growing number of mobile users

Approximately 4 in 6 people use a phone today on planet earth that is about 4 billion people around the world according to data by the Mc Kinsey Global institute. Sorell estimate that 600 million mobile users have access to internet in china while half a billion can access online contents in India. Those figures are just reflective of the dizzying figures that pertain to mobile phone usage across the market. Actually reaching customers through their mobile phone seems to be even more effective than other traditional means of advertising. Advertisers should take notice!

Cheaper Internet access on mobile

Most major network operators today, usually offer some form of internet access usually through packages that include free minutes, sms and free internet. Virtually all phones are built with the possibility for users to access all major social networks and the cost of going online via a mobile phone is cheaper than other traditional methods. The UK for example contains 2 million free Wi-Fi locations which means many Iphone users for example can directly connect to the Internet without any special subscription. Therefore it is even more likely that a growing proportion of individuals will likely access the internet from their mobile phones than their personal computers or laptop.

Super Mobiles

I was quite amused by the term used in the Economist this week to describe the new generation of phones about to enter the market. One of the sections in the report about the Consumer Electronics Show was actually entitled “from smart phones to super phones”. I believe the last thing you want to do with a phone nowadays is just to make, receive a call or send a text. New phones allow so many more possibilities that laptop or computers are increasingly appearing to be obsolete in. As I earlier said, the challenge of reaching out to people for any advertising message will have to consider the assumption that people spend more time using their mobiles than any other gadgets they possess. I will actually be curious to know the amount of time people spend utilizing their mobile phones as compared to other items. The reason why people actually spend more time with their mobile resides in the fact that those have become smarter and provide the possibility of doing what you would normally do with other gadgets. You can network, play games, work, email process your banking transactions, organize your diary and so much more on your mobile and therefore having other gadgets are not as necessary. The Economist actually noted “Jen-Hsun Huan, the boss of Nvidia which makes chips for smart phones and other devices, claims these will have enough capabilities to make them plausible alternatives to some kind of computers and the first ones could make their debut at next year’s show”; food for thought.

So what

If I was heading a marketing department I would seriously consider the following:

• · Obtaining data about mobile phone users from major mobile network operators
• · Analysing them to identify emerging patterns and
• · Delivering relevant contents to specific mobile phone users

The first move would be to approach major mobile network operators to obtain specific figures about your target groups. Say you are targeting teenager boys for your new video game, the first step would be to contact say Vodafone and possibly obtain figures about mobile phone use (about male teenagers) from their network.

Then you can analyse those data for example to differentiate between those who access Internet through their mobiles from those who do not. Possibly you could look at the website they are most likely to visit when they use their mobiles and possibly contact those companies to discuss the possibility of advertising your products on their webpage say on Facebook for example or YouTube.

You could then finally design your advert to be visually appealing and attractive on mobiles and therefore draw attention from users. You can then monitor the whole process and evaluate for improvement. I hope to do a more detailed article on that.

For now, see you next week, with this time my conclusion on female corporate leadership.