MARCH 21, 2007, How hated is the thought of mobile marketing?
In theory, very hated.
Most people (90%) say that they are not at all interested in getting ads on their mobile phones, according to Harris Interactive.
eMarketer Subscribers receive 70+ reports per year and have access to 40,000+ articles and charts. Learn More About Subscriptions
In theory, that leaves less than 10% of users as an audience for mobile marketing.
In practice, the audience is much larger. As with any medium, once mobile ads are associated with something of value, user interest shoots up. If incentives are involved, it shoots up considerably.
Think about the Internet a decade ago. There was still some debate as to whether companies should be on the Web at all — would corporate influence stifle the free flow of ideas on the fresh new medium? Once companies did move online, consumers were initially reluctant to give out personal information. It took incentives and opt-in agreements to overcome their hesitance.
Right now, mobile is the only interactive medium where the typical user pays for both the cost of network access and the content it delivers. Mobile operators and content providers are finding that besides early adopters and enthusiasts, it is tough to find buyers for paid mobile music downloads, let alone video and games.
Introducing mobile advertising into the revenue mix changes the picture. Many users say that they would be willing to receive mobile marketing in exchange for incentives, so offering free applications, subsidized airtime or other goodies makes sense.
Over a third of adult mobile phone users say that they are willing to accept incentive-based advertisements. Of these, 78% say the best incentive would be cash. Other incentives that resonate include free minutes, free entertainment downloads and discount coupons.
As for ad formats, over half (56%) of those who are at least somewhat interested in receiving ads on their cellphones say they would prefer to receive them as text messages, while 40% would like to receive them as picture messages. Less than a quarter of adults would choose to receive them as videos, while others would have them sent as e-mail, voice mail or something else.
eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spending in the US will reach $4.8 billion by 2011, up from $421 million in 2006.
eMarketer senior analyst and mobile specialist John du Pre Gauntt says that current mobile business models practically beg for an infusion of ad dollars.
"Despite the best efforts to convince people otherwise, there is no mobility 'premium,'" says Mr. Gauntt. "Over time, the justification for charging a 100%-300% markup on a piece of content or service simply because it is delivered over a radio channel will not wash when the same content is available online to be synched with a handset."
Get a global perspective on mobile marketing. Read eMarketer's Mobile Marketing and Advertising report.
1 comment:
This is a great post. I think Mobile advertising a very interesting concept, but at the moment phone LCD screens are so small that it's hard to get a meaningful amount of advertising space on their without taking up the whole screen. I think a lot of customers (though definitely not all) would probably pay an extra $5 or $10 a month to get rid of anyadvertising from cell phone service, but then maybe if providers gave free contract minutes to users who were prepared to receive some targeted ads, there might be a more positive response.
In either case, I'm sure Yahoo, Google and Microsoft will all be very eager to gain some of the advertising revenue associated with cell phone advertising. I wouldn't be surprised to see a big deal go through with one of the cell phone networks in the near future.
We've just started up a blog for our new site at http://www.repeaterstore.com/news/ - it's all about cell phone repeaters, which are a new type of device that amplify and repeat cell phone signals. They're pretty useful for anyone who has cell phone reception problems in their home or office, or who needs a better connection for their Cingular, Verizon or Sprint broadband data card (the new 3G broadband services need really strong signals to work well).
Since you do some posts on new technologies and gadgets, I thought that some of our blogs posts might make for an interesting read. Our latest post is about why you may not have heard of repeaters before, check it out at
http://www.repeaterstore.com/news/why-don%e2%80%99t-the-cell-networks-offer-cell-phone-repeaters
Anycase, good luck with your blog, I'll certainly be reading! If you have any questions about cell phone repeaters, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I actually also own a cell phone unlocking site at http://www.cell-unlock.com, so if you ever need a phone unlocked feel free to contact me. My e-mail address is sina@repeaterstore.com
Best Regards,
Sina.
Post a Comment