“….The promise of what could be is enormous. At the perfect time when advertisers and agencies are begging for a new medium, mobile marketing represents the web wrapped up in a nice personal package that goes with consumers where ever they go.
Mobile operators that are taking chances are reaping the rewards; the smart, bold and brave advertisers have been testing with the new medium and those who haven’t are beginning to realise that they had better get on it, and quick.
In 2008, the top advertisers have eight-figure budgets allocated to mobile. That’s a lot of money, and a lot of money that could be wasted if not spent wisely.”
Perhaps it is not surprising that the top brands are now seeing the promise of mobile. I witnessed a similar experience back in Australia around 2003 when I was working for leading interactive agency Legion Interactive (now called Be Interactive) when advertisers such as Coke, McDonalds etc were starting to use TXT to win competitions and campaigns to engage with their audience via mobile. Back then, flat rate data tariffs were not even a dream, and SMS was the most effective way for direct response.
Now, brands are starting to get serious, but want to be sure of the experience their money will buy them.
Sidebar: When I was running PropertyLook, a leading commercial property website in Australia, we had a tough time selling even a $200 display advertisement with a picture to sell a $10M building. Fast forward 2 years (and a lot of selling and convincing not just estate agents/realtors but also delivering a better experience to commercial property buyers) and we were finding it much easier to sell the $2000 package of microsite, virtual tour etc.
Lessons learned: get all sides involved. Educate not just the brands, the agencies but also the consumers on the benefits of using the mobile for search etc = more eyeballs. Add better search relevance from companies such as JumpTap and the consumer has a better experience = they keep coming back and you can serve them more (relevant) ads.
Read the full article at http://www.smstextnews.com/2008/02/mwc_the_pinnacle_of_global_mobile_marketing.html
