Mobile Advertising Still Annoying? All Advertising Is Annoying.

Forrester Researchthis week revealed that many forms of mobile advertising are annoying to most people. In a Brandweek article, Elena Malykhina writes, “Although consumers are eager to get content on mobile devices, they find mobile ads aggravating. Sixty-five percent of consumers surveyed by Forrester said they were the most annoyed when an ad appeared while a Web page was loading. Fifty-seven percent found ads appearing alongside maps to be annoying, and 56% were annoyed by banner ads. Placing an ad before a mobile video clip or a videogame were the least irritating for consumers.”

I have heard advertising professionals point again and again to surveys that say as much — that consumers don’t want advertising on their mobile phones. Well guess what? I don’t want advertising on my TV, online, in the mail, on the radio, etc., but I still get it. It’s ALL ANNOYING, and mobile shouldn’t be singled out as a pariah.

What many advertising professionals and most consumers don’t understand is that mobile marketing and advertising is never going to be you getting a solicitation from a telemarketer. Nor will you ever get any type of ad popping up without your explicit permission as a direct opt in, or your implicit permission by getting content of some sort for free or heavily subsidized. Sponsored news text alerts. Banner ads just as you would see online. Search. Mobile TV, sort of like you’d see on cable or broadcast.

Consumers, many advertising professionals and perhaps the research industry need to be educated about what mobile advertising is and what it is not before it will grow exponentially.

 

MOBILE MARKETING DIRECTORY — NOW AVAILABLE

TO ORDER NOW, CLICK HERE http://markbeccue.wordpress.com/order-form/

Mobile Marketing is an umbrella term for a wide variety of marketing and advertising forms related to mobile phones. From text message applications to pre and post roll video, there are a dizzying amount of options a marketer can choose from, and more than 110 vendors in North America alone selling services and solutions. Those companies are morphing and new ones are entering the fray every week.Advertisers, ad agencies and brand managers need to understand the playing field and the options so they can choose the solution or solutions that fit their needs. You could spend months of valuable time and resources learning the basics of mobile marketing and identifying the right vendors, but now there is a cheaper, more efficient way to get there — the Mobile Marketing Directory by Mark Beccue Consulting. The Mobile Marketing Directory is the logical, economical place to start — a single source profiling more than 110 vendors broken down into easy to understand categories.The 2Q 2008 edition includes profiles on 116 vendor companies, including providers of:
–Text Applications
– Mobile Ad Networks
– Message Aggregation
– Mobile Website Development
– Downloadable Applications, Widgets
– Mobile Search
– Mobile Coupons, 2D Barcodes
– Agency Services
– Mobile Video
– Content Developers
– Mobile communities/Mobile Social Networks
– Mobile Payment/Commerce/Retail Solutions

Each vendor company profile contains website and contact information, an executive summary including expert analysis of the vendor’s strengths and weaknesses, description of capabilities, known mobile marketing customers, relevant news related to the vendor and business and pricing model.The directory is written and developed by Mark Beccue, who has more than 11 years experience of business analysis within the mobile industry.The Mobile Marketing Directory is available now.

For more information, go to the Mobile Marketing Directory page or contact MBC at mb@markbeccue.com.

TO ORDER TODAY, CLICK HERE http://markbeccue.wordpress.com/order-form/

 

Ad:Tech NY — Is Mobile Marketing Key to Engagement, McCann’s New Marketing?

I attended Ad:Tech New York conference this week to gauge the ad industry’s attitude on mobile marketing and came away encouraged. Throughout the sessions I sensed both a hunger for knowledge about mobile marketing and a continued lack of understanding of the options and opportunities available to marketers.

More importantly, there were encouraging signs that the ad industry is ready to take some risks to move past old ways of thinking towards new, more intimate models of marketing. In a session Wednesday called “Tracking the Elusive Consumer: Designing Media Engagement to Drive Performance and ROI”, Dr. William Cook of the Advertising Research Foundation and Sandy Eubank of OMD presented the latest findings of a study that suggests that advertising with high measurements in engagement (gut feelings a consumer has about the ad, brand or media vehicle) result in higher sales and higher advertising ROI. My own unscientific theory is that interactive marketing vehicles, such a mobile marketing, lend themselves to higher engagement scores. I asked Dr. Cook if he thought I was right. He said that it could be, but they had not tested it.

Universal McCann CEO Nick Brien spoke Tuesday about “New Marketing”, not “New Media”, where brands enhance experiences and personalities. In his view, the more participatory the consumer is with the brand, the better.

 

@CTIA: Marketing The Mobile Channel — The U.S. Market Today

Last Monday, October 22, 100+ attended “Marketing – The Mobile Channel”, a full day mini conference held in conjunction in San Francisco with CTIA Wireless IT, the biggest mobile content conference and exhibit in the U.S. With a star-studded (in mobile marketing, at least) line up of speakers, the conference served as an unofficial State of the Union on mobile marketing in the U.S.

My take was this — while mass acceptance is not there yet, the potential of mobile marketing in the U.S. is massive. There continues to be a lot of marketers and ad agencies standing on the sidelines complaining about the lack of mass and unwilling to experiment in the space, particularly in seeing mobile marketing’s vast potential as an interactive marketing tool.

Keynote speaker David S. Evans, founder of Market Platform Dynamics and author of Catalyst Code: The Secrets Behind the World’s Most Dynamic Companies, theorized that mobile marketing would not succeed until a market catalyst, like Microsoft or Google or a carrier, made a play in a big way. Later during a panel discussion, John Hadl, CEO of Brand In Hand said CMOs want to buy significantly large audiences and don’t care about the high percentage of response. He used a great analogy that brand marketers see mobile marketing like California Gold Rush — there are lots of vendors who can sell you picks and shovels for digging gold and ways to carry the gold, but there’s no one you can pay to just buy the gold from.

With all due respect, I think their view is distorted — mobile marketing in its various forms will be best used for customer relationship management, given its ability to be highly interactive and ubiquitous. Old school marketing has always been about pushing marketing messages through various media. They know this approach is not overly affective in a modern society that has learned how to tune out the noise, but continue to cling to it because it’s easy and what they know. Pull marketing is more valuable. Mobile marketing gives marketers the opportunity to interact with audiences in a way that is only rivaled by online, and mobile marketing trumps online in that it can be fantastically ubiquitous — Americans ALWAYS have their mobile phones. With a subscriber’s permission, marketers can communicate with their audiences anytime, anywhere.

 

My Worst Nightmare — Verizon OneBill

The convenience of disparate services all on one bill? It does NOT work. Potentially as inept in dealing with each other as intra-governmental efforts, the various Verizon companies have laid a big fat egg with OneBill.

My billing started in January. I made a mistake and sent the online payment $238.61, to Verizon Wireless instead of OneBill. I called Verizon Wireless and Onebill, and VZW sent me a refund while I sent the total amount, $238.61, to OneBill. It is now the last week of August and my OneBill is still showing a past due amount of $238.61. I even got a notice last week that my service will be turned off August 30. This is after phone calls in March, May, June, July and today to a laundry list of IVR distributed people within OneBill, Wireless, and Landline. They all point fingers at each other. There have been at least three tickets opened. There have been promises up followup and that the issue will be solved. It has taken up a good 2-3 hours of my time and most likely is affecting my credit rating.

So the idea behind one bill is to provide more convenience to me as a customer. Sound that way to you?

The various entities within Verzion cannot work with each other to solve this relatively simple matter. Do you want to subject yourself or even worse, your company to something like this?

Until they can prove otherwise, just keep separate bills, folks.

 

A 2-WAY DIALOG: CAN MOBILE TRANSFORM CAMPAIGN 2008?

Editorial Note: Chris Rock is not running for President as far as I know, though maybe he should. This example is purely fictional.

You are inching along on your morning commute and you notice a campaign billboard:

“Chris Rock For President. Why Not? www.chrisrockforprez.com, text CROCK (27625)”

Phone handy, you text the number and a minute later you receive a text message from Chris. “Hello citizen. What do U want from your prez? Reply with keyword ‘DOIT’ to tell me via poll. Other text stuff learn more @ website thanks Chris.”

So you reply and receive another text message from Chris (in 160 characters or less): “Which of the following issues is most important to you? Choose a for Iraq, b for Medicare, c for energy crisis, d for bad haircuts or e for other”. You’re hot about the impending national hair crisis so you reply with one keystroke and receive a message (in 160 characters or less) from Chris: “I’m thinking I’ll push 2 shave everyone’s head bald. Would you like to tell me how I should approach this issue?”. Sure you do, so you reply again with one keystroke, receive another message (160 characters or less): “Here are some alternative approaches to bad hair. Which do you like best? If other, text ‘f’ . You reply again with one keystroke and get a final message:. “Thanks for your input man. It’s been real! OK if we continue to discuss stuff periodically thru the campaign? Well sure! Why not?

It could happen like that this campaign season. The front running democrats, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, have announced they would incorporate text messaging into their marketing mix. Political campaigns and advocacy groups have always given lip service to the idea of listening to the people, but it’s nearly impossible to listen largely across vast audiences. The mobile phone can change that. More ubiquitous than PCs and severely handy, mobile phones mean communication anytime, anywhere.

There are so many creative ways mobile phones could be used. Text messaging options include alerts, polls, interactive TV (ala American Idol), interactive live rallies. Inbed a URL into a text message and if the consumer has a data plan with their carrier, they can click on the URL and the phone will immediately open a mobile internet page (called WAP, but who cares?). Other mobile internet and mobile TV capabilities exist as well, though market acceptance of those technologies are smaller than text and not as interactive.

But mobile marketing never happens as a stand alone strategy. It must be part of a comprehensive marketing mix. Why?

Consumers have rights, and the wireless carriers are tireless guardians of your right not to be spammed. All mobile communications that are not person to person (me texting you, me calling you) are opt-in only. The rules are also very strict about the ease of opting out. If you’ve had enough, you simply text “stop” or “quit” or “end”, and it’s over, no questions asked.

There are challenges. There are many components to the mobile marketing ecosystem, including content application providers, connectivity aggregators and the wireless carriers – which means dependencies are a key factor in managing a program. The best place to start is the U.S. mobile industry’s website for Common Short Codes – www.usshortcodes.com . There, you can lease a short code and review potential application and aggregator vendors. Common Short Codes, like “CROCK” could become as common an element of a marketing mix as a URL. That’s true of any brand marketing interested in interactivity, not just political campaigns.

 

Ad Agencies Must Be Mobile Marketers, Or Else

There is an interesting story in today’s Advertising Age http://adage.com/article?article_id=115171 . According to Ad Age, in a Forrester Research study to released today, brand marketers were asked if they would recommend their agency to others.  Apparently only 21% of those surveyed would. 

So Ad Age asks appropriately, “How can agencies remain central marketing partners in an age of increased specialization driven by an increasingly digital media environment?”

I think there are two things ad agencies must do — 1) change their business model so they aren’t dependent on selling TV media and 2) become digital marketing experts.

Two years ago, I presented text messaging capabilities to the president of a mid-sized agency who said she found the concept intriguing, but she didn’t see how to adequately monitize the offering.  Media markup is a flawed business model for agencies, as it doesn’t adequately assign value to the agencies’ work and expertise.  I think you will see more agencies look for greater compensation for the content they create (creative) and for the consulting expertise they may bring to the table. 

This plays into point two, becoming digital marketing experts.  Through the conversations I’ve had with brand managers and through the body of work evident especially in the mobile marketing arena, most brand managers have completely bypassed their ad agencies to produce mobile marketing initiatives.  These brand managers have developed into the most comprehensive, objective experts on mobile marketing by default.  But it’s a lot of work — mobile marketing, with the possibilities of mobile search, banner ads, text campaigns, social networking mobilzed, etc. makes for a lot to keep up with.  Savvy ad agencies will step up to become expert advisers to their brands and get paid to do it.

 

Mark Beccue Consulting featured in Tampa Tribune

The following article, “Consult This — You Gotta Sell Yourself”http://www.tbo.com/news/money/MGBCKGHBIXE.html , appeared in the January 29 edition of the Tampa Tribune business section. I am quoted a few times in regard to helping consulting companies map out their strategic direction.   

 

Profitable Growth Comes From Asking Hard Questions

“Know thyself”, Plato’s famous quote of self-examination is not only the core action of personal growth, but must be applied when companies look to grow as well.  That means being honest about your company’s strengths and weaknesses.  It may mean letting go of a coveted market vertical to pursue one that suits you better.  It may mean ignoring the shiny new “build it and they will come” idea you have to devote your efforts to the boring upgrade work a current product needs.  It may mean plunging into the uncomfortable space outside of your current expertise.  It may mean sacrificing short term, low risk profit for long term positioning.    On top of all that painful self examination, growth planning takes precious time and resources away from urgent day to day work, it requires reflective time with various individuals within an organization – usually the people who have the most work already on their plate. Yet assuredly the time and effort you take in growth planning will pay major dividends.  If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.  I believe the core of growth planning is a laser-like focus on value proposition.  Every successful product or service provides a unique value proposition to those who buy the product or service.  That value proposition could be superior feature functionality, customer support or value for price.  Work on your unique value proposition and watch your product and your company grow. But it all starts with honest self-examination.  Know thyself.

 

Creative Text Messaging Campaigns Key to Mobile Marketing

By Mark Beccue

WAP and MMS, Mobile Internet, banner ads and embedded product placement in mobile games are all buzz words currently associated with Mobile Marketing.  Wow, it’s all so fancy and whiz-bang!   Yet let us not forget the humble text message, possibly the most powerful tool in mobile marketing.   For those brands and agencies looking into mobile marketing in the
U.S., make sure you understand the actual number of consumers you can reach today and in the near future with various mobile data applications.  In this sense, whiz-bang (WAP, MMS, mobile internet) gets whupped by text messaging.   

To get to real numbers, consider handset/device capability and consumer uptake of mobile data applications.   In regards to handset/device capability, more than 90% of all mobile phones in the
U.S. today are text-capable, or roughly 186 million of an estimated 207 million total subscribers (http://www.ctia.org/research_statistics/statistics/index.cfm/AID/10202) .  Approximately 60% of
U.S. mobile phones are Internet-capable.  A smaller percentage of mobile phones are MMS capable.  Winner – text messaging. 

As far as consumer uptake of mobile data applications, Telephia (http://www.telephia.com/documents/CVMPressReleaseQ42005FINAL4.5.06.pdf) reports that 41% of
U.S. mobile subscribers were using text messaging at the end of 2005.  Comparatively, 22% of
U.S. mobile subscribers paid for mobile web access and 13% for MMS services at the end of 2005. So strictly applying these percentages, a mobile marketers’ addressable market in the
U.S. would be 84.8 million consumers for text messaging, 45.5 million for mobile internet and 26.9 for MMS.  However, both the mobile internet and MMS numbers are skewed.  The mobile internet users number includes mobile email devices, like Blackberry and Treo, and is not reflective of the true number of mobile subscribers who browse the mobile internet.  Telephia again provides an estimate for that, reporting that 34.6 million subscribers actively use mobile internet http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20060814005539&ndmHsc=v2*A1155564000000*B1155592166000*DgroupByIndustry*J1*N1000001&newsLang=en&beanID=1802668732&viewID=news_view  . Telephia reports that Yahoo email is the most visited site, with MSN Hotmail also in the top 5.  When it comes to MMS, the traffic reported is almost entirely person-to-person messaging (sending photos, etc.).  The wireless industry is working to establish procedures and acceptance to enable Mobile Marketing MMS.   

So addressable market of consumers for mobile marketing applications looks something like this – n       Text, 84.8 million subscribersn       Mobile Internet (sans email), 34.6 million subscribersn       MMS, potentially 26.9 million (today this number reflects primarily person to person picture messaging) The mobile internet and MMS numbers will grow, but it doesn’t appear that text messaging is done expanding either.  For the next few years, the winner is text messaging. 

So it doesn’t look as sexy, so what?  Making text messaging applications work in marketing will take a new mindset for advertisers; unlike the more familiar internet methods used for MMS and mobile internet applications. This is where the creative marketing minds for America’s brands and ad agencies will make the
U.S. market the biggest mobile marketing market in the world.  The creatives need to explore the multitude of text applications available to them.  A sampling – interactive TV, voting, polling, quizzes, sweepstakes, push alerts, callbacks, embedded URLs, location based services, intelligent interaction (ongoing CRM), sponsored flirt and chat, prescription reminders, bank account balance check, appointment scheduling. Marketers need to educate themselves about text applications and vendors out there that can help them tap into the 84+ million Americans already predisposed to text messaging.