LAS VEGAS-Evangelize the opportunity in mobile marketing-why the dearth of advertisements on your handset as you checked the scores in the NCAA finals? But when you take the plunge, adhere to established codes of conduct. The brave new world is opt-in only.
These were the two messages that emerged from the Mobile Marketing Association session last week. The first, obviously, is in the blood of marketers and Louis Gump, vice president for mobile at The Weather Channel. Indeed, Gump prowled the stage, exhorting his audience-a substantial proportion of who belong to the MMA-to take advantage of maturing, mobile tools to capture this new slice of brands’ marketing “spend.”
“There’s a very clean business case,” Gump said. “It’s very clear we’re talking about significant revenues today.”
Though the U.S. market counts 200 million wireless subscribers-80 percent who own phones with data capabilities and 60 percent who use phones for more than voice services-consumers’ experiences with mobile marketing efforts are minimal, perhaps as low as 3 percent of subscribers, according to Gump. Ah, work to be done!
The evangelical element to this message was underscored by Sara Fay, chief executive officer of Isobar U.S., an advertising agency specializing in digital marketing services, who suggested that mobile marketing is capable of transforming lives. Both she and Gump resorted to inspirational quotes from diverse sources such as John F. Kennedy, Theodore Roosevelt, Bill Cosby and Sandra Day O’Connor in an attempt to impart to their willing audience a sense that mobile marketers are embarking on a wondrous quest.
The second message that Gump and his fellow presenters hammered on-either by advance arrangement or by mutual recognition-is more subtle and far-reaching: the opt-in world is a straight-and-narrow tunnel to reach the sunlit world of mobile marketing’s vast potential.
The mobile marketing channel leads directly to the end-user’s device, which touches on subscribers’ privacy. Violate that privacy and ye shall be cast from the garden-individually and, the evangelists intoned, collectively.
One virtually unspoken, underlying issue to all this: the tension between the network operators and the marketers and their branded content providers, the “publishers,” in one speaker’s parlance. Carriers view subscribers as their own property and, rightly haunted by churn, they will not tolerate marketing that offends their subscribers’ sense of privacy. Not to mention that the carriers are keen to share in the revenue stream that will accompany mobile advertising-an issue under discussion now and yet to be resolved.
Gump-who, not incidentally, is global chairman of the MMA and was the lead-off speaker-promised “many different outcomes,” if “we do it right.” Thus the session echoed the recent news that the MMA had revised its “consumer best practices” guidelines that proscribes unsolicited marketing; opt-in is king.
“If we make a mistake in not following our own guidelines,” Gump said with careful emphasis, “we will fail.”
With interoperability, common addressing schemes, premium billing and a cross-carrier code of conduct all in place, the main technical obstacles to mobile marketing have been surmounted, Gump said. “We have a clear path to do some really cool things.”
What were the drivers for those cool things, he asked his audience. The answers came back: “clients are asking for it,” “revenue,” “driving subscriptions” and “building brands.”
Fay, Isobar’s CEO, offered a mix of inspiration, humor and pragmatism in echoing Gump’s themes. She flashed an image of a high-tech pen that NASA had spent millions of dollars developing so astronauts could write in extreme conditions such as weightlessness. The next slide revealed that the then-Soviet Union had sent its cosmonauts aloft with … pencils. “Keep it simple,” she suggested. “SMS is still king. You can use SMS to promote brands and build community.”
She cited the example of NASCAR, which has used messaging to reach mobile-device-equipped fans in the race stands overwhelmed by the volume of the roaring cars that drown out announcers.
And the word to all on the exciting prospects of using video for mobile marketing efforts?
“Wait. Hold on. It’s still coming,” said Thomas Burgess, CEO of Third Screen Media. Mobile video has low penetration, its current service quality is low and handsets are costly for a price-conscious public.
