In Rudy Da Waele’s recent post on M-Trends about Mobile and Wireless trends for 2007, he listed some interesting predictions. Some I agree with, some I don’t. But I wanted to add a slightly different viewpoint on the matter by posting my Mobile and Wireless Marketing trends for 2007. Since I’m up to my neck in the mobile marketing industry (running Cellit Mobile Marketing), surely I have a nugget or two of wisdom to add.
- Strategic, cautious investment in mobile marketing will occur in ’07. Expect big investments in ’08. As we all know, advertisers are (rightly so) cautious to spend their clients’ money in any new arena. That being said, “mobile” is a key advertising buzzword these days, and advertising execs know that they need to get their feet wet. I expect relatively small (but drastically larger than today’s) budgeting for mobile in 2007. As budgeting is a yearly process, the small experiments next year will lead to larger investments in 2008.
- Shortcode programs will dominate the mobile landscape. Phone photo capture of special bar codes (also called “QR codes”) will not catch on. QR codes offer no benefit over texting a keyword to a short number, and require the user 1) has a camera phone, and 2) has downloaded special software (that actually runs on the phone…trickier than it sounds!). While QR is a great gimmick, shortcodes will dominate.
- Location-based services will stick with the carriers. While your phone’s GPS receiver will become more and more powerful, don’t expect to walk by an Applebee’s and instantly get texted a coupon anytime soon. Due to technical limitations, carrier rules, and privacy concerns, GPS data will stay with the carriers. Additionally, “Bluetooth blasting” (which would also allow an establishment to send you a coupon when you’re in its vicinity) will also suffer slow growth. Most carriers have been turning off “free association” of Bluetooth by default. Unless your consumer is savvy enough to turn free association on despite the risks of spam and viruses, most consumers will never receive a Bluetooth blast.
- User generated content campaigns will explode. Marketers (rightly so) want to bring the YouTube and MySpace phenomenon to the phone by allowing users to send in camera phone pictures and movies. We are already working with a few household names on campaigns like this, such as a toothpaste company which will have users “text in” a picture of their bright smile. Users love to share, and the camera on the back of their phone is a great way to do it.
- Text and photos will reign supreme, video is a year away. While video is cool, only about 1.5% of Americans are watching videos on their phone. The networks and phones just aren’t there yet. While we are working with some of our clients to get their feet wet with mobile video, they understand that this medium will have limited short-term potential. To hit the most consumers, text and (to a lesser extent) photos will dominate.
- Mobile search will be dominated by the big players. Yahoo! and Google will own the mobile search market. Sorry, 4INFO.
- Smaller advertisers will get in the game. As costs for mobile marketing really aren’t that great (if you have the right partner), you’ll see smaller advertisers making big pushes into the field. These media expenditures will, on a percentage of total marketing budget basis, will be larger than the big A-list advertisers.
- Flat-rate texting will continue to spur adoption. As more and more carriers continue to offer flat rate texting, the psychological barrier to text will slowly disappear. Text messaging in the US has been growing at over 140% a year, and this clip will continue due to this, and continued push by…
- …Television shows will continue to spur text messaging adoption. We’ve already seen it with American Idol, Deal or No Deal, Identity, Extra and countless others. Text messaging (voting and contests, mostly) and television are great complements. The carriers are teaching users how to text message. Expect more tie-ins in 2007.
- Corporations will push text messaging for recruitment efforts. We’re starting to see already. Big banks, grocery stores, restaurants and more see the value of providing information on employment opportunities via text. Expect a lot of this in 2007.
Quite frankly, this industry is moving so fast, I’ll be lucky if 5 of the 10 predictions above are correct. From my vantage point, however, this is the world as I expect it.
To all my readers, I hope you had a fantastic 2006, and I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2007!
Written by David Wachs
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