Mobile Marketing Blog by InMovil Media

New Research from InsightExpress Identifies Three Mobile Behavioral Profiles. According to new research from InsightExpress, a leading provider of digital marketing research, mobile consumers can be segmented into three new and distinct behavioral profiles: Mobile Pioneers, Mobile Wannabes and Mobile Traditionalists. This research, the third installment from the company’s ongoing mobile research program, indicates that when it comes to usage, two ends of the mobile spectrum exist.

Internet, unique applications, and/or video. The majority of Mobile Pioneers are under 35 years old, one third of them have a smartphone*, and they skew male, single and minority. The Mobile Wannabe (25 percent of the market) has tried some advanced features and would like to use them more. Less than half are under 35, and only 5 percent own a smartphone. The Mobile Traditionalists (60 percent of the market) are content to use their mobiles for phone calls and texting, and two thirds of them are over 35 years old.

Which behaviors separate the Pioneers from the rest of the pack? Almost two thirds (62 percent) had sent a text message to someone in the same room, compared to 39 percent of Wannabes and 26 percent of Traditionalists. A healthy 57 percent of Pioneers had taken a picture of a product using their phone and sent it to someone to get an opinion, compared to 30 percent of Wannabes and 16 percent of Traditionalists.

While the Pioneers set the trends, the Wannabes popularize them, making these individuals particularly interesting to marketers. This group is likely a barometer of future usage trends that will be adopted on a wider scale. For example, while 79 percent of Pioneers had taught someone else how to use their mobile phone features, Wannabes were not far behind with 65 percent having done so.

Staying ahead of the mobile curve can also be dangerous. Mobile Pioneers were most likely to have walked into something or someone while using their device, and most likely to have thrown their mobile phone at someone or something. Luckily, all three profiles stated that they had added ICE (In Case of Emergency) to their phone’s contact list (35 percent of Pioneers, 25 percent of Wannabes and 22 percent of Traditionalists).

Advertisers should be interested in Pioneers and Wannabes because these groups are more likely to agree that:

• Most advertising is relevant to them
• They believe that products that are advertised are a lot better than ones that are not advertised at all
• Advertising keeps them up-to-date on products they would like to have
• They have told someone about an advertisement they liked

“Knowing which type of mobile consumer you are contacting, or want to contact, is a big piece of the mobile marketing puzzle,” said Joy Liuzzo, Director of Mobile Research at InsightExpress. “The Wannabes are especially fascinating since they are eager to learn about and use advanced features. With this research, we continue to drive the conversation about current usage profiles and where mobile behavior is headed.”

About The Research

InsightExpress fielded an online survey to 1,516 mobile device owners age 18+ in January 2008. The survey data has a margin of error of between 3-6 percent, assuming a 95 percent confidence interval.

* Defined as Blackberry or smartphone (iPhone, Treo, etc).

If you want to know how we can help your company to reach for “Mobile Pioneers and Wannabes”, please Contact Us.

Anyone who doubts how important mobile phones are and will become as a platform and marketing medium needs only to look at the latest Pew Internet & American Life report. Cellphones are now more important to US adults than the internet, television, landline phones, and email. In addition, an increasing number of consumers are using their mobile phones for things other than voice communications, including accessing mobile internet content.

Pew conducted a telephone survey of 2,054 US adults in December, 2007 (500 were reached on their cellphones) and found the following:

Pew segments the data by race, age, and, in some cases, income. Among younger uses, as one might expect, the trends become even more pronounced:

18-29 year olds: Ever done (%) Typical day (%)

Send or receive text messages 85 60
Take a picture 82 31
Play a game 47 16
Send or receive email 28 10
Access the internet 31 14
Record a video 34 6
Play music 38 16
Send or receive instant messages 26 9
Get a map or directions to another location 18 6
Watch video 19 6

Just a day earlier, comScore reported that the number of users who access the Internet through mobile broadband connections (predominantly using a PC) had grown by 154 percent in a year. Currently, roughly 1 percent of the US online population uses mobile broadband to get online but those numbers should increase dramatically as the mobile infrastructure continues to develop — and more people use 3G mobile networks on their cellphones for internet access.

Do you want more information about how we can help your company to use mobile marketing  and mobile internet to connect to your customers please contact us.

To help brands and marketers identify key market trends, mobile subscriber usage patterns, and success metrics for mobile marketing in Western Europe, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced the results of its inaugural Mobile Attitude and Usage Study for five markets in Western Europe. The study surveyed 1,535 participants in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain and provides actionable insights into the region’s consumer mobile usage by demographic group and awareness. The report also identifies usage of mobile phone features and services, and interest in and concerns about specific applications.

The study’s key findings include:

One in ten mobile users in the Western European markets is highly interested in mobile marketing and another three in ten indicate moderate interest. This level of interest translates into an overall growth opportunity for mobile marketing.

Italian and Spanish consumers are most interested in mobile marketing. Over half of all users in Italy and Spain are at least moderately interested in mobile marketing and similar proportions express potential to opt-in.

2-way text messaging is the most important mobile feature across all age groups. The ability to send and receive SMS was at the top of the list for all age groups except teens, for whom it ranks second to camera functionality. Across the Western European markets surveyed, seven in ten have experience with text messaging, with the most text-savvy consumers in Italy and Spain. Over half of all users surveyed use SMS at least weekly and 37% are daily users. Daily use is most common among 13 – 24 year olds.

Western European consumers poised for an increase in mobile marketing. 15% of all consumers surveyed have had some experience with mobile marketing. Mobile phones are almost universal and most phones are equipped to receive mobile messages. More than half use text messaging at least weekly and 7 in 10 are familiar with the technology.

Interactive voting, receiving ads and product/service information are the most common applications of mobile marketing. 18 – 34 year olds have the highest rate of participation in mobile marketing efforts. However, age is not strongly predictive; interest levels are similar across ages 13 – 54.

Across all regions surveyed, mobile coupons, status alerts about accounts/purchases and special sales have greatest appeal. Over half the users have increased data usage to some extent in the past year vs. slightly under half reporting an increase in voice usage.

“This study confirms that mobile users in Western Europe already appreciate mobile marketing and have a desire to opt in to receive relevant product and services,” said Richard Saggers, MMA EMEA Chairman and Head of Mobile Advertising, Vodafone Global Services. “These results indicate Italy and Spain are significantly advanced users of mobile, and already have the most experience with mobile marketing and are therefore more likely to participate. At least 60% in all age categories surveyed have experience with text messaging, indicating a big opportunity for marketers.”

“Western Europe represents a significant opportunity for mobile marketers. One in three consumers surveyed indicated that their mobile phone is highly important to them and they are very dependent on it. With consumers acknowledging their mobile is always on them, brands need to begin integrating mobile into their marketing campaigns ASAP. Clearly, mobile is proving its potential value as a marketing tool,” said Laura Marriott, President of the MMA.

Contact us, to see how we can help your business take advantage of this opportunity.

Marketers hail the mobile phone as advertising’s promised land

Illustration by Claudio Munoz

ADVERTISING on mobile phones is a tiny business. Last year spending on mobile ads was $871m worldwide according to Informa Telecoms & Media, a research firm, compared with $24 billion spent on internet advertising and $450 billion spent on all advertising. But marketing wizards are beginning to talk about it with the sort of hyperbole they normally reserve for products they are paid to sell. It is destined, some say, to supplant not only internet advertising, the latest fad, but also television, radio, print and billboards, the four traditional pillars of the business.

At the moment, most mobile advertising takes the form of text messages. But telecoms firms are also beginning to deliver ads to handsets alongside video clips, web pages, and music and game downloads, through mobiles that are nifty enough to permit such things. Informa forecasts that annual expenditure will reach $11.4 billion by 2011. Other analysts predict the market will be as big as $20 billion by then.

The 2.5 billion mobile phones around the world can potentially reach a much bigger audience than the planet’s billion or so personal computers. The number of mobile phones in use is also growing much faster than the number of computers, especially in poorer countries. Better yet, most people carry their mobile with them everywhere—something that cannot be said of television or computers.

Yet the biggest selling point of mobile ads is what marketing types call “relevance”. Advertisers believe that about half of all traditional advertising does not reach the right audience. Less effort (and money) is wasted with online advertising: half of it is sold on a “pay-per-click” basis, which means advertisers pay only when consumers click on an ad. But mobile advertising through text messages is the most focused: if marketers use mobile firms’ profiles of their customers cleverly enough, they can tailor their advertisements to match each subscriber’s habits.

In September Blyk, a new mobile operator, launched a service in Britain that aims to do just that. It offers subscribers 217 free text messages and 43 free minutes of voice calls per month as long as they agree to receive six advertisements by text message every day. To sign up for the service, customers must fill out a questionnaire about their hobbies and habits. So advertisers can target their messages very precisely. “Britain is the largest, but also the trickiest European ad market, so if it works here it will work everywhere,” says Pekka Ala-Pietila, chief executive and one of the founders of Blyk.

Last year America’s Virgin Mobile tried something similar with its “Sugar Mama” programme, which offers subscribers the choice between receiving an ad via text message or viewing a 45-second advertisement when browsing the internet in exchange for one free minute of talk time. Those who spend five minutes filling out a questionnaire online get five more minutes. Sugar Mama is proving popular: at the end of August Ultramercial, the company that manages the scheme, reported that Virgin Mobile had given away more than 10m free minutes.

Vodafone, a big mobile operator based in Britain, sees mobile advertising as a potentially lucrative source of additional income. For the time being, most of the ads on its network are still text messages, although it has begun displaying ads on Vodafone live!, its mobile internet homepage, through which subscribers access the internet and download videos and music. Vodafone is also running several pilots, says Richard Saggers, the head of its mobile advertising unit, in which subscribers receive free content in exchange for viewing ads. Earlier this year, subscribers in Britain were given the option of downloading footage from “Big Brother”, a reality-TV show, in exchange for viewing a promotional video clip. The firm has also offered free video games punctuated with ads to customers in Greece, and free text messages to Czech students who agree to accept ads in the same format.

Most mobile advertising strategies now rely on text messages, since few customers have taken to more elaborate services that allow them to download music, games and videos and to surf the web. Only 12% of subscribers in America and western Europe used their mobiles to access the internet at the end of 2006. Most people think mobile screens are too small for watching TV programmes or playing games, although newer models, such as Apple’s iPhone, boast bigger and brighter screens.

That is not the only problem. While consumers are used to ads on television and radio, they consider their mobiles a more personal device. A flood of advertising might offend its audience, and thus undermine its own value. Tolerance of advertising also differs from one market to another. In the Middle East, for example, unsolicited text messages are quite common, and do not prompt many complaints. But subscribers might not prove so open-minded in Europe or America.

Another hitch, says Nicky Walton-Flynn of Informa, is that operators have lots of databases with information about their clients’ habits that would be of great interest to advertisers. But privacy laws may prevent them from sharing it. Moreover, advertisers, operators and middlemen have not agreed a common format for this information, nor worked out how to share the revenue it might yield.

Some think these obstacles will confine mobile advertising to a niche for years to come. But others see a whole new world of possibilities, as more people use their phones to access the internet and consumers grow used to the intrusion. Mobile phones, some of which are now equipped with satellite-positioning technology, could be used to alert people to the charms of stores or restaurants they are walking or driving past.

Tying ads to online searches from mobile phones is another potential goldmine. A subscriber typing in “pizza” for instance, could receive ads for nearby pizza parlours along with his generic search results. Such a customer, mobile operators hope, is likely to be more grateful than annoyed by the intrusion. What could be more relevant than that?

Source: The Economist, Oct 4th 2007