Getting the Message Across
Posted On: 2007-02-22
Way back in August 2005 in another online publication I wrote about mobile phone - or cell phone - marketing. I wasn't talking about selling the actual phones but selling other products to consumers using their mobile phones.
At that time a number of companies were running trials in Britain where people in some areas were contacted via their mobile phones and offered the opportunity to view some advertising about certain products. Land Rover was one company and they were pushing out text messages to people waiting in the first class lounge at Heathrow Airport offering to show them images and details of their latest production model.
A record company was sending text messages to commuters using several stations on the London Underground offering them the chance to hear the latest recording from a pop group and there were other instances where this form of marketing was being trialed in Britain too. Surprisingly the number of people who were prepared to look at the advertising that was offered was quite high.
In fact the take up figure - the number of people who agreed to see the advertising - was higher than any other form of marketing that some of those companies were using. I guess it shouldn't have been all that surprising really because mobile phone marketing was already proving to be quite a hit in other parts of Europe.
At the same time as those tests were being run in Britain a few tests - on a much smaller scale - were being run in the United States. However the take up in the US was much less. Back then the lack of take up was attributed more to the scale of the tests and a number of features unique to the United States cell phone market but there was really no doubt that cell phone marketing was something just waiting to happen and now it is.
Yahoo! has signed up some of the big names including Pepsi, Proctor and Gamble, Hilton and others and they're about to launch their advertising in a number of countries around the world. With big names like those involved in this there is little doubt that cell phone marketing is here to stay and many in advertising are very excited about it because it gives them a real chance to point their advertising at very targeted audiences.
How do they hit targeted audiences via their cell phones? Well this is advertising that can be brought down to a very local level. The advertising for Land Rover hit the cell phones of those who were located in a very defined area and one that was only used by the socio-economic group who were likely to buy the Land Rover Product.
The same applied to the recording company advertising and both they and Land Rover could achieve that narrow focus by using transmitters with a small output that would limit the range within which the initial advertising could be received. But that was two years ago; today the technology may be able to refine the reach of the advertising message even more.
For example it may be possible to identify and 'target' Blackberry users because they would be part of a much more affluent group than say the users of a $100 cheapie. When you can refine the focus to that extent you're hitting a very targeted group and when you do that you will always get a much higher take up rate for your advertising.
I'm not sure that back in 2005 that form of marketing really had a defining name applied to it but these days you can find out more by searching for Push technology and Push marketing. Some people are already suggesting that it's the last thing a consumer would want to see but that seems not to be the case.
Even though some may find it intrusive it seems that many more do not. While Push marketing is yet to hit cell phones in the United States it is being used in places like Second Life where you would think it could be the kiss of death for whatever product is being sold. However, I've seen it in use there and the examples I've seen could hardly be described as overly intrusive and it is being used so it must be working there.
And there really is no reason why it won't work in the real world just so long as it's not pushed down our throats wherever we go. And there's no reason why it won't work for adult products either.
Remember this can be something that can be so focused it only reaches people in a single room so why can't we be using it for our products? If the venue was right you could possibly use it for just about any adult product including products like adult sites and sex toys. If the venue was not quite so 'right' then you could use it for something like dating.
Does it still sound all too unlikely a form of marketing for our products? Well consider this, the price of a transmitter is quite low and the technology the transmitter would use to broadcast its message is quite simple.
So you could get some cheap and very targeted marketing with a potentially high take up. What more could you ask for?