Brands To Employ More Mobile Advertising
By Mike Baker
Enpocket President and CEO
Smart phones are all the rage, and as the mobile Internet becomes easier to navigate, brands want to capitalize on the opportunity, and rightfully so. The mobile handset is a highly personal – and personalized device – that goes with a consumer almost everywhere, almost all the time, and as long as brands do it the right way, they can drive loyalty and education among consumers.
For mobile to break out and fulfill its potential, we need not only cool handsets, but also widespread broadband adoption, all-you-can-eat-data plans (flat pricing that doesn’t inhibit usage), and useful mobile Internet services. The last item is the least obvious: what’s required is a business model to fund innovation of thousands of services (like the Internet). This is what’s most missing in mobile today.
Ad dollars will come, and with them great services, when advertisers learn how to meaningfully engage consumers on the personal device. Next-generation mobile devices will result in more engaging content but will need an ad-supported business model to create incentives for both entrepreneurs and “big media” to create more useful and fun mobile services.
Thankfully, the advent in the mobile Internet and next-gen devices will make mobile advertising experiences more enticing for the consumer. We’ve seen in our work with a number of leading brands that customers want mobile experiences as good as – if not better than – the experiences they pay for on the mobile Internet.
Brands will employ more mobile advertising mechanics that engage with customers and also get their message across. Below, I’ve included some of the mechanics I believe will be more common due to next-generation mobile devices.
MMS-to-Web
MMS-to-Web allows brands to offer a value-added service to their customers by letting users upload pictures and/or video to a Web site, taking advantage of the camera capability of the mobile handset. This mechanic is ideal for blogs, competitions and self-retail sites like eBay and Craig’s List.
Picture Recognition
Ideal for brand-sponsored contests, Picture Recognition allows users to take a picture with their mobile handset of a logo or other item and send it to a short code or e-mail address that responds on the basis of the picture identified.
QR Codes
QR Codes are printed ‘dot matrix’ codes users can snap or hold their camera over (in newspapers, magazines, posters etc) to get taken automatically to a mobile Internet site, saving customers the time of searching for your brand on their mobile handset.
Mobile Web Site
Smart phones are all the rage, and as the mobile Internet becomes easier to navigate, brands want to take capitalize on the opportunity and allow consumers to interact with them anywhere, anytime. Mobile Web sites, or WAP sites, are the mobile equivalent of an online Internet site that users can click through to from a banner ad or connect to via a URL or QR Code.
Mobile Video Ad
Just like on the traditional Internet, the mobile Internet is capable of showing customers a video advertisement of your brand before or after the content they desire, whether that be mobile TV or downloads, encouraging the customer to find out more about a product or service or simply view brand-sponsored content, increasing brand affinity.
Click-to-Video
Click-to-Video puts a brand’s content in the hands of customers easily by letting them click to receive streaming video on their phone; or click to have video downloaded to their phone. Brands can education customers about their products or simply run sponsored content to increase a customer’s loyalty to the brand.
Web-to-Phone
With Web-to-Phone, brands can make sure their information goes with customers wherever they are. Users on the PC Web enter their phone number, handset model (if required), and any other information to have requested content sent to their phone. Brands can send customers their store locations and phone numbers or information about sales or new products.
Next-generation handsets will make it easier for brands to interact with their customers anywhere, anytime with capabilities that combine the ease of use and comprehension of the traditional Internet with the convenience and portability of the mobile phone. They will also make mobile content uptake increase, and with an ad-supported business model, this uptake will be even faster.
Mike joined Enpocket in 2004 from GrandBanks Capital. Prior to that, Mike was Executive Vice President at Engage Technologies, Inc. after working at CMGI. Mike began his career as a corporate attorney in Washington, DC.
-- Guest Blogger
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