Mobile marketing, has it crashed and burned?

Does anyone like mobile marketing? That said, does anyone like advertising? Aside from the odd advert that you’d choose to watch anyway – The Cadbury Gorilla and it’s spin offs for example – my friends and I simply tolerate them because they fund the programme.

On Firefox I use Ad Blocker Plus so I don’t even see them on banners – it speeds the download process up no end.

So it’s not really a surprise to any of the friends that have been strawpolled that marketing to your mobile hasn’t taken off in the UK even though the market is saturated.

According to Precision Marketing:

The popularity of mobile marketing has only risen by 9 per cent in that past five years, despite the saturation of mobile phones in the UK, according to a new report.

The research, conducted by G2 Data Dynamics via its panel of 30,000 consumers, reveals only 9 per cent of consumers are more receptive to mobile marketing than they were five years ago.

Despite advances in technology giving marketers more opportunities to target users via their handsets, mobile phone owners still appear resistant to mobile marketing.

The results show that women are mostly more receptive, with 12 per cent agreeing compared to 7 per cent of men who said they were not very receptive to mobile marketing.

G2 Data Dynamics commercial and operations director Alan Thorpe says: “It’s clear that people are still to accept that mobile phones can be used for marketing instead of just communicating with one another. If marketers want to break down this barrier they must ensure their mobile marketing campaigns are based on customer insight into individual preferences to ensure better targeting and reduced consumer annoyance.”

It’s not really rocket science. Marketing is seen by many as an intrusion so get them to sign up for it first. Make adverts have something relevant to the person other than ‘you’re near Starbucks, want a coffee?’ and set them up for Facebook / Twitter first.