The technology is in place but, as Julia Fields reports, ad agencies remain sceptical about reaching customers through their phones
Peel back the sticker on a packet of McDonald’s twisty fries; watch the Orange Wednesdays previews in almost any cinema in the country; or click onto the website of a major beer brand and chances are a special promotion will be inviting you to text in and receive a free wallpaper, branded ringtone or two-for-one tickets. The UK’s largest consumer and entertainment conglomerates have been testing the marketing possibilities of the British preoccupation with being constantly connected to their mobile phones for close to three years now – surpassing their American cousins in terms of advertising ingenuity.
Scotland, in particular, has become a breeding ground for the leading-edge technology used in mobile campaigns.
But while the UK may be a year ahead of the US, the medium has recently hit a wall. Beyond consumer goods multi nationals and entertainment companies, mobile marketing has failed to register as a mainstream advertising channel. Statistics are scarce, but most observers agree that the medium accounts for less than 2% of total UK advertising spend. Only 18% of UK advertising agencies use mobile communications.
Martin Copus, whose mobile marketing company 12snap is based in Munich and London and has devised British campaigns for McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Metro news paper and Tango, says: “We’re there technically and in terms of creativity but I don’t think the marketing industry appreciates what it can do”.
“We have yet to see mobile established as one of the main media that a media planner would automatically put on their schedule for a campaign. The mobile will have arrived when that starts happening.”
Vivienne Maclaren, account director at Dowcarter inter active advertising agency in Edinburgh, says that less than 5% of the firm’s clients in Scotland and England incorporate the medium into their campaigns. Dowcarter, whose clients include HBOS, Aberdeen Asset Management and ScottishPower, explains that mobile marketing faces the same cynicism that dogged online advertising for years, and in some boardrooms, still does.
Maclaren explains: “Mobile marketing is a bit of an unknown at the moment. It’s about raising awareness of what mobile can do.”
Wireless Innovation, a Scottish Enterprise-backed agency to boost the growth of companies developing mobile products, recently brought Scottish technology providers, advertising and media firms together for that purpose.
With more than 50% of phones in the UK capable of downloading photo content and the advent of 3G networks, new possibilities beyond text messaging are opening up, such as cartoon and video messaging. But Maclaren says technology firms often fail to show how innovations translate into sales or, for example, convince someone to switch energy providers. Edinburgh-based Mobiqa, which attended the conference, says it is easy to measure campaigns’ effectiveness. It recently used its mobile bar code ticketing to drive sales for three different companies through the same marketing campaign in Australia.
The Metro Theatre, one of Sydney’s most popular live music venues, wanted a system where concert goers could order tickets by phone and internet and have them delivered in the form of a scannable bar code to their mobiles within minutes, eliminating the need for paper tickets. At a recent concert by punk/grunge group Grinspoon, 52% of tickets were delivered in this way. The Mobi-tickets were also redeemable as coupons at the bar, boosting sales of one drinks brand by 42%. More than 35% of concert goers also visited their HMV store later to use their Mobi-ticket to order the Grinspoon CD and get a free baseball cap.
Despite the obvious economic advantages, Mobiqa founder Ronnie Woods says UK companies have been slow to jump on the mobile bandwagon. While Mobiqa has worked with Orange, O2, Miller and Coors over here, much more of its business is now done overseas with distributors in India, Israel and the Philippines. Woods believes the UK will catch on as it sees more higher profile campaigns.
Copus is determined to continue to deliver on that front by breaking into the motor and financial services industries. “In the motoring world, there’s major opportunities for timely communication with potential car buyers or existing customers. It could be promotions for new car launches or alerts to tell you your car is ready for service,” he says.
“In the financial services sector, banks and building societies are running promotions for their products all the time. They should be using mobile marketing to send messages while customers are in the city centre and able to act then and there.”
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