Mobile Marketing Association outlines mobile marketing trends for 2011

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) today announced its top 10 predictions for mobile marketing in the Asia Pacific region.

Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA Asia Pacific, said, ''The global mobile advertising market is expected to grow to $13 to $14 billion in 2011 and Asia Pacific is expected to bring in the majority of this revenue followed by North America and Europe.''

He added that recent industry reports from InMobi and Synovate have revealed that consumers are showing a greater inclination towards receiving mobile advertising and marketing messages.

MMA's top 10 industry predictions for 2011 are:

1.  Personalisation and privacy will increase effectiveness and credibility of the mobile media as a marketing channel: As mobile technology continues to evolve, mobile marketing messages will become increasingly personalised / relevant.
   
   Additionally, the adoption of transparent, permission-based marketing along with the introduction of regulations and applications for blocking unwanted content will help overcome the perception that mobile advertising is nothing but spam.
   
2. Over the top services will drive data usage - On-deck operator ad revenues will be overshadowed by over the top application-based value-added services revenues. These services will help create mobile inventory and enable greater mobile ad spend.
    
3. Free SMS / free video / free phone calls will be available across devices - More applications allowing free SMS and calls from mobile devices will be entering the market. We will also keep seeing an increase in mobile video consumption. The introduction of new ad units, including interactive and partial screen, will subsidise free content. 
   
4. The re-birth of Windows 7 mobile -  the new and relatively strict hardware specifications introduced by Microsoft are geared towards providing a universal user experience much like Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple. The re-birth of the Windows 7 mobile will further fuel the growth of mobile Internet and advertising. 
   
5. New winner in the HTML5 vs Apps war -Though the new HTML offers great opportunities, apps and app stores continue to rule mobile content. However, the fact that apps are device specific and limit penetration offers opportunities for experimentation that might lead to a decline in their popularity over the coming years.
    
6. Location-Based Services (LBS) + Augmented Reality (AR) will be the leading integrated mobile technology in the market - The proliferation of GPS phones with digital compasses has already given rise to a series of location-based AR software platforms and applications. The combination of AR with LBS allows for graphic content related to the position of the user to be overlaid in real-time onto camera images taken by the phone.
   
7. Mobile micro payments will allow customers to pay from their 'electronic wallets' rather than ATM cards - The electronic payment industry is growing rapidly and provides significant opportunities for all electronic payment channels including those on mobile platforms. In developing countries, mobile banking services can address a service gap that is critical to their development.
   
8. The re-emergence of mobile blogging - With the introduction and adoption of tablet devices, the consumers now have greater speed, connectivity and battery life in their mobile devices that allows for editing and upload of content in various formats.
   
9. Continued proliferation of smartphones and mobile Internet advertising - It is expected that by 2011 over 85 per cent of handsets shipped globally will have browser capabilities. The relatively large growth in smartphones combined with their superior user interface will continue to encourage more people to access conventional websites on their mobile handsets. Business-to-consumer applications can be delivered using conventional web tools as well as web adaptation tools.
   
10. Mobiles will jump onto the 3D bandwagon - 3D technology is being incorporated in any and every gadget available in the market today. Manufacturers still have a long way to go in terms of creating a sophisticated 3D mobile device but the market will see a lot more experimentation in 3D phones in the coming year.

For the record, MMA is a global non-profit trade association representing all players in the mobile marketing value chain. Globally headquartered in the United States, it has regional chapters including North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific.