Marketing through mobile phones

Beverages giant Coca-cola's recent wireless initiative ' kholega to bolega' to promote its soft drink brand Sprite indicates mobile phone technology's highly effective potential as a marketing device.

According to Venkatesh Kini, VP marketing, Coca-Cola India, recently quoted by xchange4media, independent research reports have shown that of the 230 million mobile phone users in India, the youth are the largest users of pre-paid mobile phones.

Kini went on to describe how young  users looked forward to for free talk time and facilities like mobile downloads of music videos, movie clips, games, wallpapers, ring tones, which became a key insight for the company for its 'Sprite kholega toh bolega' initiative to connect and engage with the youth, using state-of-the-art mobile technology platform.

A  deeper look at this comment would explain a new paradigm in marketing communication - personalised marketing through mobile phones.

Technology - marketing - mobile convergence
The advertising and marketing messages in your mobile phone inbox outnumbers your personal messages. Right from your mobile service providers' commercial offers through contests, downloads, quizzes etc,  fresh arrivals and recent launches in the major lifestyle retail chains you frequent to,  e-tutorials, insurance, credit card or other financial services,   to spiritual courses such as Art of Living  deluge your mobile phone inbox through out the day or even in the wee hours of night sometimes. No wonder companies are vigorously trying to wire you to their products and services through this wireless device.

The truth and logic behind all that is in the post-industrial era, with the emergence of high speed wireless network technologies and the increasing market penetration of mobile phones, the marketing paradigms have been gradually changing from mass marketing to  relationship marketing, market share to customer share.

Communicating and / or sharing commercial content, message or information has also been shifting from analogue or broadcast medium to dialogue-oriented or interactive medium and many-to-many, social networking based communication modes termed as smartmobbing. Technologies enabling such way of communication include the internet, computer-mediated communication such as internet relay chat, and wireless devices like mobile phones and personal digital assistants.

Among all these, mobile marketing seems to be gaining  importance rapidly.  International market research institutes also consider mobile marketing as a highly promising marketing instrument. Leading international brand manufacturers - such as BMW, McDonald's and Nike have already launched campaigns using the mobile phone as a means of conveying commercial content to customers.

The advantages of marketing through mobile phones
Besides the global penetration of mobile phones, other specific characteristics of the mobile phone technology  facilitate marketing measures pertaining to personalisation, ubiquity, interactivity and localisation - beyond the capacity of other media.

Personalisation: Mobile phones are mainly used by a single person and are often considered an intimate accessory and a status symbol expressing individuality, especially by the teenage group and the youth.  The various ways they use to personalise their mobile phones include choosing a particular brand, size, colour, display logo and ring tone. It is continuously carried by them within reach and is an important part of their daily lives.

For business users, as well, the mobile phone has similarly become a highly personal instrument. They also individualise their mobile phones by saving contacts, messages and important dates. Furthermore, the user of each mobile phone and each user's personal instrument are identifiable through the SIM (subscriber identity module) card. The mobile phone therefore appears to be the ideal medium for direct and personalised customer communication.

Interactivity: Being a highly interactive medium, mobile phone enable the recipient of a message to respond immediately, affecting the communication actively. It allows bi-directional mode of communication and direct dialogue between the advertiser and the potential customer.

Localisation: Mobile marketing has a major advantage of "localisation". Location-based mobile phone services on the Global Positioning System  (GPS) or Cell of Origin (COO) platform to enable trigerring impulse purchasing or point of sale marketing by adapting and aiming the marketing effort to the place wherever the user might be.

Currently the full potential of these kinds of 'push-services' are yet to be realised in India, due to the under-developed positioning technologies. However, location-based 'pull-services' on active customer demand for offers from close-by product and service providers eg., (eg, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, pubs, malls, superstores, petrol refilling stations, or ATMs etc) are operational in some areas of the world. This makes it easier for the customer to select the best option and consequently increases the chance of  his willingness to spend and his satisfaction. The development of positioning technologies is expected to boost mobile commerce application to an unprecedented high.

Ubiquity: Through mobile phone communication, companies can reach out to the potential customers anytime and anywhere, round the clock. Usually mobile phone users carry their handsets with them at all times and may leave it on, on 'standby' mode for an average of 14 hours a day.

Entertainment value: Customers are generally more receptive towards commercial communication through mobile phones due to its high information, storage and often entertainment values.

Viral marketing: Marketing campaigns through mobile phones also have the potential of being driven by 'viral effects'. A commercial content when received as a forwarded message from a friend or acquaintance who is supposedly a 'neutral sender' and not a 'self-interested sender', has  more chance of being received positively and reforwarded to others for information dissemination. It helps the campaign by enlarging its reach and credibility. 

Already, marketing mesages that used to be sent as emails are being routed over the mobile. Moreover, mobile usage has created a new category in the e-marketer's chain, that of telecallers and direct selling agents who rely on person to person sales pitches over the cusromer's mobile phone.

Technology advisory and market research firm Gartner estimates there will be 2.6 billion mobile phones in use by the end of 2009; in 2006 the global mobile population was nearly equal to 80 per cent of the world's population, and this is expected to increase to 90 per cent by the year 2010.

The entire Asia / Pacific segment of the mobile phone market, represents 25 per cent of the worldwide market today, Gartner says, predicting that this will increase to 33 per cent by 2009.

On a numerical basis, India is the largest growth market, adding about 6 million mobile phones every month. With 256.55 million mobile phones, market penetration in the country is still low at 22.52 per cent. India expects to reach 500 million subscribers by end of 2010.

Evidently, mobile phones are poised to ring in lot of relationship-marketing in consumers' lives, offering mass produced products and services on a customised level.