Thursday, March 1, 2007

IDC Says Don't Underestimate Full Potential of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing represents one of the most promising and challenging opportunities for both the advertising and mobile industries. With more than two billion mobile users in the world today, IDC believes that mobile prevails as the first medium through which advertisers can reach such a large audience on an individual basis in the developing world. According to IDC, the brand spend of the U.S. mobile marketing market in 2006 should more than double the spend in 2005.

In order for mobile marketing messages to be effective, they must capture the attention of and engage users. How mobile users will react to mobile marketing is the billion-dollar question. An IDC survey shows that mobile users show limited tolerance for prerolls lasting more than 8 to 10 seconds. This means that successful mobile marketing campaigns must quickly engage users in the first few seconds, not just treat them as a captive audience. If done right, mobile marketing provides an unparalleled window into the lives of mobile users such as their search, discovery and sharing of content. In addition, there are more than a dozen different mobile marketing formats that offer ways to create entirely new marketing experiences.

"We believe that mobile marketing is one of the few instances in which the current hype actually underestimates the full potential of the market opportunity," says Scott Ellison, vice president of Wireless and Mobile Communications at IDC. "The winners will be those players who fully leverage the mobile ecosystem rather than try to simply translate other marketing and advertising business models to mobile."

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