Better metrics to develop better mobile campaign

Nielsen will launch the first product under its new Nielsen Wireless brand, Mobile Vector, in the US next month. Mobile Vector will use information from Nielsen’s National People Meter TV sample to segment behaviour and demographics by operator, measure how many people use content services and assess the impact this has on established media behaviour.

Mobile Vector promises to aid mobile carriers target their advertising campaigns, assist content producers in deciding which distributors to work with, and boost the scope for competitive positioning and differentiation of the mobile media industry more generally.

Nielsen says that in the first quarter of 2007, more than 33 million people over the age of 12 used the mobile web and more than 8 million watched a video on their mobile phone (excluding their own, user generated content). Nielsen estimates that at least 25% of 18-34 year olds used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet in the first quarter of 2007, but that 46% of the mobile video audience is aged 35 plus and 46% is female.

Its an excellent initiative. The more reliable the metrics, the more likely advertisers are to put their hands into their pockets to buy media placements on mobile. The current mobile landscape requires such metrics to facilitate the advertisers and media buying companies to better understand who they are communicating with and how best to communicate with them.

Without such accurate metrics, mobile marketing companies could only be guessing who their targeted audience are based on simple profiling on the mobile users' number and the type of mobile brands and models that they are using. The profiling may not be 100% accurate but its currently what most mobile marketing companies in the world are using. Its definitely better than not having any targeting capabilities.

Look up M:Metrics, they have developed a great mobile measurement methodolgy and gathered very interesting mobile data but unfortunately for us its not available in China yet.

With accurate metrics, mobile marketing companies can develop and execute better mobile campaign. On top of such metrics, it would be ideal if research experts like Nielsen or Synovate could provide solution to audit such results at the end of each mobile marketing campaign. The mobile campaign reports and data obtained should be audited by a third professional body as the current reporting method could be biased and refined in favor of the mobile marketing provider.

Nielsen and Synovate, any thoughts and solution on this?

Mobile marketing is still at the infancy stage and many developments are taking places and it can only get more exciting. The are certainly alot of missing links but as time goes by, such issues will be eradicated slowly but surely. With so much investments going into this segment, it wont be long before mobile marketing becomes a bigger part of tomorrow's marketing mix strategy.