Why Agencies are Starting to Take Notice of Mobile
by Joe Grigsby
Those of us working in advertising have been hearing about the coming opportunity of mobile for a long time. Each year is a there is a lot of news about emerging mobile technologies and the companies that offer them; however, this has meant little as the promise of mobile has outpaced the reality of consumer use important to the clients that wish to reach them.
But something has changed that has made agencies begin to take notice.
First we have seen a real critical mass of audience reach. At 3.1 billion subscribers, there are more mobile phones than PCs globally, with a projected growth of more than 4.5 billion by 2012 according to MIC. In the United States alone more Americans have a mobile phone than access to the Internet.
Second and even more important than the mass-market adoption of mobile phones is the ability to interact with consumers through them. This is being driven primarily by the convergence of enhanced device capabilities, improved network speeds and affordable / flat rate data plans. The iPhone is only the most obvious examples of this trend; however, BlackBerry, Google and many others are pushing the evolution of the market forward at breakneck speeds.
Similar to the changes in consumer behavior following the introduction of flat rate data plans and high speed Internet access for online use, we are now seeing a significant increase in how subscribers use their mobile phones. This includes over 350 billion text messages (Yankee Group) being exchanged across the world’s mobile networks every month and with worldwide mobile Internet use projected to almost triple from 337 million in 2006 to 982 million in 2011 (eMarketer).
We are also starting to see consumers adopt more advanced capabilities on their mobile devices such as location-based services, mobile commerce, mobile social networking and the use of the mobile phone as a means to interact with the physical world at large. It is in these emerging uses of the mobile channel that we will see truly unique value for marketers’ ability to engage with consumers.
Given this evolution it is not surprising that many agencies, specifically those focused in the digital space, are evaluating how to connect with consumers in the mobile space.
Image Credit: Ed Yourdon
