Preferences the key to mobile advertising
When the SMS advertising craze began earlier this decade, it quickly became the Wild West, complete with consumers being shocked to discover they were being charged for services they never wanted to sign up for when they typed in that short code. Others were annoyed by unsolicited texts.
The industry, for the most part, has now cleaned up its act, and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has instituted a Global Code of Conduct that covers key aspects such as notice, choice and consent, customization, security and enforcement and accountability.
So the trick is to glean as much information as possible about potential consumers without violating privacy and permission principles so advertisers can target the right consumer. That is primarily done today via SMS short codes embedded in traditional advertisements whereby the consumer texts in the code to receive a promotion. As such, advertisers begin to create a database of those customers interested in their products, but they don't have much more insight than that.
"Most agencies would say it would be a good starting point just to know if people are male or female and what age group they are in," said Paul Berney, managing director, EMEA with the MMA. "Behavioral targeting is nirvana."
As mobile advertising proliferates, Forrester Research, in a recent report, indicates consumers will grow weary of the frequency of marketing messages pushed through phones, and marketers will have to come up with more creative ways to stay close to their customers and prospects. "Brands that offer contextually relevant messages and allow for consumers to control when and how they engage from their mobile devices will best avoid this coming resistance," he said in a recent report.
Today, mobile advertising players are on the cusp of understanding a lot more about what consumers want. In Germany, E-Plus created a new business called Gettings that delivers a mix of push and pull advertising campaigns via SMS, MMS and WAP. Using an ad server from Alcatel-Lucent enables users to provide their preferences so they receive only the mobile ads that interest them. In return, subscribers receive cash vouchers, free SMS or free voice calls.
"The reaction of advertisers and media agencies is extremely positive," said Daniel Euler, managing director of E-Plus' Gettings division, in a recent interview. "The capability of reaching a clearly defined target group on a new medium with a clear indicator of how a campaign is performing is the key to success for future media planning."
In February, the GSM Association and comScore in partnership UK operators 02, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3UK, announced the official launch of the GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) product for mobile media reporting. The service is aimed at taking anonymous mobile Internet usage data from all five UK mobile operators. The service is designed to provide comprehensive information into mobile media consumption in order to give brands and agencies insight into mobile media consumption to help brands craft more focused campaigns. GSMA is aiming to roll out the initiative globally and add mobile messaging in the mix.
And Alcatel-Lucent recently launched its Optism Mobile Advertising Solution, promising operators the tools to provide their advertiser partners with more efficient access to targeted audiences. Optism essentially positions Alcatel Lucent in a middleman role, brokering deals between carriers and brands with the assistance of it's advertising and mobile marketing professionals.
Alcatel-Lucent said the solution comprises a scalable, hosted platform that includes go-to-market support for operators alongside media sales and campaign management tools for advertisers. Campaigns are aggregated across multiple operators. Optism uses SMS and MMS to reach audiences.
Thomas Labarthe, vice president of mobile advertising with Alcatel-Lucent, said the key to the solution is incorporating permission and stated preference mechanisms to connect subscribers with relevant brands and offers.
"Advertisers now request more efficient and reliable targeting options as well as the possibility to re-engage the audience and build loyalty," Labarthe said. "We believe the best way is to transparently ask people for their permission and preferences in order to build trust, engagement and long-term relationship based on value exchange."
Building in preferences into the solution will be a gradual process. Mobile subscribers are asked two to three questions--typically around gender, age and one key topic of interest--as campaigns are run via this information, Alcatel-Lucent's solution is able to continually obtain more detailed information about a subscriber's interest based on the type of campaigns subscribers respond to.
"If you send just 10 questions in a survey for people to respond to before they opt in, it will not happen," Labarthe said.
As such, Optism will be able to provide significantly deeper demographic information a year from now as it continually collects that information into its database.
"The starting point is if we can add in basic demographics and having knowledge of some parts of consumer behavior," Berney said.
In addition, such a solution encompasses what Berney calls the three Ps--permission, privacy and preferences--the critical pieces to mobile advertising. "I see more people talking about the three Ps and how that is the future of mobile advertising. If you want advertising to evolved going forward, it has to be this way."
