While many hopes and ambitions rest on the success of mobile advertising, cellphone subscribers remain ambivalent towards their relevance--according to results from a recent Vodafone and Visa Europe trial.
The trial, which took place in May, involved sending some 150,000 messages to Vodafone subscribers in eight countries. The text message reminded travellers about the necessity to use a country code when dialling home, along with a promotion to win tickets to the Beijing Olympics with Visa if they used their credit card abroad.
Of those receiving messages, 86 per cent remembered the welcome message promotion and 74 per cent opened and read the message. However, only half of those receiving the advertising message declared an interest in receiving more and only if they were relevant and targeted.
Whilst MNOs such as Vodafone carry on pushing further into mobile advertising, several major advertising agencies continue to express the significant disconnect between their wish to involve the mobile channel as part of an overall campaign and the technological hurdles involved.
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