Mobile Phone Advertising – a New Development Niche

Mobile Phone Advertising – a New Development Niche (1)

Dominic Main | 3/04/2007

In a recent article in the Financial Review  Mark Jones reports that the number of mobile phone users will soon exceed the number of fixed line telephone subscribers. Concomitantly, and with the popularity of new multimedia capable mobile phone devices, there is a ‘gold rush’ of sorts for the mobile phone advertising dollar.

To be the devils’ advocate, it is perhaps unclear how prepared people are to view advertising on their mobile phone screens – phones being a quick use convenience, and in some cases perhaps, inconvenience – for many people.

A survey which tallies the number of people that own mobile phones because they really want to and those that own them ‘just because’ or because they ‘have to’, might provide an insight into the prospective efficacy of mobile phone advertising. However, perhaps those with a multimedia capable phone can rightly be assumed to be enthusiastic about such gadgets.

Still - one wonders if advertising between calls or during browsing might be as appreciated as the ads one gets on automated answering services whilst waiting for someone to pick up the phone.

These blog-esque musings notwithstanding, advertisers are, apparently, nevertheless very interested. Mr. Jones’ article describes a marketplace of players all keenly contending and jostling for position in a new advertising space. Providers of mobile marketing technology and services are enthusiastic, with Antony North of TXT4 quoted in the article as saying “The mobile phone is the perfect device for marketing.1”

Developing content for mobile phones, with their smaller screens and reduced processing power, and limited audio and graphics capabilities (compared with PCs), requires a special set of skills – not dissimilar to those required for PDAs. Solution providers such as TXT4 may stand to do well from a mobile advertising boom.

References and Further Reading

1. Financial Review , Mark Jones "Watch This Mobile Advertising Space." 2007

tags: Technology ,  Media ,  Issues