by Martin Koppel

Several times i have wrote that there are twice as much cell-phones than PC-s. Some brighter heads are also predicting that in the future mobile advertising will take a big share from internet advertising. It seems obvious - the number of cell-phones will increase faster, people have it all the time, easy to use device, well targeted target groups. It all seems so simple and beautiful, but what is the situation at the moment?

European research firm Vanson Bourne made a report on 50 global brands’ attitudes toward mobile marketing and these numbers don’t give any reasons to smile. It seems that companies have still some doubts and the main issue is how the potential customer will react, is it invading to peoples personal lives or not. Here are some key points:

* more than two-thirds of companies expected to spend up to 10% of their marketing budget on mobile messaging campaigns within two years

* 28% of brands were considering implementing SMS or MMS campaigns during the next 12 months

* 58% said that their mobile marketing campaign would use up to 15% of their total ad budget by 2012, 32% said this would happen in the next two years

* One third of all respondents said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to undertake a financial transaction

* 52% said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to request more information or a product sample

* 46% are concerned that mobile marketing is too intrusive

* 41% respondents were unsure that they could target campaigns specifically enough to avoid spamming problem

* 36% would require detailed information on how the user responded to the message

* 20% would want definite confirmation that the user’s handset had actually received the message

If we are looking what people are looking from google then it also describes the situation quite clearly. I can’t see any progress in past 3 years. According to the fact “twice as many cell-phones than computer” i would picture that the blue line should rise continuously, but in fact it has staid quite stagnant. So it seems to me that mobile marketing will stay as supportive action in marketing for some time, maybe Android will change something but we will see.

by Martin Koppel

When MMS came, many people predicted that soon SMS will die out like dinosaurs. Well it is good to make conclusion after some time. At least to me it seems we can’t compare SMS and MMS like cassettes and CD’s. MMS is not going to conquer the market. Despite the fact, still a lot of people are saying that SMS is a yesterday’s technology and it doesn’t have any future. Well what could replace SMS then? I can’t see anything at the moment, but maybe in the future …

I stumbled upon an interesting survey today. Synovate has conducted a study, consisted of 1,405 online interviews using a nationally representative consumer online panel of over 1.5 million households to find out peoples’ mobile habits. The identical study was conducted also in 2005 and 2006.

It appears that teens and young adults use text messaging more than any other demographic. People ages 13-24 send and receive the most messages, even more than 50 per week. As you can see from the graph, total usage of text messages has grown significantly and it seems it still has a potential. More important is that people are using SMS more frequently than past years. It shows that behind these numbers are habits and usage intensity, not only the growth of mobile devices.

Here are also some interesting facts from the study:
* 54% of 13-34 year olds use SMS for social networking
* 44% of 13-34 year olds say they use text-messaging for flirting or dating
* 10% of 13-34 year olds said they have broken up with a boy or girl friend using text-messaging

It seems to me that at the moment there isn’t any substitution to SMS. People, especially youngsters, are using this communication channel intensively for different reasons. Maybe in the next decade we will see something that will completely substitute SMS.

by Marino Bresciani

Recently, the British regulator in charge of air travel has approved cellphones for use on airline flights, reports the BBC. Airlines will be allowed to activate base stations in the plane’s tail after takeoff, creating a zone of mobile coverage around the plane.

Also, ‘The services could stop working once aircraft leave European airspace. Initially, only second generation networks will be offered but growing interest would mean that third generation, or 3G, services would follow later, said Ofcom. The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than making one from the ground.

This is not the first time we finally hear about use of mobile in aircrafts. Already one year ago, the low-cost company Ryanair announced the introduction , aiming to become the first to allow passengers to use mobiles. By the way, it looks like now Ryanair has had its plans held up by nearly year because of problems getting approval from certain national regulators. OnAir has also had problems getting approval for a system adapted to Ryanair’s aircraft.

Anyhow, at the moment, most of the interested airlines (including AirFrance and British Airways) are in deals with in-flight communications experts OnAir to fit the latest mobile satellite technology on their planes from next summer. Callers will pay the same rates as international roaming charges.

Custom SMS services on a plane can be definitely a possibility, then. Ideas are still on the way, though.

by Martin Koppel

Today i was searching some practical cases about how companies have used Bluetooth marketing. Among others i managed to find quite good success story video, have a look:

It made me think how can it work even better. When you are going to buy a car it is nice to get pictures and videos about the car, but how could Bluetooth marketing bring people to buy a car. Well, there are automated parking machines everywhere, why aren’t we integrating Bluetooth marketing with those. A lot of people have hands-free system in their car with Bluetooth nowadays, it means also that Bluetooth is enabled. Just push through any car related ads and it will most probably reach the audience. To be sure we could also make the car owner pay for the parking via Bluetooth or just give out 30 minutes free parking… car owner gets free parking via Bluetooth i think you follow the pattern now. I think i can bring people to buy cars, tires or whatever.So what are we waiting for, let’s integrate Bluetooth everywhere and see what happens - do we refuse to enable Bluetooth in the future or not.