Articles

3.2.2011 Major marketers go mobile

A majority of brand owners are planning to increase their mobile marketing activity this year, a study has found. Trade bodies the Association of National Advertisers and Mobile Marketing Association surveyed senior executives, mostly drawn from the ANA's membership - and found that 88% of the panel intended to follow such a route. Interviews were then conducted with 97 client-side marketers that had expressed a desire to make enhanced use of this channel in 2011. The report also found 62% of the panel had used the medium last year, alongside 26% expecting to run their first initiatives. To date, 71% of corporations had afforded responsibility for this discipline to an existing in-house unit - generally digital marketing teams - while 19% assigned these duties to a newly-created group.

At present, contributors already boasting a mobile presence had collectively adopted around 12 different formats to promote products. The top five - deployed by at least half of the featured firms - were mobile websites, apps, SMS, display ads and search.  Among the main advantages of embracing this form of communications were portable web access, and the capacity to deliver content and deals to consumers on the move. Furthermore, it was argued to offer convenience in terms of providing immediate customer and sales support, and help build loyalty. However, only 25% of executives stated their previous mobile efforts had performed "extremely" or "very" well, and another 53% described these programmes as "somewhat" successful.

B.L. 3.2.2011