Mobile the next destination

Mobile phones and its multi faceted uses may sound to be a very common subject and you might think what is it that I am going to add value to the information that you already have. Many of us who use mobile phones are only aware of the messaging, incoming and outgoing facility which is available on the phone. These functions suffice the purpose well. On the other hand advertiser views this as an excellent opportunity for him to create a buzz or interactivity with its future prospect. I am using the word prospect and not customer because the person may or may not purchase the product. Just to share some information with my readers recently a survey conducted by Nielson Group concluded that on an average a mobile user between the age group of 18 - 30 years spend approximately 3 hours on his mobile device which is mostly dominated by receiving and making calls followed by SMS and other stuff. Please note that this is a big number. The survey was conducted across users using mobile devices ranging from the normal range to higher end phones which includes GPRS and WAP.

Mobile phones have commonly been perceived as a communication tool used for receiving and making calls apart from sending sms to friends and relatives but after a first move by some players like Mauj and Indiatimes who saw a very big potential of using the mobile as a platform for advertisers to market their products/services we have seen a lot many companies entering the arena and a lot more advertisers using the media to market their products. Today advertisers are looking at the media very strongly and the reasons are pretty clear, It is the only media which is very personalized as most of the times you will carry your mobile phones with you. Secondly it is highly non intrusive which makes it very viable. This is a very rare combination. Thirdly you get the leverage of content and image based advertising for your products/services. Imagine 160 characters of pure content and with some more advancement you can send. Also you can make the customer react to the product offered and can be intrigued with more questions about the product and services which may be of your help to create innovative products in future. So not only are you creating a buzz about your product but at the same time you are also creating an interactive platform for him to provide his opinion which has become very important for advertisers and companies to stay connected. Take this example of Sprite campaign making the buzz about their selling Talktime to whomever smses the code. With this sprite is inducing its drinkers to avail for free talktime taking into consideration that all the sprite consumers would be having a mobile phone and would respond immediately. A call to action is what sprite intended from the campaign and that was acquired. Also they had a WAP based application which can be downloaded on a WAP enabled phone which facilitates for the download of its ringtones and wallpaper applications. Also they had a pretty website which was also used as a medium to market the product. The only concern could have been that they targeted the prepaid users whereas the metro crowd which is working is a postpaid user so where is the benefit for them. This example is for you to understand the power of using the mobile as a platform to market the product in an innovative way and create an immediate sales and thereby immediate action which is the asset. When I mention asset I mean the database collected is the asset that they may use in future for their other products and services. One of the biggest factors when you use this medium is that there is measurability of your ad spends on various mediums and you can integrate the same across other mediums fairly easily. For example the Samsung campaign which now uses short code for nearest dealer information instead of physical addresses on their print campaigns which saves a certain cost on additional prints. Also customization is the key, based on different marketing objectives the advertisers can customize and create innovative mediums to generate database for them to use in future. Also the cost over here is very less as compared to traditional media which involves a huge cost

But owing to all the benefits involved there are certain reservations when it comes to using the medium. Advertisers in India are still of the opinion that traditional media is very powerful. This has a lot to do with DoT and TRAI norms in India which does not go well with the operators and provide certain restrictions. New age Mobile Marketing companies like Nuevo Telesoft comes with a powerful product called www.paisa4sms.com which has opted in database of users. These users have agreed to share with us information and have permitted us to send them ads on their mobile devices for which they are paid. This makes a deadly combination. Advertisers can target users based on his needs. Also the promoters Vinay Bhartia and Ravi Shroff have studied the market thoroughly well. In their words “Today the market is moving towards a newer medium which is the Mobile and the Internet. Marketing managers are looking out for mass reach and lower cost which I think mobile can truly suffice. They have also taken into account the market need and can cater all the mobile related services such as short code and log codes”. Vinay Bhartia who looks after the technology and sales says that advertisers can come to us with their marketing objectives and we can design a customized solutions along with our off the shelf products. This would serve as our USP. In order to reach to other advertisers in the country Nuevo Telesoft has tied up with Primetime International as one of the partners. Primetime International has been serving as a media concessionaire for SONY TV for International Markets and also have radio and OOH as their other business lines. Recently they have started with New media Initiatives headed by Jenish Shah and this is the first move in entering the segment. Speaking to us Jenish said that, “We were present in the TV, Radio and OOH. There was a need to move ourselves into the new Media such as Mobile and Internet for which we were looking our for partners and fortunately we got in touch with Nuevo Telesoft for Mobile which we found to be very suitable for us where they have already developed certain products and we need to just sell them in the market”.