Technology pundits have been heralding the “year of mobile” every year for a decade, but this year might really be it. The latest evidence: the tizzy over Barack Obama’s much-anticipated text message announcing his pick for running mate.
The Obama campaign is expected to send out the news sometime before the candidate’s rally on Saturday to everyone who has given it their cellphone numbers. The plan has political junkies and bystanders alike buzzing about the imminent Obama text message in a way that would make brand marketers swoon.
Mobile marketers are studying the Obama campaign’s initiative, which offers lessons for startups hoping to help big brands reach consumers on their cellphones. Advertisers have been slow to market via mobile phones, but that is changing thanks to a rash of mobile marketing startups and increased use of text messaging and mobile Internet.
Many advertisers are still hesitant to send text message ads, said R.J. Talyor, product marketing manager for the digital marketing firm ExactTarget. “The cellphone is the last area that a person feels is still private,” he said. “The people who have your cellphone number are typically your friends and family, so people are wary to give out numbers to people they know will market to them.”
The lesson to be learned from Obama, according to Mr. Talyor: use text messaging only for ads that are urgent and portable. “The Obama campaign has identified a message that is urgent and needs to reach subscribers wherever they are,” Mr. Talyor said. His firm uses text messages to send fraud alerts from a bank, weekly coupons from a store or happy hour specials from a bar.
Mobile marketers should keep their messages succinct and simple and include a specific call to action, said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing for the mobile ad network AdMob, which develops and delivers mobile ad campaigns for Ford, Adidas and Toshiba.
“That’s what I think Obama is capitalizing on here,” he said. “The brand or political campaign knows that this is a device very likely to be within arm’s reach of the person, regardless of whether they are working, on a date or somewhere else.”
That intimacy can also cause problems — as some commentators have noted, the Obama campaign could frustrate a lot of West Coast supporters if it sends the text message in the morning before they wake up. Timing is something mobile marketers must also be wary of, unlike e-mail or print advertisers.
Mr. Spero sees the risk of reaching people while they are in bed as an upside. “For me that’s a very positive thing, that I’m reaching customers in such an intimate way,” he said.
Another lesson that mobile marketers can learn from the Obama campaign: text messages create buzz that spreads beyond the person who receives the alert, said Dorrian Porter, chief executive of Mozes, which creates mobile ad campaigns for 3,500 musicians.
Only the most loyal fans (and most interested competitors) will offer the Obama campaign or an advertiser their cellphone number, he said, but they might receive that message while sitting in a café with friends and make it a topic of conversation.
“The good news is you affect them directly, you create a personal connection and you have those folks spread the word for you, and I think that’s really powerful for marketers to take away from this,” Mr. Porter said.
The Obama campaign, just like mobile marketing startups, will have to be wary of the potential pitfalls of texting, said Mr. Talyor. For one, consumers have to pay their cellphone providers to receive text messages, so advertisers must be careful not to send too many unwanted texts. Advertisers should get clear permission from users before sending them text messages, he said.
Overall, said Mr. Spero, the Obama campaign has helped mobile ad startups like AdMob by creating buzz around text messaging. “The back and forth between politicians and brands learning to leverage mobile to reach their audience is exciting, whether that audience is a Pepsi drinker or a voter,” he said.
Source - New York Times
No comments:
Post a Comment