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DECEMBER 23, 2004
By Sarah Lacy Cell Phones Ring for Marketers Mobile advertising is rushing to find its way into handsets everywhere. While the effort is still in its infancy, the audience is too big to ignore At a hip singles bar in Las Vegas earlier this year, attractive urbanites were busy typing messages into their cell phones. But messages like, "Who's the hottie at the end of the bar?" weren't just going to friends -- they were being posted on a giant video screen as part of a promotion at several events organized by Anheuser-Busch (BUD ) and Maxim magazine. These kinds of promotions have become rampant at sporting events, concerts, and ultra-trendy bars in the latter part of 2004, and they're poised to explode next year, say marketers like Alex Campbell, CEO of Vibes Media, a small interactive marketing firm that put on the Vegas event. Idle cell-phone users are being encouraged via big-screen TV, or video scoreboard, to text messages to one another, answer trivia questions, or enter sweepstakes. Sometimes, participation is as high as 30%, Campbell and others say. It may seem like just a gimmick for restless audience members and barflies. But it's the beginnings of the much-hyped, much-anticipated rush to mobile advertising, in which marketers connect to consumers in a variety of ways via their cell phones. And industry watchers say 2005 is set to be the year a lot of big brands finally give it a shot -- despite the difficulties that still loom. At this early stage, it's still hard to predict a how much will be spent on mobile advertising since the cost of these campaigns can range from thousands to millions. But like spending on video ads online in 2004, this new category looks poised to go from virtually nothing to millions in pilot investments in 2005, agencies say. A WAY IN. How is text messaging advertising? In some cases, companies like Anheuser-Busch or Coca-Cola (KO ) are sponsoring such promotions as branding moves. In others, advertisements are flashing on the big video-display screens in-between the audience members' text messages to one another. In promotions where people enter a sweepstakes or trivia game by phone, they have essentially opted-in to a marketing campaign. Participants are often shot back a coupon or promotional offer. These aren't your typical Madison Avenue campaigns, but mobile phones aren't your typical medium. Even though most Americans' wireless handsets can't yet support media-heavy games and video, some 170 million of them in the U.S. are capable of receiving text messages -- and that, marketers say, is a way in. In the U.S. cell-phone users now send some 2.5 billion text messages per month, according to data from the Mobile Marketing Assn. released last summer. And that's sure to grow: 80% of people carrying those devices have still never sent a text message. Making the demographics more attractive, the biggest texters are the teenage to late-20s audience that marketers are usually trying hard to reach. Says Karim Sanjabi, executive vice-president for innovation at Carat Interactive: "They look at the numbers themselves and say, 'There are 170 million mobile devices in the U.S., and we're spending zero on reaching those people?'" Carat is an interactive agency that's working on about a dozen mobile ad campaigns right now -- most of them rooted in opt-in text messaging. WELL-TIMED OFFERS. Other marketers are reporting similar excitement. Says Tom Ajello, vice-president and group creative director of New York-based Agency.com: "It's like the Flash phenomenon several years ago. No one knew what it was, but people were asking for it by name. [Mobile marketing] is the buzzword right now." It's not just the demographics that have consumer-product companies, big retailers, and entertainment outfits in a tizzy. Mobile devices also carry the promise of a new era in advertising -- one where a marketer is not only virtually guaranteed that its message will be read but one where it can usually control when the message will be read. A Hollywood studio can send a message pumping up a big release around the time most people are making their Friday-night plans. A restaurant can send a discount offer just before lunchtime. Or the corner bar can send happy-hour coupons as urbanites are getting off work. Despite all the enthusiasm, this bandwagon faces a bumpy ride. Promotion- and event-based marketing campaigns, like one last year that had thousands of Chicago White Sox fans voting on the sexiest player on the team or one where you could text-message in the UPC on Hershey's Chocolate Milk to win a skate-date with pro skater Tony Hawk, can be lucrative, but they're unlikely to be the holy grail for this medium. What is? No one really knows yet. But it won't look like traditional marketing or even typical e-mail marketing.
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