Mobile Advertising: Get Ready for a New Consumer Contract

Despite the proliferation and ever nearer domination of the advertising model, its not necessarily a lay down mazaire that every piece of communication will be subsidised with advertising, or more accurately, accepted by the end consumer as an advertising medium.

One very recent example of research into consumer attitudes towards permission-based SMS messaging (Source: PureProfile 2007, N=1,000), which is pushed to handsets, suggests that certain age groups have very definite views on this type of push marketing. A majority of people aged 55 and above do not want to be subject to this form of marketing. By contrast, the 18 to 44 age group are more open to the concept - with a few caveats.

First, they want these messages to be personally relevant. If this criteria is to be met, and the relevancy optimised, subscribers will need to be more forthcoming with lifestyle and interest data to see value in the ‘response-loop’.

More interestingly, is the idea that consumers should be paid for their time and access to their ‘network’, in this case, their mobile phone or PDA. The revenue-share option is not often spoken about in the context of display advertising or push marketing, but in this research the 18 to 34 demographic most definitely consider they have dibs on a percentage of the revenue generated by such a tactic.

“Sure I’ll accept this advertisment for hair shampoo, just remember to credit my phone account at the market rate of 1.5c per SMS!”

In research conducted on behalf of Victrix Media, 31% considered mobile advertising (predominantly display and SMS) to be unacceptable (sounds eerily familar to the early online days), but 80% of those were willing to accept advertising if it resulted in subsidised calls. (N=1,200, Standard deviation=0.4)

The mobile Internet will blossom in the coming years, yet the usual ‘consumer contract’ of passively accepting advertising in the browser or email account is unlikely to be tolerated. Instead, the mobile space is sure to spur the drafting of an alternative consumer contract, one that rewards consumers for their time and personal space.