Carriers have always had to keep pace with mobile technology, rolling new services and innovations into their offerings. As mobile culture evolves, however, marketers find themselves facing a similar demand.
This mobile culture has become one of seamless integration. The ability to create faster and richer content has brought a wave of multimedia capability into the hands of consumers. Music, video, broadcast television/radio, and location-based services are instantaneously delivered to handsets, and during this time, consumers want minimal interruption. The challenge for marketers is to get into mobile without getting in the way.
One example comes by way of SK Telecom, the biggest operation in South Korea. Their Gifticon service (pictured) allows users to send their friends scannable QR codes, essentially mobile gift certificates, for a variety of products. It seems to be working. Upon a product launch last year, Gillette sent 1.2 million Gifticons to Korean consumers’ handsets for a free sample. Nearly 500,000 consumers visited Gillette’s mobile webpage–that’s a 40% response rate.
Through such couponing programs and other services, mobile marketing is moving from handset spam to branded utility. And now that American and Asian carriers alike are switching to flat-rate plans, younger users are spending much more time on mobile without racking up huge fees. This opens a door of opportunity for brands to harness mobile data services to their–and everyone’s–advantage.
-Ed Felix
