Its been yet another exciting week in SA politics, the State of the Nation address, the final voter registration weekend, Trevor’s Budget Speech and most enjoyable, the news that Helen Zille joined Twitter. As a result, I was tempted to title this post “State of the Mobile Nation”, but, unlike poor old Motlanthe, I’d have too much to say, so I’ve limited my post to a brief overview of mobile marketing opportunties already or becoming available.

I was recently chatting to an agency Creative Director, who is designing the brand identity for my watch-this-space consultancy THE STORYBOARD, about Mobile 2.0.

He was telling me, how he believes so many people are still so intimidated by Web and Mobile 2.0 and marketing and advertising. Its true, it may seem daunting, but it mustn’t be forgotten that new media is simply another mechanism for communicating with a target audience. And with every mechanism there are parameters, limitations and rules of engagement. Grasp those and you’ve got mobile.

Its unfamiliar at the moment, and as a marketer you are likely to be approached by various suppliers or independent developers with the latest solution to your marketing needs. There is a lot out there. The intention of this post is to inform you, give you a brief overview of how companies are marketing on mobile, and what’s available.

The beauty of this medium is that because its relatively new, that it is a space to be explored, and innovate, and have your competitors, crying over your success, saying, “Ah that’s so awesome, I wish we had’ve thought of that.” Nice, everyone loves a little edge! But it can be intimidating, so hopefully the below helps a little.

So the Mobile Marketing Association (launched in SA in December) suggests a few ways of mobile marketing:

• SMS/MMS campaigns – these of course we are all very familiar with in SA. Predominant usage by FMCG (great for vouchers) brands, the outcome has been successful. MMS of course being a little more difficult and therefore more unpopular, but the WASPs are saying its getting there. A great international example is the BMW winter-tyre campaign, hopefully we’ll have an SA example which generates this much revenue too.

• Next we have mobile advertising (working off impressions and clicks – which is nicely familiar thanks to digital):

• Either to subsidise and piggy-back on voice/sms – as in text links or eyeballs.

• On the mobile web, you will find, traditional banner advertising on familiar publishing platforms. The global trend is that handsets will become touchscreen, which means that navigating sites will be improved, and you can stop squinting to see your ad.
• According to Matthew Buckland the click through rate on mobile is 10 x higher than online advertising. So what we will see is more and more traditional publishers playing catch up to create sites on which you can advertise.If you are looking for a list of SA WAP sites, or would like to add your own, visit this SA WAP Directory. Advertising on these platforms comes with obvious limitations: compelling non-interruptive creative, or something that is so annoying that you just have to click on it to get rid of it, is required, however the predominant bonus that makes mobile win handsdown is that you can advertise based on location, and we are going to see more of it. Awesome.

• You might have thought that I’ve forgotten about video. No, bear in mind that we already can and very soon we will be able to access more TV, familiar or perhaps new shows on our phones. That means that I can choose to watch a channel or show, that’s accessible on my phone and invariably that will be funded by advertising. Video advertising – great!

• So aside from advertising on familiar publishing platforms, we will see the growth of the mobile web to brands having mobile presence. This means creating your own WAP site and typically we will see more and more WAP sites created for specific campaigns, in addition to having a traditional mobile presence – there are a numerous factors to consider here, including mobile search, the mobile users’ needs, the design of your wap site to fit multiple handsets, ensuring that there is continuity between your web and wap site and in my opinion the objective, that will all need to be considered before going ahead and simply getting a mobile site just because everyone else has one too.

• And lastly and very exciting of course the development of branded applications. In SA Mxit is possibly the most referenced independent app, but gosh not only are there hundreds of others, and they come in every form for every need, from browsers to education, to payments, to training to social networks. What the user does is download the app to their phone and is then able to use the service, whether its to chat to a friend or pay a bill. There are hundreds and they can either be bought and adapted to your brand or they can be originated. A great example of a branded app is the Chanel app developed for iPhone.

There are other means such as USSD, Bluetooth and QR/colour codes not mentioned that have been used succesfully in mobile marketing. See the integration of mobile into Peugeots 107 launch campaign designed by Saatchi & Saatchi atPlay, in, um 2007! What’s the best choice for your brand? As with everything in social media – its essential that you:

a. determine what is appropriate for your target audience (most importantly, are they digitally eloquent – as an example, would your user know what to do if their phone prompted them to download a Java Midlet to install your application? Or would they give up?) Barriers to entry and adoption need to be factored in.

c. ensure that it is managed by a skilled content team or individual and

d. provide valuable content.

Bear in mind that the above examples are not exclusive, more often than not you will find a WAP site flanked by a premium-rated sms campaign, and let alone integration across other other media, and that’s what makes a successful carefully thought out cross media strategy. As awesome as it was, I think that Draft FCB dropped the ball on the Vodacom TV ads for the Summer Lovin’ Campaign, as they didn’t include sms/web or wap links to access info on how to download free mobile content, summer sounds for mobile and weather reports for the city you were in. All of that social media was available, but wasn’t communicated through the traditional media. Lesson learnt perhaps?

Make it relevant to your consumer and give them something they want – a great presentation by the guys at Mobile Youth, shows just what youth think while we think mobile marketing gobbledygook. Value can be in sustainability, benefit to the consumer, purpose and content (i.e. free stuff).

Most importantly, and I know my peers agree, mobile as with digital and social media is no longer something that you tack-on with 5% of your budget at the end of a campaign. Let go of what you’ve known of advertising, acknowledge that new media brings in the opportunity to actually develop a new revenue stream that you mightn’t have ever considered, but most importantly if its where your consumers are at then that’s where you need to be. Oh and don’t forget the ROI baby