Mobile -- the perfect direct medium?

Thanks IDM Institute

Robert Thurner M IDM, Commercial Director of mobile agency Incentivated, explores how mobiles could revolutionise direct marketing. The first mobile phones were nicknamed ‘bricks’ because they were huge and unwieldy, with big handsets attached to briefcase-sized battery packs.

But now, the latest mobiles are barely bigger than a credit card, and the mobile has become the one item that the majority of us say we cannot do without – and the first item we would grab if our houses were on fire.

Our mobiles are always on us, and usually on. That makes mobile the perfect medium for marketers.

Since the mid 1990s, the reduction in size and cost of mobile phone handsets has led to penetration levels of almost 90% across Europe.

According to statistics from Ofcom, by the end of 2007, there were almost 74 million mobile connections serving a population of 60 million in the UK, an increase of 3.7 million connections since the end of 2006. The total number of mobile connections increased by 48 per cent in the five years from 2002.

Text explosion

In the UK, nearly 60 billion text messages were sent in 2007 -- an increase of 36 per cent since 2006 and up by 234 per cent since 2002, when UK mobile users sent 17 billion texts. The average mobile phone user sent 67 texts per month from each mobile, compared to 53 texts per month in 2006.

The majority of children have access to the internet and most have a mobile phone but they use them in different ways. Boys aged eight to 11 are twice as likely to use the internet every day than girls of the same age (45 per cent compared to 22 per cent).

However, girls aged 12 to 15 are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age (74 per cent compared to 65 per cent).

Instant messaging is more popular than email among children, with 62 per cent of 12 to 15 year old sending an instant message, compared with 43 per cent of them sending an email. Adults prefer to email – 80 per cent of adults sent an email compared to 34 per cent who used instant messaging.

Is email failing?

Yet according to the IAB, only 25% of emails are opened: the remainder are either filtered out by anti-spam and anti-virus software, or get deleted. By contrast, 95% of SMS are opened, reflecting the expectation by consumers that those contacting them by text have their consent to do so.

Long may this practice continue!

The mobile is a highly personal device, and brands should earn the right to be there by ensuring customers opt-in to receive branding or customer service messages. The mobile industry has established best practice guidelines which should be followed closely.

The ubiquity of the mobile phone has led to a revolution in mobile interactivity. For organisations in general and marketers in particular, it offers the chance to interact with their customers efficiently and regardless of place or time.

Mobile exciting medium

That creates exciting new opportunities in Mobile Marketing (for customer acquisition), Mobile Customer Service (for customer retention, CRM and loyalty) and Mobile Commerce (for transaction purposes).

For direct marketers, the benefits should be obvious. The mobile phone is the only media that consumers will have with them at all times; it is a superb channel for interactivity, providing an instant response path via voice call, SMS or engagement with a WAPsite (mobile internet site).

Personalised, social, measurable

Mobile is a highly personalised communication channel: one handset has only one user, which makes mobile a powerful targeting medium.

And, for many users, it is a social medium, one which allows files, photos, videos, websites and music to be shared.

Plus it can be measured, and it works extremely well in partnership with other marketing media.

Used responsibly, and with a message which makes the most of the medium and is properly targeted, mobile can deliver very impressive results.

Below, I’m going to discuss a couple of examples of how mobile can be used for direct marketing.

Bookstart free books
Booktrust, the independent charity that encourages people to read, used mobile as part of its latest Bookstart campaign to distribute 80,000 free books to parents of young children.

A DRTV campaign was developed by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw in partnership with mobile agency Incentivated. Media planning was by Trinity Communications and media buying by Manning Gottlieb OMD.

The TV campaign delivered 1,236 TV spots throughout the day across 34 terrestrial and digital channels for one month. The Bookstart TV ads featured a mobile call-to-action for viewers to request a free book by texting BOOK, their home number and postcode to 80800.

View the Bookstart DRTV.

Bookstart’s target audience of parents and carers were encouraged to respond to the ads by texting free from their mobiles. The book was then sent, post free.

Text messaging was chosen as the sole response mechanism for ordering books because Trinity Communications’ research established that the primary audience had limited online access but high mobile telephone ownership.

Strong response

The campaign generated 79,415 texts, which represents 8 per cent of the estimated one million UK households with children aged three and four. Each TV ad generated, on average, 64 texts.

This campaign demonstrates that mobile can provide an immediate response mechanism for advertising, whether using above or below the line channels, while offering brands true accountability.

Text messages are time and date stamped, which means we were able to correlate responses with the TV spots broadcast.

Terminate a mate
Virgin 1 was looking for a way to promote the UK launch of the TV series ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’.

The series is based on the Terminator movie trilogy. In the US, it was a smash hit, pulling in over 18 million viewers and becoming the highest-rated scripted show on Fox for eight years.

For the UK launch in February 2008, Incentivated and digital agency 20:20 created a ground-breaking viral campaign which used location-based mobile technology and merged in user-input names and mobile numbers to create a personalised video – we believe this was the first time this has ever been done.

A 10-day teaser campaign using TV, outdoor, print, viral and ambient marketing drove people to www.terminate-a-mate.com and www.terminate-a-mate.mobi, where they could enter a friend's name and mobile details.

Personalised mobile video

A specially created personalised video simulating a Terminator hacking into their mobile phone to locate them and hunt them down was then sent.

We made sure there were mechanisms in place to protect privacy and defuse concerns over mobiles being used to track people. Participants who entered details of a friend’s mobile also had to give their own phone number, and an SMS message checking their details was sent. The Termination only went ahead if the sender confirmed they wanted it to.

Effectively, the sender ‘opts in’ their target to receive the geo-coded message.

Personal protection

Once a site visitor inputs a friend's mobile number to target them for “termination,” the friend is then sent an SMS warning them that Terminators are nearby. If they reply and give permission for their location to be shared with the network, they receive a link to a made-for-mobile video. The recipient's current location is highlighted within the video via an integrated mobile map in real time.

Mobile numbers are only used for the purposes of the promotion, and users are assured that their details will not be kept on file for future marketing.

A sample of the Terminate-a-Mate mobile video can be viewed on YouTube

Conclusion
Mobile can deliver enormous impact, and works best when integrated with other media. It is the only truly personal communications channel there is, which is both an advantage and a potential disadvantage.

The advantage is that people are always contactable and can respond instantly – assuming you deliver a compelling, relevant and timely marketing message. The disadvantage is that consumers can see mobile marketing messages as extremely intrusive.

It is up to marketers and their advisers to make sure that they are using mobile properly and effectively.

Robert Thurner M IDM is Commercial Director of Incentivated, and will be delivering the mobile session at the IDM Academy at ad:tech on September 24.

He also presents on mobile at the IDM Diploma and CPD courses at the IDM in Teddington.