Push Me Pull You - Mobiles in marketing

The use of mobile phones to convey advertising messages from Spanish companies tripled in 2009. The greatest increase in this form of marketing has occurred in the restaurant sector. The growth of text messaging, with discount offers, information about different dishes and the like, is just one indication of the advance of mobile technology. It is here to stay and here to ultimately dominate. The refinement of the technology, the move towards smart phones, the presence of web browsers, the lowering of charges all point in one direction - that mobile dominance. On a worldwide scale, there are four times more mobile phones than there are personal computers. Four billion mobile users compared with a billion users of a PC. The scope for marketers is immense, far more so than the internet via the PC.

None of this can come soon enough where I am concerned, if only because it might, once and for all, put paid to the inefficient economies of publishing, those inherent to print. In Mallorca, this inefficiency is compounded. Print costs on the island are absurd. Offshore printing is an option, but that brings with it complications of distance and immediacy, to say nothing of shipping costs. Print? Get thee behind me.

For advertisers, a shift away from established media makes sense in different ways, and improved measurability and targeting are the two greatest advantages of internet and mobile. They are the Holy Grails of advertising, and neither of them have been satisfactorily discovered via print, TV or radio. That internet advertising, in the UK, now outstrips television does perhaps prove the point. It isn't necessarily a cost issue if one takes account of the vast sums paid by companies with the budgets to do so on the know-how that goes into adwords and response, but investment in this area can be offset against lower spend elsewhere.

Fundamentally though, the advance of mobile as the delivery mechanism of choice is a personal one on behalf of the user. It is the same psychology that stops someone using a mobile for anything other than basic purposes as stops an advertiser from adopting the technology or believing in it: personal use, choice and values. What the Spanish findings show, however, is a move away from this psychological resistance, and in a market sector that is littered - in Mallorca, at any rate - with many from the old school. If restaurant owners, and others, are being persuaded of the value of what one might call push marketing through texting, so they will be far more accepting of pull marketing, the use of the mobile for searching for example.

It is the new generation of mobiles that has opened this up. The coming together of browsers, graphics and video, through the mobile, allied to search engines (as with Nokia and Apple), transforms the possibilities afforded by mobile technology. For some of you grandmothers, this may sound like egg-sucking, but for some it may not be. Portability, convenience, these are just two advantages of the magic in the small mobile box. The box won't mean the end of print, of course not, but for many applications print has become anachronistic and unsustainable in terms of cost and lack of flexibility. Welcome to the new age.


Bleach
Yes, that's right. Bleach. Not beach. Why? Well, go into a supermarket and you are likely to see prominent displays of bleach, great numbers of bottles awaiting the buyer. And why is there such prominence and such abundance? I'm guessing, but it is probably because of walls, as in walls and dampness, and other surfaces that can be affected by the damp. If someone knows otherwise, maybe they can let me know.


QUIZ
Yesterday - "My Ever Changing Moods", The Style Council, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMLoUTBy47U.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.