Booty
call: How
marketeers can cross into wireless space
Summary
Opportunities to make an impact in the SMS space will never
be better. The widely deployed mobile text messaging technology
offers a fertile channel for communicating with interactivity-hungry
15-24 year olds through innovative campaigns and strategies.
Púca is at the forefront of developing compelling
application in this area.
Introduction
Why SMS works
Marketing and Promotion
The Golden Rules of SMS
An eye on 2moro?
»
Introduction
Knowing that SMS (Short Message Service)
offers "the ability to send and receive text messages comprised
of words or numbers or an alphanumeric combination, to and
from mobile telephones" (1) is not too much help in knowing
why this apparently incidental technology has become central
to contemporary communications.
But
a quick look at the statistic suggests that it certainly
has been the area of unrivalled growth in communication.
When the GSM Association, world's leading wireless industry
representative body, first estimated the number of SMS messages
that would be sent in 2000, they predicted a total of 10
Billion messages. But after that target was reached earlier
in the year, the Association revised its estimates to 15
Billion messages per month.
That 63% (415,000) of Irish 15-24 year olds now possess
a mobile phone primarily for their own use is intimately
related to the fact that SMS usage grew 1000% last year.
One third of this age group send over 20 text messages a
week, with 52% of them saying they would opt for a mobile
phone if stranded on a desert island, while only 18% would
opt for TV. In Ireland, over the Christmas 2000/1 period,
nearly 300,000 phones were sold. This means that around
60% of the Irish population now posses a mobile phones.
And according to recent research conducted by the Financial
Times, the figure for mobile phone penetration in Ireland
is expected to reach 2,740,000 by 2001.(2)
As
with the development of the mobile phone business, the fact
that business users made up the majority of those who had
access to SMS technology initially determined the ways in
which it was used. As business users generally had their
bills paid by the company, and the use of SMS in unified
messaging (receiving, for example, SMS alerts of new email)
was rare, they had no particular incentive to investigate
the possibilities of the cheaper text message facilities
offered by GSM phones.
It was only with the onset of mass-market mobile phones
and pre-paid calling services that the SMS began to grow
rapidly. In the UK, pre-pay customers make twice as many
SMS 'calls' as contract based customers.(3)
The
younger users who were attracted to pre-paid phone (such
as Ready-To-Go and Speakeasy) were highly sensitive to cost.
Consequently, sending a complete message for a set, low
fee (and not paying for the answer), rather than entering
into an expensive, open-ended conversation was a highly
attractive concept. With SMS, the cost of an exchange is,
in this manner, shared between both people involved: another
highly attractive notion.
»
Why
SMS works
There are, of course, other qualities to SMS which,
allied with the perceived financial aspects lead to the
text-messaging explosion in the younger end of the market.
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SMS conversations remain private, even if carried
out in a public location. While many feel a taboo about
speaking on their mobile when, for example in pubs,
on public transport or with a group of friends, the
same does not apply to text conversations
All
of this means that for marketeers SMS has the advantage
of providing unrivalled access to 15-24 year olds, a group
that has proved extremely difficult to reach effectively
through other media. If it is true, as Amárach Consulting/Irish
Direct Marketing Association iMarketing (Jan 2001) report
suggests, "the telephone will remain the dominant interactive
channel over the next few years" then present patterns suggest
that a large proportion of those interactions will be performed
via SMS.
One
of the most prevalent commercial uses of SMS to emerge has
been the area of user-requested updates and alerts, either
delivered through push or pull methods. Customers can either
subscribe to a service that will provide regular alerts
on a chosen subject (soccer scores, gold score etc) or request
information by sending a key word via SMS (lotto numbers
etc). While these type of applications are ideal for providing
timely information, without recourse to less widely deployed
WAP technology, they do not perhaps make for the most compelling
use of SMS capabilities. Among 15-24 year-olds, a group
habituated to the internet experience, these kind of simple
interactions may prove less than attractive.
In
recent times more interactive SMS applications have begun
to emerge. These have, so far, been gaming orientated. Those
developing mobile games, however, have to deal with the
special flavours of creating a gaming experience in an ultra-low
bandwidth environment. Mobile games will be extremely limited
in their visual or aural appeal. Input through and alphanumeric
key pad is, when compared with the force feedback joystick
and steering wheel devices familiar to gamers, extremely
limited.
On the other hand, mobile games have the huge advantages
associated with being portable. Given the restrictions mobile
games must create what one games firm (4) has dubbed "immersion
by imagination". In some territories, branded gaming has
emerged, its novelty proving more than enough compensation
for the low-bandwidth styles.
»
Marketing
and Promotion
But while new business will certainly be created in
this space, under the present arrangements, the most obvious
area in which SMS may be useful to a wide range of companies
is in marketing and promotion.
A recent study by wireless services company, Quios, discovered
a very ready acceptance of advertising and promotion making
use of the mobile. Reviewing the findings following their
Euro 2000 Soccer messaging service (5), the company found
that although advertising in this medium was expected to
have around the same effectiveness as direct mail, it already
has a much higher response rate at a much lower cost per
head. This high success rate is due to a combination of
attractive qualities that text messaging posseses for its
audiences.
Immersive
SMS messaging has an interactive quality that
younger users find particularly attractive. Personalised
SMS messages, particularly those that are delivered in response
to a SMS request involve users in an interactive experience
familiar to, and desired by those with a knowledge of the
online world.
Freedom
from clutter
For the moment, clutter has not particularly
afflicted this area. Advertising messages tend to be less
common than in other media, and importantly tend to remain
highly pertinent to the mobile experience, alerting users
to such things as new rates, or other offers of particular
and immediate relevance.
High
Recognition
High ad recall (Quios study: 79% participants
had 60% recall of wireless advertising).
WOW
factor
As a spin off from the lack of clutter in this
area, messages maintain a degree of surprise. Not yet inured
to being communicated with in this manner, users have a
higher degree of acceptance.
Viral
marketing
Due to a combination of the two factors above,
the proliferation of messages through viral means is an
appreciable contributor to the effectiveness of campaigns.
As mobiles are habitually used for social communication,
the possibility of enhancing the effectiveness of messages
via communities of interest remains strong. Users often
interact with their mobiles while with groups of friends
'showing off' any attractive new content. (70% of those
surveyed for the Quios report said that they had recommended
the soccer messaging service to a friend.)
Communication
at point of purchase (with GPS)
The fact that advertising is received on mobile
personal devices means that the audience can, in theory,
be located right next to sales points.
All
of these factors play particularly well to 15-24 year old
group, where mobility and social interaction around technology
are highly desirable.
»
The
Golden Rules of SMSa
But to ensure attitudes to text advertising and
promotions remain positive, Púca suggests that those
marketing in the wireless space must ensure that:
Messages
include value-added elements
Among an age group that has become used to interactivity,
successful messages will be those that invite participation
and response.
Information
received is highly accurately targeted
The high level of acceptance of text advertising
and promotion relates intimately to the relevance of the
products and services promoted.
Facilitate
easy opt-out
Maintaining control of the flow of messages to a mobile
device is perceived as highly important by users.
»
An
eye on 2moro?
2001 promises to bring higher bandwidth connectivity,
so what is the future for vanilla SMS? Such services as
GPRS (general packet radio system) will not include an SMS
facility, though they will include more sophisticated messaging
services. But that does not mean that SMS will be disappearing
in the short term? As far as 2005, SMS services look likely
to remain popular, if hardly growing at the present rates.
But
even given the obvious end-point for SMS as we know it,
it is still essential for businesses to enter the fray,
since those who have come to understand the possibilities
of mobile, non-voice communication will be best place to
lead developments in forthcoming GPRS, EDGE (Enhanced Data
GSM Environment) and other imminent mobile technologies.
While
there has in recent months been a highly mediacised "wap-backlash"
it is beginning to seem likely that adverse reactions (often
due to over-promising) are nowhere near as severe as earlier
imagined. In the UK, for example, Genie, the BT owned mobile
Internet company, recorded 88 million WAP page impressions
in the UK in the month of January 2001, compared to 62.5
million at the end of December, an increase of more than
40 percent. Reports of the death of WAP, it seems, have
been highly exaggerated.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the rise of SMS technology
to recall is the way in which the developers of the technology
were not necessarily those best placed to say exactly how
it will be used. As we move more and more towards providing
tools for creating entertainment, rather than creating content,
it seems increasingly necessary to follow consumer demand
very carefully. And the best way to do this right now is
from within the SMS space.
1)
GSM Association
2) Mobile Data Association (UK) www.mda-mobiledata.org
3) Statistics from: Amarach's 'Generation T' report, Eircell
(quoted in The Irish Times) and the Financial Times
4) Digital Bridges Limited
5) The Efficacy of Wireless Advertising, Quios, Inc. 2000.
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