Use mobile advertising to target elusive consumers

Durgesh Gupta - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
The incredible state of flux in the global economy has fragmented the media to a point where the marketing community is frenetically seeking novel ways of reaching the consumer. Gone are the days when marketers reached their target audience by simply buying a few ads on TV channels, newspapers and magazines.

To add the marketers' woes, the consumer of yesterday has evolved into an elusive and savvy consumer, who has technology at his disposal to fight against ads that are irrelevantly tossed out to him. A typical consumer today, wouldn't hesitate to delete mails, sign up for 'do not call' lists and use the remote control to skip ads that don't interest him. Therefore, it is extremely important that marketers identify the right medium to reach the right target audience and keep them engaged till they buy and become loyal customers thereafter.

The burgeoning growth in the mobile phone subscriber base in India, currently at 300 million and estimated to hit the 500 million mark by 2010, has opened up exciting new, personalised advertising opportunities for brands to reach a vast segment of the diverse consumer base.

Marketers from the traditional brick and mortar FMCG companies, to sunrise sectors like retail, healthcare as well as technology companies, are all trying to woo consumers with innovative mobile advertising, ranging from simple banner awareness ads to animated audio-visual led ads that tell a story.

When did mobile advertising actually take off in India? Says Abhay Singhal, co-founder, mKhoj, a mobile advertising network company: "Although there has been a lot of talk about using the mobile for targeted, interactive advertising by marketers over the last three years, we started seeing actual spend as late as January 2008. While mobile advertising spend by marketers varies from Rs 1lakh to Rs 45 lakhs, the average spend ranges between Rs 15 - Rs 17 lakhs currently."

According to Singhal the demand from advertisers is for SMS based awareness campaigns; engagement campaigns which ask for consumers' names and numbers; interactive campaigns which encourage consumers to download branded content, watch a video, call the nearest store or take part in a contest to win goodies or redeem mcoupons. mKhoj has executed over 100 mobile campaigns for corporates such as Honda, Lenovo, ICICI Bank, AOL, Castrol, MSN, United Colors of Benetton, Smirnoff, etc over the last year.

While the $ 4 billion Indian advertising market is growing at 19 per cent CAGR, the VC community pegs the mobile advertising market at Rs75 crore in 2008 which they say, is expected to grow to Rs 2,000 crore in 20112012. Other industry analysts peg the mobile advertising market at Rs 40 crore which they say, will grow to Rs 500 crore by 2010. Whatever the estimate, there is certainly a buzz and excitement around this latest medium which is being hailed as the 7th mass media avatar after print, recording, cinema, radio, TV and the Internet.

Says Debasis Chatterji, operations director, Netxcell Ltd, a mobile value added service provider, "The mobile phone is a Virtual Electronic Extend ed Soulmate (VEES) of a person in these times and is the perfect medium to reach a consumer. It is the most intelligent and inter active mass media channel, is always carried on one's person and is always switched on. It is also the only medium with near perfect audience data, which is legally tenable and provides a built in payment channel enabling e commerce."

Already on the roll, India's fledging mobile advertising market will gain momentum with the burgeoning mobile sub scriber base of 300 million, of which 15-17 million subscribers use the inter net, enabling advertisers to reach a person when he is browsing the internet.

"With the subscriber base estimated to hit the 500 million mark by 2010, which includes Tier II and Tier III town people, marketers can reach out to and engage rural consumers through innovative mobile ads. Unlike their urban counterparts who are inundated with ads, rural consumers will be more receptive to such ads," points out Chatterji.

Even though the mobile era has spawned a whole new breed of mobile media companies who entice marketers with the power of precise consumer targeting and interactivity, the traditional mindset continues to persist. "Corporates are just paying lip service to the great opportunity available through targeted advertising on mobile phones, and at best limit it to an experimental activity. Most stick with conventional media as they feel there are no statistics/numbers to back the advantages of mobile advertising," says Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, Brand Comm, a communications consulting company.

Agrees, Saurabh Gupta, founder and CEO, Phonethics Mobile Media, a company that creates story telling brand campaigns for mobile phones: "Typically clients don't ask for 'mobile only' campaigns, they ask for a campaign that can be used on TV and print media, which can be extended to the internet and mobile media if required."

Telibrahma, a technology startup in the mobile computing and internet space uses the power of Bluetooth technology to offer advertisers proximity marketing and location based marketing through Bluetooth enabled phones.

"We set up Blue-fi zones for Color Plus shirts in Barista and Mc Donald's outlets close to it. Everyone with Bluetooth enabled handsets who walked into Barista or Mc Donald's received messages to check out the special offer on Color Plus shirts nearby, which most of them checked out because of the proximity of the Color Plus outlet," says Suresh Narasimha, CEO, Telibrahma, which handles 8-10 mobile campaigns for a variety of brands every month.

As marketers opt for a variety of mobile advertising options available to them such as, SMS based and voice-based advertising campaigns, interactive campaigns and story telling campaigns, Bluetooth technology aided campaigns etc, most realise that it is the 'elusive customer' that matters most.

"Mobile marketing is not about new concepts, technologies or even re-educating consumers. What is really important is to understand who is your customer? Where is he? What does he want? And deliver what works best for him," says Abhijit Saxena, CEO, Netcore Solutions, which provides an SMS based advertising service with a captive 3.7 million subscriber base to marketers.

Going a step further, Chaitanya Nallan, CEO, Gingersoft Media, says there are two important elements to address in mobile advertising - "Are we giving the consumer what he wants? And is the advertiser receiving returns on his investment?"

Gingersoft handled 3,000 campaigns for 300 advertisers over the last year. "We provide great brands with the power of precise targeting; we connect not-so-great brands with consumers through interactive advertising and providing other brands with the power of intriguing, creative messages that spark off curiosity, interest and a response," he adds.

As marketers continue to use mobile advertising to complement advertising campaigns in traditional media like TV and print it won't be long before mobile advertising will emerge into a full-fledged media network using rich content, which will transcend 'after thought' status and move to 'first thought' imperative.