The Future of Mobile Marketing

Last week I had the opportunity to take my first trip to Europe. I traveled with colleagues to the UK, Italy and Germany to promote a new email security product designed to protect businesses from spam and other forms of malware. Although the trip was fast and furious, one of the things I really enjoyed was experiencing the different cultures and observing the ways in which our channel partners need to communicate and market products in their respective countries. Despite the differences I observed between the cities we visited, it was interesting to note how spam and other threats to email have grown to represent a common plague to legitimate email communications around the world.

During our presentations in Milan, our CEO talked about how the guys who designed the protocols and standards by which email is transmitted today never dreamed of it being hijacked by spam, viruses, botnets, and phishing schemes. What was once a trusted form of communication, has become a marketplace for Viagra sales, PayPal account “verifications,” and wealthy businessmen from Africa willing to offer “processing fees” to any kind soul willing to help them set-up a Western bank account. In fact, an October 2007 study by the email compliance and reputation management company, Habeas, reported on the growing levels of insecurity around email communications citing that 62 percent of its study respondents acknowledged concerns about becoming a victim of fraud or another form of cyber crime.

All of this got me thinking about the use of mobile marketing and how this growing form of marketing communication is ripe for abuse; just as the abuse of email has diminished trust of its users and increased the level of frustration for marketers.

During my trip to Milan, I had lunch with an Italian IT journalist who confirmed the growing use of mobile marketing in Italy. In fact, according to the 2007 mobile data report from m:metrics, Italy is the 3rd largest Western market receiving SMS ads at 51%, behind leader Spain (74%) and France (54%). As a point of reference, the US ranks last at 14%. The journalist told me that they believe the SMS marketing trend is dangerously close to becoming perceived as just another channel for spam senders if abuse grows in this medium. As an example, she reported that she is seeing more messages for offers from companies she is not familiar with and finds the solicitations extremely annoying.

But despite the potential for abuse, many marketers see mobility as the next frontier to reach millions of users via mobile gaming or SMS ads.

On Read Write Web, Josh Catone writes about the growth of location based mobile ads, which some argue, like Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is the key to the growth of mobile advertising. Through the integration of GPS, companies will more easily be able to reach targets with relevant ads on a user’s mobile phone. Wow, imagine my relief knowing that soon I may receive a discount the next time I swing by to pick up my wife’s iced caramel macchiato at Starbucks!

Ah, but beware the hackers. Just leave it to some cyber-thugs to spoil the next best thing for marketers. And it appears that the trends are already happening. According to mobile security firm, Cloudmark, a recent study with YouGov found 66 percent of UK mobile users reported receiving spam with more than a third including a phishing link to a malicious web site. Cloudmark also noted that 40-50 percent of text messages in China and Japan are spam. Yikes!

There is no doubt that mobile marketing will grow, but exactly how effective it will be and if abuse will occur in the same fashion as it has with email remains to be seen. I will try and remain and optimist and not think that another marketing vehicle will be hijacked by the Dark Side, but the signs are not looking promising.