Inside Mobile Marketing

When you take into account that the 3G version of the handset is expected to arrive sometime in June and the Company’s expansion plans to penetrate additional global markets, it’s not hard to fathom that Apple will indeed achieve its well publicized sales target of 10 million units by the end of 2008. This is certainly great news for mobile marketers as it will continue to apply pressure on handset OEMs and mobile marketing vendors to improve the usability of their current products and solutions.

While the iPhone is very slick (yes I will probably want one too when the 3G version arrives Stateside) it is not without its flaws from a Mobile marketing perspective. Here’s a running list to date:

1. No MMS. Consumers can take pictures, but cannot send them via MMS. I am betting that MMS will be added via a future software update, but as it stands today this missing feature precludes iPhone owners from participating in MMS marketing programs. (although a marketer could allow users to send entries via email if they wanted)
2. No video recording. For mobile marketers thinking of leveraging user generated video content (UGC) programs in the near future - you can forget the iPhone bunch.
3. No Flash support in the browser. I guess we can say that it’s not really like surfing the internet on your PC. Also - the YouTube application is NOT using Flash video, but rather H.264 streaming video.
4. No downloadable 3rd party content other than from “App-Store” application (this even precludes ATT’s Media deck). Off-deck Ringtones, games, applications are not able to be downloaded to the iPhone. Apple’s recent announcement to allow 3rd party developers to create applications for the iPhone still must have their creations vetted by Apple and distributed via the “App-store” application on the handset - (Walled Garden of a different flavor). WHY is this an issue for marketers? Let’s take a TV-based pSMS sweepstakes program as a use case in which a television program charges a consumer for participating in the sweeps program. When a premium charge is involved, many Carriers are requiring that something of value be delivered to a mobile consumer after they participate. Something of value can be a ringtone, wallpaper or factoid. iPhone users would only be allowed to get something of value via SMS. This may not sit too well with some consumers as the industry is still reeling from class-action lawsuits that take this matter into account. ANOTHER issue for marketers is that they have YET ANOTHER content development and distribution process to adhere to. The resources, time and costs required to execute a widespread marketing campaign across the iPhone as well as other established (albeit fragmented) platforms such as BREW can be daunting to say the least.
5. No WAP Push. This commonly used method to distribute content and/or trigger to open a mobile internet page on GSM Carriers will not work with the iPhone. (NOTE - Mobile marketers can however send URLs embedded within SMS messages to trigger the opening mobile internet pages - content providers still out of luck however with downloads.)
6. No bluetooth marketing. The iPhone currently only allows bluetooth audio - i.e. headsets to be paired with it, thus bluetooth marketing techniques will fall on deaf ears.
7. No GPS. LBS mobile campaigns will have to rely on other methods to identify an iPhone user’s location such as Cell-ID triangulation, WIFI location- which the iPhone uses (SEE SKYHOOK WIRELESS) or via radiowaves. SEE below - what if WiFi broadcast terminals are not in a user’s vicinity???
8. EDGE data network. For those marketers that do not create optimized mobile internet pages for the iPhone, consumers browsing the web via EDGE can run into some longer than desired page load times - and anytime a consumer has to wait for something to load - especially on their phone - the marketer runs the risk of losing that consumer. Let’s face it.. WiFi is not as ubiquitous as we would like to believe it is.

So there you have it. I’m sure most of this list will be moot in the near future perhaps even in June with the expected arrival of the 3G version, but as it stands today Mobile Marketers should consider these points when creating tactical marketing programs that target iPhone users.

Here’s a running a list why we haven’t seen more Cross-carrier MMS Marketing Campaigns in the U.S. to date.

• Carriers have been slow to open up MMS infrastructure for off-deck A2P applications 
• Aggregators - usually waiting on the Carriers - have then had to configure their gateway interfaces to manage the new message format.
• MMS infrastructure has cost the Carriers a good deal of investment dollars. Thus the costs to run MMS campaigns are ultimately higher than SMS.  Not all Carriers - SPRINT specifically - have stated that they are NOT interested in powering Standard Rated MMS marketing campaigns over their network at this time. This means negotiations will ensure as to what payment terms will change their mind to let a particular program run over their network.
• MMS costs those consumers without a full data plan or a big bucket of messages more per MO & MT than SMS - sometimes as high as 25 cents per message.  PLUS because MMS requires a data connection - data charges can accrue as well for the consumer.
• There have not been a lot of turnkey tools announced for marketers to build out SMIL-based MMS programs.  Plus, I can’t imagine there even a lot of developers in the U.S. that very skilled in developing rich MMS campaigns yet using XML-based SMIL.

The good news is that all of the Tier 1 Carriers and the many aggregators supplying them with off-deck marketing programs are moving (some faster than others) to get their systems set-up to launch MMS MO based programs.  This will certainly spur more Social Networking an i-journalism programs -  SEE CBS Mobile’s recent launch of their EYEMOBILE website - in which users can upload video from their mobile phone via an MMS shortcode.

What really excites me as a marketer are the MMS MO use cases that come from the Image Recognition Technology camp.   The two big U.S. players in this space are MOBOT and SNAPTELL and both companies offer advertisers the ability to “mobilize” their existing traditional print, outdoor signage, packaging, even TV ads (although technical issues are inherent here) by simply allowing a consumer to take a picture of say a company logo OR an entire print ad in a magazine and send it to a shortcode via MMS.   The company’s servers then identify which marketing program the image is aligned with and triggers an appropriate MMS MT or SMS or WAP Push.  This means that marketers don’t need to modify their existing creative other than to insert some sort of call-to-action for consumer to snap a picture and send it to a specific shortcode.  This technology basically enables advertisers to insert a direct response mechanism in their traditional ad units. 

In terms of marketers creating Application-to-Peer based MMS campaigns - the tools are slowly emerging. PLEASE NOTE that dealing with MMS is trickier than SMS in that not all handsets support the same MIME types that may be included in an MMS deck - such as audio and video formats.  ALSO - the U.S. Carrier networks may have different guidelines on MMS running through their network such as the maximum payload size of each message (I believe usually capped around 300K per msg).. ALL OF THESE MEANS MORE TESTING will be required both on the part of the vendor and marketer to ensure the user experience is as consistent as possible across a wide variety of handsets.  I’ve experimented with a self-serve MMS composer toolset from Massachusetts-based CellySpace.  Pretty slick app, but as the website indicates it is still in BETA and there of course some bugs to be worked out.