Mobile marketing's never-ending road

Mobile marketing’s coming of age has been a long time coming, particularly in Asia-Pacific, where the staggering growth of mobile penetration is way ahead of interest in it as an advertising medium.

Although millions of people across the region spend longer staring at the screens on their mobile phones than their television screens, the prophecy of Andrew Robertson, BBDO’s worldwide boss, that mobiles will eclipse television to become the key route linking advertisers with consumers still seems to be a far-off notion.

Robertson made his forecast seven years ago. And yet mobile marketing appears doomed to always be The Next Big Thing, never the latest one.

“The whole region, excluding Japan, is very much in the early stages when it comes to mobile marketing,” says Arthur Policarpio, managing director at the Philippines office of Mobext, the Havas mobile marketing operation. “Very little research has been carried out. We’re very much in ‘catch-up’ mode.”

“We are in a major education phase with both brands and agencies on the power and interactivity of mobile advertising,” says Phalgun Raju, general manager Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan for mobile ad network InMobi. “Everybody understands the ‘why’ of mobile advertising. But we’re still on the cusp of educating the market on the ‘how’ of it.”

CASE STUDY Unilever engages consumers without resorting to apps COMMENT Advertisers need to understand technology

Why this should be so appears to defy logic. About a third of the world’s four billion-plus mobile subscribers come from Asia.

Much of that growth is being driven by India and China, the world’s most populous nations. In fact, the Mobile Marketing Association estimates that more Indian consumers can be reached through mobile than through television. Indonesia, home to 230 million people, has almost 100 per cent mobile penetration.

In countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore there are more mobile phones than people. Japan and South Korea are regarded as the world’s most sophisticated mobile markets with consumers eager to embrace new technologies. Indeed, quick response (QR) codes, predicted to be mobile marketing’s game changer, were born in Asia.

In theory, using mobile ought to be a no-brainer when advertisers across the region come to allocate their spends.

“Consumers consume media more and more on the go, and mobile provides a rich, personal, interactive, location- and context-aware experience for users,” Raju insists. “If you look at the explosive growth of mobile usage, smartphones and tablets, this is clearly where the future of advertising lies.”

In practice, the story is somewhat underwhelming. Asia-Pacific accounts for almost 36 per cent of the US$5.3 billion mobile ad market. Hardly chicken feed, but nowhere near what many believe is the market’s potential.

So why is mobile struggling to gain a fairer share of Asian marketing budgets? The reasons are varied. For one thing, the region’s mobile market is running at different speeds, with huge differences between the pace of change in developed markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore and undeveloped ones such as Indonesia, India and the Philippines.

As a result, there is little standardisation of mobile platforms, making it difficult to run mobile campaigns across borders.

While the region’s advanced economies have the necessary infrastructures and savvy consumers that allow brands to roll out sophisticated campaigns, in other countries, delayed 3G introduction and knowledge gaps among consumers restricts them mostly to text-based initiatives.

Another reason is that the amount of shopping done across the region using mobiles remains low with many consumers still preferring to use their tablets to make purchases. What is more, advertisers need convincing that enough people are scanning QR codes with their mobile phones. However, the impact of the codes on website traffic is said to be dismally low. 

Add to that the fact that few brands have the budgets to cope with “always-on” mobile platforms and that insufficient marketing decision-makers are digitally literate and the scale of the challenge becomes all too apparent.

However, Policarpio believes that just two fundamental issues have to be resolved before the mobile marketing floodgates open across the region. 

One is the lack of a standardised measurement for the medium. The Mobile Marketing Association’s Asia-Pacific branch is working towards one, although this will always be difficult given the relentless innovation going on in mobile marketing. “While mobile search is an area that’s measurable, it will never be possible to measure the effects of mobile marketing in the same way as TV,” Policarpio acknowledges. “Achieving a standard measurement system will always be work in progress. It will never be perfect.”

Simon Salt, a digital strategist and author, believes that this will never happen and that, even if it did, the system would be meaningless. “We see people trying to adapt such formulas to everything they do,” he says. “It’s been tried with social media and it’s fake.”

Gregory Birge, chief executive of Singapore’s F5 Digital Consulting, says: “Every mobile campaign is different with objectives that need to be measured differently. It would be far better for clients to apply their own measurement criteria so that they can compare a mobile campaign in Singapore to one in London,” says Birge.

The other issue is proving that mobile marketing can deliver a significant return on investment. “For a marketing manager who knows little about mobile marketing to invest in a medium that can’t prove its worth seems like a risky prospect,” Policarpio adds.

He says a lot of his clients are trying out mobile by investing small amounts of money. It is a cautious approach, but it raises the hope that mobile marketing will eventually become an integral part of clients’ budgets as they become more knowledgeable about it. 

“The first thing to understand is that mobile is not an advertising channel, but a communications and a transactional channel,” Policarpio points out. “For example, in the financial sector, mobile is now an extension of the service that banks provide to customers.”

Birge says: “The starting point for agencies is finding a creative solution — but that doesn’t solve the client’s marketing problem. Of course creativity is important, but when it comes to mobile, it isn’t the solution.”

Raju suggests the pivotal role mobile can play in a multimedia campaign is better appreciated by some top brands than others. Just 10 per cent of brands are said to have mobile versions of their websites. “The key is to understand that mobile can help amplify and connect across a brand’s entire media strategy, from TV commercials to social,” Raju says.

Salt argues companies need a change of mindset when it comes to mobile marketing. “Mobile allows you to reach people in the right place at the right time. Regular digital won’t let you do that.

“If I’m on a plane and see a banner ad on my screen, I can’t do much about it. But if I’m in a shopping mall and a nearby store sends a ‘10 per cent off’ coupon to my mobile, that’s both timely and relevant,” he says.

Onlookers believe a key moment in mobile marketing’s evolution across the region will be when companies learn the proper use of apps.

“We always tell clients that before they even think about creating an application that they must have a mobile-optimised website,” Policarpio says. “Advertisers have to realise that the amount of space for apps on mobiles is limited and that few apps ever make it big. Those that do are the ones people will use every day.”

Birge says: “Consumers don’t spend their whole time clicking on apps. There are just too many of them. They have to be something other than just a sales platform.”

The real trigger for the medium in Asia-Pacific, though, will likely come when smartphone penetration hits 50 per cent. In Singapore, the figure has already reached 70 per cent and less developed markets are racing to catch up. The number of smart-phone users in the Philippines has leapt by 400 per cent over the past year.

“Marketers understand how important smartphone use is to them and they know it’s going to come. The question is when,” Policarpio adds. “I think 50 per cent penetration across the region will happen in two years and that will be mobile marketing’s tipping point.”

That invites the question of how well equipped agencies will be to guide clients through the mobile revolution. The signs are not good. “Many agencies, both media and creative, don’t have the in-house mobile expertise,” Raju says.

Policarpio is equally sceptical and believes that what is happening is paving the way for a new breed of mobile agency specialists to fill the void.

“A lot of traditional agencies don’t understand mobile because it’s a very different and complex area that never stops evolving,” Policarpio claims. “Mobile marketing will need to be handled either by dedicated teams within agencies who understand it or by specialists.”

Salt argues that while agencies have an obligation to guide clients through the digital space, clients must also educate themselves. He says that many are falling short.

“I’ve come across marketers working with major brands who don’t even understand the basics of digital and I wonder what they’ve been doing for the past three or four years,” he says. “Some companies don’t invest in digital training so their staff are reluctant to invest to get themselves trained. 

“I’d love to see mobile manufacturers getting involved, but they already have their hands full trying to keep up with what consumers want.”

Meanwhile, mobile marketing’s impact on personal privacy is an ongoing issue. The Chinese government began clamping down heavily on spamming six years ago. India, the world’s top spam-relaying country, has followed suit with tough new laws in September. 

However, in more technologically sophisticated and data-driven markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong, spamming is not seen to be a major problem. “Privacy is a big issue in less-developed Asian markets where governments have been taking action,” Policarpio explains. “In these places, it is very easy to just get a load of mobile numbers and spam them.”

Salt and Birge claim the privacy genie is out of the bottle never to return. “Of course companies must secure the data they collect and they mustn’t try grabbing too much too quickly,” he says. “But privacy is a myth in the digital world which has reimposed the mores of the small village where everybody knows everything about everybody else.”

“Advertisers don’t care about privacy,” Birge contends. “And there’s nothing more intrusive than mobile and social media.”

What all this adds up to is that mobile marketing still has a way to go. “At every marketing conference I’ve attended in the past five years I’ve been told that mobile’s time is coming,” a senior agency executive sighs. Maybe so. But Robertson’s prediction remains frustratingly unfulfilled.

CASE STUDY Unilever engages consumers without resorting to apps Unilever’s success in reaching young women suffering hair loss is a notable example of how mobile marketing can effectively communicate with a core market about a sensitive subject. Mindshare and InMobi in Singapore devised the campaign to promote Unilever’s Dove Hairfall Rescue to combat what was perceived as a growing problem of hair damage — including hair loss — for many woman living in urban environments. The marketing challenge was seen as ideally suited to mobile, given that mobile penetration in Singapore is 150 per cent, with 5.8 million mobile subscriptions. The aim was to show would-be customers how to use the product and offer them the chance to try it. The campaign was fronted by Claire, a girl in her late 20s and seemingly at her wit’s end to know what to do about her hair loss. Banner ads appeared in different ads leading to Claire’s story within an HTML 5 ad unit. The idea was that this would allow for an immediate and seamless transition without the hassle of having to download an application, which would greatly disrupt the experience. Using mobile allowed other women to interact and find out more about Claire’s story in their own time. They could watch her comb her hair and share her frustration at her hair loss. A bottle of the product was then introduced and viewers were able to perform the actual motion of applying the solution to show how easy it was. InMobi claims that the strategic and creative use of mobile technology resulted in an engagement rate of 30.96 per cent and an average time spent with the mobile campaign of three minutes and 28 seconds. InMobi says: “These figures demonstrate how immersive the mobile ad was and had engaged users in a fuss-free manner that mobile applications could not.”

 

COMMENT Advertisers need to understand technology By Simon Salt, digital strategist and author The reason why the response to mobile marketing from advertisers across Asia Pacific and elsewhere has been so cautious is the difficulty they have in getting their heads around the technology. Also, mobile marketing means different things to different people. At its most basic, mobile marketing is just a simple text message. But from a marketing perspective it’s difficult to do well. You have just 160 characters in which to write something entertaining and enticing. What’s more, you can’t just take old billboard technology and shoehorn it into new technology. The challenge marketers face is that mobile needs to be looked at differently. You can’t try to make what you’ve done in the past work in a mobile environment — because it won’t. That said, the potential of mobile marketing is huge if it’s done well. One problem is companies are trying to use apps in the wrong way. They think only about what they want to deliver to their customers, not what their customers actually want. Unless apps actually give something to consumers they will just ignore them and there is no return on investment. Apps must prove their usefulness before companies can begin weaving in brand messages in a subtle way. Most people would regard that as a reasonable trade.