Mobile Marketing

Since 1973, mobile has evolved from simple voice and text communication (a restrictive marketing medium) to internet enabled smartphones-increasingly dominating consumer’s interaction with organisations (Dadwal 2013) Before the Smartphone phenomenon, internet access was restricted to computers and laptops. Now the internet is portable, consumers have constant access to the web, thus marketers have constant access to them – The digital shop-front has become pocket size.

This year, past barriers to constant mobile internet access are lifted, in the shape of the London Underground launching Wi-fi and black cab Wi-fi imminent. This might see an increase in organisations exploiting augmented reality in advertisement on modes of transport. Augmented reality adds ‘a layer of mobile engage to offline content’ allowing consumers a seamless transition to additional content. (Murphy 2013; Dadwal 2013) See Heat magazine example below:

New 4G technology promising to increase the download speed on our mobile devices–more than seven times faster than 3G. Although EE is the only UK network provider offering 4G at the moment, others are forecast to follow suit in the coming months. This will directly impact mobile marketing – ‘the amount of rich media (e.g. video) advertising offered to mobile users’ is likely to soar. (Hilton 2013)

References

Hilton, J., 2013. Mobile Marketing Trends in 2013. HuffPost Tech. 1 February 2013. Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/james-hilton/mobile-marketing-trends-in-2013_b_2597666.html [Accessed 17 April 2013].