BANGALORE MIRROR
22
i-tech.
Mobile marketing
trends for 2008
RONAK SHAH
T
here were times when we
dreamt of getting a mobile
phone for our self and we
wondered how a cell phone
could have a camera some four
years ago. Times have changed dras-
tically for the average mobile user
and the Indian mobile user base is
growing considerably each day.
Today, mobiles carry those funky
features such as WAP, bluetooth,
MP3, radio, video recording, sound
recording and much more. Mobiles
have changed so much that you can
start blogging right from your blogs
and even read a couple of blogs ir-
respective of where you are.
Mobile phones aren’t just a show
piece today like it was a few years
ago but it has become a neccessity
today. A mobile is a must! Thus, the
number of people buying mobile
phones is growing at an alarming
rate. People from villages have also
started buying mobile phones. Even
farmers today have mobile phones.
Therefore, there is a huge opportu-
nity for companies to connect to
their targeted consumer base
through various modes of mobile
marketing. Let me explain what
mobile marketing is all about.
SELLING ON THE CELL
Mobile marketing is all about
marketing a product/service/brand
on a mobile phone. It generally in-
volves marketing through mobile
phones or even computer-based
technologies to market a brand on
any number of mobile phones at
one point of time.
Mobile phones generally have a
lot of features of which Short Mes-
saging Service or SMS is one of the
very popular features. SMS is an ac-
tive mode of marketing for various
special offers, ringtones, brands and
products. Nowadays, mobile
phones are even equipped with
video messaging service often
known as Multimedia Messaging
Service or MMS. With MMS, a mo-
bile user can send text, picture, au-
No technology restrictions for mobile TV : TRAI
ANKIT SAXENA
W
e have written about mo-
bile TV in the past. Many
companies are foraying
into this. Around the world, many
technologies exist for delivering
mobile TV content. Doordarshan
uses DVB-H (Digital Video Broad-
cast for Handhelds) technology for
Mobile TV. France, Italy and Spain,
dio, video and combinations of
any of these. This means that mo-
bile phones equipped with MMS
facilities are already equipped with
SMS facilities.
Though many of you might al-
ready be aware about Mobile Mar-
keting through SMS and MMS,
there are other ways to do mobile
marketing such as mobile market-
ing through bluetooth and mobile
web marketing.
the three out of the five biggest
countries in the European Union
use DVB-H technology.
The other players such as BSNL,
Zee and Star India are trying out
other, faster technologies.
The other standards are DVB-S
(Digital Video Broadcast for Satel-
lite), MediaFlo by Qualcomm, and
China’s own standard, CMMB
(China Multimedia Mobile Broad-
METRIC MODEL OF DELTA WAVES OF SHOCKWAVE
Companies rush to block premium slots on web media to ensure high brand visibility. They
go ahead with deploying advanced multimedia tools, to attract, and engage the users. Is the
investment working optimally? The answer is “no”. You can measure it on web media you
are advertising. How do these web media help optimise the investment that their clients
have done in buying premium slots.
with contributions from watblog.com
FILE PHOTO
HOW IT WILL EVOLVE:
India’s population is more one
billion people with more than 200
million mobile phone users which
is growing sharply.
Mobile content is starting to
become an exciting field to ven-
ture in and thus, many startups
and individual entrepreneurs are
venturing into this field.
Many entrepreneurs are even
venturing into offering full-time
mobile marketing solutions to
casting). Its a good decision to let
the operators chose the technolo-
gy that first their needs.
Competition will emerge and
the customer can chose which
player/technology she is interest-
ed in. This will also lessen the bu-
reaucratic hassle and the chances
of a possible monopoly.
The government could allocate
8 MHz frequency in the 700
T U E S DAY, D E C E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 0 7
companies across the world.
According to the third Annual
APAC Mobile Attitude and Usage
Study of the mobile marketing As-
sociation, India and China are rat-
ed as the most attractive in terms
of mobile marketing solutions.
Around 50% of the APAC mobile
users were found to be moderately
interested in mobile marketing so-
lutions and only 13 % indicated
least interests.
Web search giants such as
Google have big plans to come
out with mobile operating sytems
as well as mobile phones with spe-
cific features that help them con-
nect the average mobile user to
many internet advertising plat-
forms instantly. This year Yahoo!
also rolled out its search facilities
for BSNL users and we had even
blogged about it on WATblog. Mo-
bile web marketing is another
trend taking speed very fast.
Websites such as Mginger and
sms2india are coming up fast on
the internet. These websites specif-
ically pay users to receive smss on
their mobile phones after taking
their permission. Somehow, these
websites are still struggling to con-
vince enough advertisers of the
potential they hold so as to make
substantial revenues. However,
these websites can still create
strategies that will enable them to
make their business model suc-
cessful and convincing.
Bluetooth marketing has be-
come a new mobile marketing
trend which has been successful
across bluetooth zones in malls
across India.
Mobile marketing is still a nas-
cent market which is still remain-
ing to be tapped to its utmost po-
tential. Though mobile marketing
helps brands connect quickly to
the targeted consumer base, there
is a hindrance to it as there exists a
National Do-Not-Call Registry for
Indian citizens. Most people term
mobile marketing as a hazard to
their daily lives and hence register
their mobile phone numbers with
the Do-Not-Call Registry. Compa-
nies will have to get innovative to
tap the potential which mobile
marketing offers.
MHz range through auction
route which can generate around
Rs 2,000 crore in revenue for
the government.
With 217 million mobile con-
nections, India is one of the worlds
fastest growing mobile markets in
the world. In a cinema and sports
crazy nation like India, Mobile TV,
when it comes, is supposed to be
a huge success.
ACI TO LAUNCH LAPTOPS
AT RS 15,000 IN MID 2008
Earlier we had blogged about a breakthrough in-
ternet device coming out at just $100 (approxi-
mately Rs 4,000), We
have just heard some
more news.Allied Com-
puters International
Asia Pvt Ltd, also popu-
larly known as ACi, is
launching a laptop for
just Rs 15,000 only in the midst of 2008. The lap-
top is set to roll out in May/ June 2008. The feature
of this laptop will be that it will have a special 7
inch screen and apart from that, it’s processor will
be equal to Pentium 4 technology.Another feature
of this particular laptop is that it will be very low
on voltage and thus, it might reduce your electric-
ity bills marginally or better than that. Compared
to the I-chip internet device which has a combina-
tion of television, computer, and phone integrat-
ed within it, these laptops do not have these facil-
ities. Also, the price of the internet device is fairly
lower than the prices of these laptops, which will
be available for Rs 15,000. Though this laptop is
coming cheap compared to other branded laptops,
the question stands whether the laptop’s screen
will be a good bet for our eyes as a 7 inch screen is
too small. Moreover, usability and upgrades will be
another issue to look at. User-friendliness is the top
criterion with respect to laptops such as these and
it has to be seen how these laptops will fair on that
angle.Also, the question stands whether these lap-
tops will be technically sound and durable. Just
coming out with a cheaper laptop does not nec-
essarily mean that the laptop would be at par in
performance with laptops of higher prices or even
lower in performance and user-friendliness.
IT’S NOW TIME FOR
MENTOSFRIENDSLINE
Not too long ago Mentos had launched a campaign
through an interactive site mentoshelpline.com. If
you have been a regular
watblog reader since the
last 6-8 months or so
then you would have
surely read our rave re-
view of mentoshelpline
interactive site. Even in-
ternationally mentos has been very innovative in their
use of social media. We had covered their interna-
tional mentos intern campaign as well earlier. Now
the guys at mentos have not limited their thought
process after tasting success with the mentoshelpline
campaign.They have gone ahead an launched some-
thing known as the mentosfriendsline. Mentos-
friendsline is nothing but a blogging platform where
the you can “Unload your Mind”.The blogs can be
categorised such as cricket, entertainment, travel,
love, work, college, civic and random.
FACEBOOK, UNICEF TEAM
UP FOR ‘CHARITY GIFT’
Social networks are all over the place. Social net-
works are becoming crucial in spreading social
awareness among the
people. Facebook and
UNICEF together are
spreading awareness
on immunisation of a
child. For this Facebook
has launched a feature
called “charity gift”. This application allows the
users to give a gift worth $17 to their friends or
family. This purchase of the gift will enable the
UNICEF to immunise one child. The immunisation
will be against the deadliest diseases such as per-
tussis commonly known as whooping cough, child-
hood tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, measles and diph-
theria. This effort will save 2 million kids that die
every year due to these diseases. Social networks
truly seem to be the perfect medium for spread-
ing social awareness.