Marrying Mobile Technology And The Multichannel Landscape

Tony Pile, Royal Mail’s market development manager for telecoms, discusses the possibilities available in the mobile marketing arena and the multi-channel landscape.

Companies spend millions of pounds every year marketing their products and services to potential customers in order to drive sales and grow brand awareness. In today’s media age there are a plethora of ways to reach these audiences, ranging from the traditional – TV, radio, press ads and direct mail – to the cutting edge – MMS, blue casting and pod casting.

Whilst marketers are getting increasingly inventive in the ways they communicate with their customers, media proliferation has become a double-edged sword and is now one of the biggest challenges they face.

Since the early 1990s there has been a 560% increase in the number of TV channels, a 120% increase in commercial radio, 80% more cinema screens and 40% more magazine titles.

Once, mass audiences could be reached through a small number of channels, now they are fragmented over a large and increasing number of media, making it more and more difficult to engage the people you want to reach.

Over the past decade or so, we have been undergoing a technological revolution, with a huge growth in the number of affordable personal devices offering us instant access to information and communication wherever and whenever we want it.

If you consider these devices as direct routes to potential customers, and therefore an answer to the problem of media fragmentation, it’s unsurprising that each new medium has been pounced upon by marketers as a new advertising tool.

However, in a lot of cases marketers are putting the cart before the horse and making widespread use of a channel before they understand how to do it in a way that is acceptable to the receiver.

Often the net result of this gold-rush mentality is widespread consumer dissatisfaction, which can prove a body-blow to the channel’s effectiveness as a marketing medium. SMS is a case in point. New mobile media such as bluecasting needs to be treated, if anything, with even more sensitivity than other new media channels.

Firstly there is the issue of security. There have been numerous tabloid stories about celebrity victims of ‘phishing’ – having phone numbers, email addresses and compromising photos lifted from their Bluetooth enabled mobile phones. And with public cynicism about both new media marketing and fraud at an all time high, many people choose to delete or block any unsolicited communication for fear of being stung. This means that, at the very least, marketing messages are ignored, but they also run the risk of alienating the very audience that you are trying to win over.

Furthermore, people are much more attached to their mobile phones than they are to their email accounts or their television. For instance, whilst we often accept email spam as a fact of life, we are less tolerant of unsolicited SMS messages, regarding them much more as an intrusion of personal space. In fact, ‘SMS spam rage’ is the new road rage suggests research conducted by Royal Mail, out next month.

And unlike SMS, many of those who own a Bluetooth enabled phone are unclear about what the technology can do. Indeed, for many people, their first ‘use’ of Bluetooth may be to receive a marketing message. It’s unsurprising that unwanted advertising, particularly when repeatedly targeted, can result in consumer hostility to the sending brand.

As a result, any new media channel should not be approached on its own, but as part of an integrated campaign alongside more traditional and more readily accepted media. It is also worth remembering reach – not every prospect in the UK owns or has access to a Bluetooth enabled phone, while every household in the country has a letterbox.

A recent integrated campaign undertaken by Eurostar showed how to integrate new media into a multi-channel campaign to best effect. In addition to above the line activity and direct marketing, Eurostar chose to test the use of Bluetooth technology on outdoor posters. It used the system on 15 sites around London, with a downloaded message directing people to a microsite. The above the line component ensured wide reach, whilst the direct mail reinforced the message and provided information in greater depth.

Any new media should initially be used sparingly within a multi-channel campaign to support and supplement more traditional activity such as direct mail and TV advertising. An emerging media will only become established once consumers feel comfortable being targeted in this manner. If they are bombarded immediately (as was the case with SMS) marketers risk creating a backlash that could ultimately damage the media before it reaches its full potential.