The mobile phone has untold potential as a media outlet and the popularity of wireless services among young people is a plus point for marketers and content providers looking to attract impressionable consumers.
Speaking at this month’s World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Young Reader Conference in Helsinki, Anssi Vanjoki, the executive vice president of Nokia left delegates in little doubt that youth is the target market for service providers.
“Older people use mobile phones for efficiency. Have you ever heard a young person talk about efficiency? It’s not their concept,” he said. “For young people, it is more about excitement and fun. They develop incredible uses for these devices. They play with them.”
Tech-savvy phone users can already access a range of services on their mobile including news alerts, sport, traffic updates and music and Vanjoki says that ultimately everything that can be digitalised will be digitalised. He imagines a time when shoppers will enter a store and have a relevant discount coupon appear on their handset.
The WAN is investigating ways in which youth readership of newspapers can be encouraged (see Rethink As Newspapers Strive To Attract Young Readers) and believes that the mobile phone offers a wealth of new opportunities for publishers.
“I think it would be wrong to consider the issue of young readers without considering the issue of mobile communications,” said Jim Chisholm, strategy advisor to the WAN. He also pointed out that mobile phones have the advantage of portability over the internet which is relatively desk-bound.
