Mobile Entertainment

Just like the celebs in question, both are given inordinate amounts of column inches, are the subject of endless gossip regarding who's in bed with who and each would claim they are misunderstood. And they'd probably have a point.

Take for example the following stats, which make for interesting reading in light of the recent Blyk launch.

Thirty-eight per cent of brands (inc FMCG, automotive and media) not currently using mobile as a marketing channel said in a recent Airwide survey that they expected a 1-5 per cent response rate from SMS campaigns, with 14 per cent expecting more than six per cent. Thirty-three per cent predicted 1-5 per cent of messages would result in a transaction.

If you're not familiar with direct marketing, those percentages are on the high side. One-to-two per cent is more in line with the direct marketing norm. So, the market had better brace itself for the inevitable reality check, right?

Wrong. According to the survey at least, which says that of the companies that have executed SMS/MMS campaigns 50 per cent achieved a 6-10 per cent response, while 25 per cent registered response rates exceeding 10 per cent. Fifty-five per cent said 1-5 per cent of messages resulted in a transaction.

Reality is exceeding expectations, says Airwide. Which makes other results in the survey hard to understand. For example, a whopping 77 per cent of brands not engaged in SMS marketing say the mobile channel isn't right for their audience - surely another pointer to a lack of understanding in an age were mobile penetration in developed markets is at 100 per cent.

At a roundtable convened to debate the survey results - including representatives from Airwide, Universal McCann, WIN, Incentivated and a few journos - it was almost universally agreed that more needs to be done to make mobile more attractive as a marketing channel, particularly when it comes to rich media campaigns, specifically MMS.

Yes, the old chestnut about why MMS still hasn't taken off after all these years still gets blood boiling.

Naturally, operators came in for a bit of caning. With a few exceptions, why does sending an MMS still cost 4-5 times as much as an SMS? Moreover, the fact that most operators don't allow marketers to alter (transcode) their MMSes on the fly to account for different handset specs can destroy the integrity of campaigns.

But the operators are trying. Many are working to create dedicated channels within their network for sending so-called Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging campaigns to ensure plentiful capacity and 'on-time' delivery.

The same goes for mobile advertising (for the purposes of this article we'll differentiate marketing as a 'push' mechanism and ads as 'pull', though in truth boundaries between the two are becoming increasingly blurred in mobile).

In the UK, there moves afoot to create a cross-operator mobile version of Google-owned online advertising tool DART, which enables advertisers to more accurately target specific demographic groups for their campaigns.

However, insiders say there's a two-year roadmap attached to the project at least. The feeling from the roundtable is that only then will the operators be able to justify (or not) the £10-20 CPMs they are currently charging for on-portal banner ads (compared to the likes of Yahoo! at £4).

What does all this mean? It means that despite the emergence of 'rich media' mobile channels, plain old (but very effective) SMS-based marketing/advertising could be around for some time to come.