Mobile Marketing Case Study Mobile-Based Marketing Needs

Mobile Marketing Case Study

Mobile-based marketing needs to be part of an integrated marketing communications (IMC) strategy, supported by ancillary systems, tactics and programs to attract, sell and serve targeted customers if it is to succeed. Of the many technology platforms that are catalysts of IMC growth, mobile-based marketing continues to accelerate well beyond all others, estimated being valued as a $23B industry by itself (Valentino-DeVries, Steel, 2010). Despite this rapid projected growth, mobile-based marketing has continued to face formidable obstacles to its growth. For the last decade there have been lawsuits regarding the use of cookies and other advanced tracking technologies including "Flash Cookies" that are used for recreating browsing sessions by consumers, even after they are deleted (Valentino-DeVries, Steel, 2010). There are the legal impediments to growth and the technological, including the ability to integrate disparate, often legacy systems together to create scalable, secure mobile marketing systems (Pelau, Zegreanu, 2010). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how location-based services have progressed in the last decade, and why their adoption and use will be different in 2014 and beyond. Targeting advertising based on a user's location is also a volatile topic today, yet the advent of opt-in and opt-out technologies first introduced several years ago (Pelau, Zegreanu, 2010) and continually improved in mobile operating systems including Google's popular Android operating system, provide users with the freedom to choose if they participate on location-based services or not. The paradox of mobile marketing is that the greater the sophistication of technology, the more the level of trust that needs to be cultivated and grown with users.

Location-Based Services in 2014 and Beyond

Location-based services in the past relied on relatively inefficient approaches to triangulating user's location which made contextual intelligence nearly impossible to attain. This shortcoming of mobile marketing often led to spam-like marketing techniques on the part of advertisers, literally carpet-bombing every user or prospective customers' cell -- phone they had the ability to reach (Valentino-DeVries, Steel, 2010). In the 2002 and 2003 timeframe, this practice of spamming across mobile channels combined with the ethically questionable and often outright unethical use of cookies and tracking techniques led to a flurry lawsuits and eventually a call for U.S. Congressional action of this area (Valentino-DeVries, Steel, 2010). While mobile marketing had the potential to create unique, highly customized personal relationships, the technologies necessary for creating a reciprocal, not unilateral relationships was lacking (Pelau, Zegreanu, 2010). The advent of opt-in and opt-out technologies, more precise GPS coordinates, the launch and eventual discontinuing of Google Latitude in late 2013, and the continual advances Apple and Google are making in providing contextual search capability on mobile devices have combined to create a sustainable, trusted catalyst of mobile marketing growth. These factors are combining to create a more reciprocal relationship with users, giving them greater control over how they interact with and choose to participate in mobile and location-based advertising with companies and retailers they trust.

The thorough analysis of mobile technologies by Pelau and Zegreanu (2010) show how the foundational elements of mobile marketing have been continually been improved from an accuracy, cost and performance standpoint. The lessons learned in this field can be attributable to the shift in priorities away from one-way, unilateral communication and the borderline, and at times unethical practices of tracking users (Valentino-DeVries, Steel, 2010) to the focus on greater collaborative, trusted experiences (Economist, 2010). The progression of these technologies taken together are creating greater opportunities for the user to take greater control over the conversation with brands. This is the most significant difference in how mobile marketing is changing today.

This pendulum of trust has swung so far towards the user that many are over-sharing details about their lives including check-in locations when they are away from home. The emergence of robmenow.com (Economist, 2010) is symptomatic of this oversharing trend. It is also a very clear signal that contextual intelligence and data is available to marketers, who will succeed when they approach marketing from a conversational standpoint first with the bull-horn like approach to marketing needing to stop.