Kids and Their Phones
Published: March 16, 2005 (After March 23, 2005, this article will only be available to eStat Database subscribers.)A new study by NOP World indicates that 44% of US tweens and teens between the ages of 10 and 18 own a cell phone.
Mobile phone ownership penetration has increased from just 13% of 12 to 14 year-olds to fully 40%, while penetration among 15 to 17 year-olds has increased from 42% to 75%. Overall, 16 million young people ages 10 to 18 own a mobile phone.
A similar survey taken in mid-2004 by Taylor Research & Consulting Group found cell phone ownership levels among kids lower than those revealed by the NOP World study. However, the Taylor study only covered 8 to 15 year olds, while NOP's survey includes 16 to 18 year-olds. Older teens have higher mobile phone ownership levels, which brings up the average for the entire age range.
Taylor Group's data indicated that cell phone ownership was on the rise, but more kids owned or had in their room other kinds of electronics. For example, 35% had regular telephones, compared to the 21% who had mobile phones. Just over 70% had TVs in their rooms, and 81% had stereos or CD players.
NOP found that many teens are interested in phones that can act as MP3 players or digital cameras, suggesting that cell phone penetration may increase as they come to serve multiple entertainment purposes.
Taylor Group also found that girls were more likely to have cell phones than boys and were also more likely to possess regular telephones, cameras and stereos. Boys were more likely to have TVs, DVD players and video game systems.
While kids and teens are often notoriously mercurial in their brand allegiances, NOP finds that they are fairly loyal when it comes to cell phones — 77% say they have stayed with their first mobile service provider, and only 11% of respondents plan to switch providers in the next 6 months.
Interestingly, Verizon and Cingular are by far the most familiar mobile phone providers among US teens, with over 40% of respondents saying that they are aware of these companies. AT&T Wireless, which recently merged with Cingular, is well known to 20% of teens. As Ben Rogers, Vice President of NOP World Technology notes, with the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, "Cingular has a clear opportunity to catapult ahead of Verizon when it comes to brand recognition among teens and tweens." However, it is not clear how much of AT&T Wireless's name recognition will migrate over with the company to Cingular, since, after all, the "AT&T" name will disappear.
As cell phone ownership continues to increase among teens and tweens, mobile marketing will represent an excellent way for advertisers to reach this crucial age group. For more information about the mobile marketing sector, read the Mobile Marketing report, available on eMarketer's Web site.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Enpocket Java Engine - Creates richer relationships between brands and consumers
With global handset sales at 680 million in 2004, and the large majority of new phones now Java-enabled, Java applications are proving to be a popular, easy-to-use and interactive medium that give brands a permanent presence in the consumer's pocket.
Media companies, content providers and brands including Hallmark, Match.com, Time Out and Touchline Data Systems use the Java Engine to establish a presence on the mobile handset. The applications build greater affinity with consumers and enable fast access to both pre-loaded and dynamic data accessed over the mobile internet.
"Marketers are now building mobile services that take interaction and consumer control to the next level. SMS and MMS are great ways to inform and educate, but branded Java applications really entertain and enrich user experience," said Peter Larsen, CEO, Enpocket. "With the release of the Enpocket Java Engine 2.0 brands are no longer faced with long and expensive application development and testing cycles."
The Java Engine integrates with the Enpocket Marketing Engine, the world's most widely used mobile marketing software, to allow targeted Java content and relevant marketing to be transmitted to individual handsets. The Enpocket Java Engine 2.0 is ready for MIDP 2.0 and 1.0, providing stronger security features and allowing for updates to an application's core menu structure over the air.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Levi's campaign gives push to mobile marketing
Levi’s is making a further push into mobile marketing, using WAP for the first time as part of the launch of its spring 501 campaign. Mobile users will be able to preview the new Levi’s television spot on their mobiles from 7 February, a week before the ad’s official launch on 14 February. From 11 February, users can view the full television ad via a WAP website, which has been created by Lateral. The site will also offer exclusive mobile content in support of the overall campaign, including the Film of the Film and other downloads. “We want to move Levi’s further into the mobile content arena, using mobile as a pull medium,” Helene Venge, the head of digital marketing at Levi’s Europe, said. “The approach is to offer the target audience downloadable content that they can send to each other, or applications that enable their own creativity. A WAP site is a complementary communications channel and we will be looking to evolve our use of WAP over the year.”
Source: Campaign © Brand Republic
Levi’s is making a further push into mobile marketing, using WAP for the first time as part of the launch of its spring 501 campaign. Mobile users will be able to preview the new Levi’s television spot on their mobiles from 7 February, a week before the ad’s official launch on 14 February. From 11 February, users can view the full television ad via a WAP website, which has been created by Lateral. The site will also offer exclusive mobile content in support of the overall campaign, including the Film of the Film and other downloads. “We want to move Levi’s further into the mobile content arena, using mobile as a pull medium,” Helene Venge, the head of digital marketing at Levi’s Europe, said. “The approach is to offer the target audience downloadable content that they can send to each other, or applications that enable their own creativity. A WAP site is a complementary communications channel and we will be looking to evolve our use of WAP over the year.”
Source: Campaign © Brand Republic
Mobile Marketing Comes to North America
By Kelly Shermachhttp://www.crmbuyer.com/ Part of the ECT News Network
By requiring an opt-in from consumers before sending advertising to their cell phones, the company builds a unique subscriber base for each product. Macy's, for instance, can choose to sponsor messages only to women, aged 18 to 35, who earn more than US$40,000 annually and live within 25 miles of a Macy's store.
Interactive marketing has come a long way. In 2005 it will appear more often not only on the big screen -- the computer screen, that is -- but on the little screen of the mobile phone as well. With a cell phone the constant companion to more than 170 million Americans, there's a lot of potential.
A marketing phenomenon that already has achieved great popularity in Europe and South Africa is now catching on with North American marketers, who see a benefit in reaching customers when they're out spending money.
Overall, digital media and technology enable marketers to better target potential customers. And it often registers responses better than traditional marketing efforts, pleasing company executives and shareholders who want to see accountability for every dollar spent on a brand.
Moving Targets
According to soon-to-be-released research from the CMO Council and the Promotion Marketing Association -- titled "Digital Directions: How Technology Is Touching and Transforming Promotions" -- 19.8 percent of marketers across industries have used or are considering using short message service (SMS).
"Mobile marketing is quickly becoming the most direct, most interactive, widest-reaching and fastest-growing marketing medium in the world," said Barrie Arnold, vice president of strategy and business development for SMS Media Group of Aliso Viejo, Calif.
SMS Media Group drops sponsorship or advertising onto permission-based SMS content like daily horoscopes or winning lottery number alerts. It also conducts straight mobile marketing campaigns. By requiring an opt-in from consumers before sending advertising to their cell phones, the company builds a unique subscriber base for each product. Macy's, for instance, can choose to sponsor messages only to women, aged 18 to 35, who earn more than $40,000 annually and live within 25 miles of a Macy's store.
There are countless ways to segment a customer group. A chemical company might notify its farming customers when to spray their crops according to the climate and weather of particular geographical pockets, and afterward, remind them to order more product. A pharmacy can send SMS messages to senior citizens when they need to refill their prescriptions. CNET already notifies consumers when the electronic items they want drop in price.
Younger Consumers
"It's lifestyle marketing triggered by an event," said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.
SMS marketing inexpensively notifies customers of a promotion when they're out and about, spending money, "not when they get back to their houses and ... and turn on their computer and log into their e-mail," he said.
That said, the messages must be relevant or they won't elicit a reponse, both Neale-May and Arnold said. Relevancy is especially important in the United States, where recipients pay 5 cents or 10 cents for each text message. In other parts of the world, service contracts tend not to operate on a per-message basis.
More than 30 billion text messages were sent in the United States in 2004, Arnold said, and most originated with 12- to 34-year-olds who influence or account for more than $800 billion in annual spending.
Aggregated data from eMarketer indicates that younger wireless users are more receptive to mobile advertising than those ages 35 and up. Respondents surveyed for the "Digital Directions" study expected college students to respond most readily (79.7 percent), followed by teenagers (75.2 percent), males 18-34 (62.2 percent) and youth (58.1 percent).
"Their whole social fabric is driven by their mobile connections," Neale-May said of young consumers.
Investing in Mobile Marketing
"Clients buying media in our mobile media network are experiencing 4 percent or better response rates," said Tom Burgess, CEO of Third Screen Media of Waltham, Mass., a mobile advertising vendor.
Dunkin' Donuts (which is not a Third Screen Media client) achieved a 4 percent response to a mobile coupon it distributed to young adults in Boston, for example. Short codes and similar solutions give marketers a way to track success.
In late February, the Mobile Marketing Association established committees to compile return-on-investment (ROI) metrics and best practices for mobile CRM . The association said in a statement that by the end of the year it should have the information on which to base guidelines for mobile marketing campaigns.
SMS Media's Arnold admitted that mobile marketing can be as difficult to measure as traditional media advertising, unless marketers direct message recipients to a specific URL or code a direct-response message or provide people with vanity phone numbers to call. There is technology to do this, but its application costs money.
The average Third Screen Media client has budgeted between $25,000 and $250,000 for mobile marketing this year, reported Burgess. But influencing consumers never comes without a cost.
By Kelly Shermachhttp://www.crmbuyer.com/ Part of the ECT News Network
By requiring an opt-in from consumers before sending advertising to their cell phones, the company builds a unique subscriber base for each product. Macy's, for instance, can choose to sponsor messages only to women, aged 18 to 35, who earn more than US$40,000 annually and live within 25 miles of a Macy's store.
Interactive marketing has come a long way. In 2005 it will appear more often not only on the big screen -- the computer screen, that is -- but on the little screen of the mobile phone as well. With a cell phone the constant companion to more than 170 million Americans, there's a lot of potential.
A marketing phenomenon that already has achieved great popularity in Europe and South Africa is now catching on with North American marketers, who see a benefit in reaching customers when they're out spending money.
Overall, digital media and technology enable marketers to better target potential customers. And it often registers responses better than traditional marketing efforts, pleasing company executives and shareholders who want to see accountability for every dollar spent on a brand.
Moving Targets
According to soon-to-be-released research from the CMO Council and the Promotion Marketing Association -- titled "Digital Directions: How Technology Is Touching and Transforming Promotions" -- 19.8 percent of marketers across industries have used or are considering using short message service (SMS).
"Mobile marketing is quickly becoming the most direct, most interactive, widest-reaching and fastest-growing marketing medium in the world," said Barrie Arnold, vice president of strategy and business development for SMS Media Group of Aliso Viejo, Calif.
SMS Media Group drops sponsorship or advertising onto permission-based SMS content like daily horoscopes or winning lottery number alerts. It also conducts straight mobile marketing campaigns. By requiring an opt-in from consumers before sending advertising to their cell phones, the company builds a unique subscriber base for each product. Macy's, for instance, can choose to sponsor messages only to women, aged 18 to 35, who earn more than $40,000 annually and live within 25 miles of a Macy's store.
There are countless ways to segment a customer group. A chemical company might notify its farming customers when to spray their crops according to the climate and weather of particular geographical pockets, and afterward, remind them to order more product. A pharmacy can send SMS messages to senior citizens when they need to refill their prescriptions. CNET already notifies consumers when the electronic items they want drop in price.
Younger Consumers
"It's lifestyle marketing triggered by an event," said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.
SMS marketing inexpensively notifies customers of a promotion when they're out and about, spending money, "not when they get back to their houses and ... and turn on their computer and log into their e-mail," he said.
That said, the messages must be relevant or they won't elicit a reponse, both Neale-May and Arnold said. Relevancy is especially important in the United States, where recipients pay 5 cents or 10 cents for each text message. In other parts of the world, service contracts tend not to operate on a per-message basis.
More than 30 billion text messages were sent in the United States in 2004, Arnold said, and most originated with 12- to 34-year-olds who influence or account for more than $800 billion in annual spending.
Aggregated data from eMarketer indicates that younger wireless users are more receptive to mobile advertising than those ages 35 and up. Respondents surveyed for the "Digital Directions" study expected college students to respond most readily (79.7 percent), followed by teenagers (75.2 percent), males 18-34 (62.2 percent) and youth (58.1 percent).
"Their whole social fabric is driven by their mobile connections," Neale-May said of young consumers.
Investing in Mobile Marketing
"Clients buying media in our mobile media network are experiencing 4 percent or better response rates," said Tom Burgess, CEO of Third Screen Media of Waltham, Mass., a mobile advertising vendor.
Dunkin' Donuts (which is not a Third Screen Media client) achieved a 4 percent response to a mobile coupon it distributed to young adults in Boston, for example. Short codes and similar solutions give marketers a way to track success.
In late February, the Mobile Marketing Association established committees to compile return-on-investment (ROI) metrics and best practices for mobile CRM . The association said in a statement that by the end of the year it should have the information on which to base guidelines for mobile marketing campaigns.
SMS Media's Arnold admitted that mobile marketing can be as difficult to measure as traditional media advertising, unless marketers direct message recipients to a specific URL or code a direct-response message or provide people with vanity phone numbers to call. There is technology to do this, but its application costs money.
The average Third Screen Media client has budgeted between $25,000 and $250,000 for mobile marketing this year, reported Burgess. But influencing consumers never comes without a cost.
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