Magazine advertisers go interactive mobile route

Usually I urge businesses to consider the impact mobile marketing could have on their marketing strategies. It is one of the fastest growing marketing channels today and especially in Africa, mobile penetration far outweighs that of the internet.
But what happens when you forget to baby sit marketers that have been converted already? I’ll tell you…they exploit the channel for everything it’s worth. We all know that mobile phones are very private possessions. People are very protective of their phone numbers (I actually dispute that…but nonetheless) so we are very careful to how we communicate with our target audience. Permission based communication is at the order of the day.
But they didn’t stop there. In fact, it is possible for marketers to take it just one step too far. So they did.
“Thanks to SnapTell, a provider of image recognition-based mobile marketing solutions, the winter issue of Martha Stewart Weddings will be the first women’s magazine to utilize fully activated or “live” advertisements throughout the publication.”
This means that women (and men reading women magazines) can now take a snapshot of any featured advertisement inside the issue and then receive content on the specific product via their mobile phone. Content received from the advertisers includes coupons, videos or photos, website links or product information. Nifty, isn’t it?
So is this marketing’s latest innovative ways to get people to pay attention to advertising again? Of course, the entire campaign is trackable, so for advertisers it will surely make sense to avail their product content to consumers for mobile download.
That is, of course, if people actually go through all the trouble of paying more attention to advertising than they do on editorial content. Somehow this seem like a rather futile attempt to make advertising more desirable…and gain greater profits from the advertisers.
Then again, if Martha Stewart reckons it’s worth the effort, my mom will surely do to.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/