Mobile marketing will only happen through greater internet penetration

In recent times I have been of the opinion that mobile would soon become as a competitive marketing tool as the internet is shaping up to be, if not greater.
While mobile pull campaigns (encouraging the user to respond via their mobile phone) have been widely adopted by most of the mass media channels, (newspapers, magazines, television, billboards, radio and internet) it is still a far cry short of what has transpired in my mind.
Mobile as marketing campaign strategy means so much more than targeting naive teens in downloading ringtones to their mobile phones. It far outstretches entries to competitions. And it is certainly not the be all and end all of establishing a winner in national talent competitions.
But, unfortunately, the predominant forces behind driving mobile marketing campaigns in South Africa are still large corporations.
From one of the leading mobile marketing agency websites in South Africa:
“The mobile marketing channel is slowly becoming increasingly important as an essential part of the marketing mix. For this reason large companies are starting to recognise the advantages such as immediacy and savings in costs occurring as a result of the use of mobile marketing.”
Regardless of what some would regard as recognising the advantages, it is clear that there is a perception that mobile marketing is just another weapon in the armoury of large corporations, large corporations which have the budgetary advantages of combining mass media to launch these campaigns from.
(Television and radio being among the top players with the ability to reach mass audiences during prime time broadcasting.)
However, with the massive 50% hiked television commercial prices during Q4 of 2007 (Finweek, January 2008), it is the Small to Medium Enterprises that are left behind once again.
Progressive SMME’s have recently begun to tap into the wealth of opportunities on the internet, but with the high cost of broadband, it is mainly still deemed a luxury for the higher income bracket of the population. (Hence the internet could probably not even be regarded as mass media)
This leaves SMME’s with a single mass media to their disposal, but quite coincidentally, probably the strongest of them all.
So if there is an approximate 83% mobile penetration in South Africa, the question begs why the uptake of SMME’s have been rather slow?
By doing some research on the internet, I came to the following conclusions:
1. The disregard of internet as prominent communication and publishing platform by SMME’s
2. The lack of proper mobile marketing resources, documentation and elaborate case studies
3. The perception of mobile being the poor cousin of the internet, television and radio; thus deemed as inferior
4. The perception that mobile marketing is only effective in tandem with other mass media components
5. The lack of proactive utilisation of the internet to leverage off the higher income bracket to drive marketing campaigns to a broader mobile audience
6. A lack of understanding of technology and the convergence mechanics of traditional marketing with new media tools
In my opinion, the fundamental problem with the slow uptake in mobile communications and marketing though is due to the cost and availablility of broadband internet to the masses.
If we do not see a profound change in approach from our marketers (moving steadily towards digital anyways), SMME’s only saviour will be online penetration to the greater South African population.
Both of these seem to be happening, but at rather pedantic pace.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/