Point-of-sale advertising is everywhere - even on mobile phones

Point-of-sale advertising is everywhere - even on mobile phones

It is no longer the case that people need to be indoors to access online services.  Everywhere that people are with their mobile devices can be viewed as being at the point of sale.

As an instant activation tool the mobile can be used to interact with any media anytime, anyplace, anywhere, thereby generating high response rates. Businesses should consider how they can harness this change in consumer behaviour and make it work to their advantage when thinking about teaming it with their advertising efforts - for example, using text message response or directing customers to a website that they can easily access from their mobile phones.

With mobile Internet usage growing exponentially year on year (in the UK 16.4 million browsed the mobile Internet in May 2008 according to the Mobile Data Association) and the subsequent emergence of mobile advertising (technology research company Gartner predicts the mobile advertising market will reach £12 billion by 2011), campaigns directing customers to websites can be targeted specifically to sizeable audiences.  Relevant targeted campaigns ensure little or no wastage.

As more and more mobile internet sites appear, mobile search will eventually take centre stage.  Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, remarked in June 2008 that “We [Google] can make more money in mobile than we do in the desktop, eventually”. Analysts appear to agree with this optimistic outlook, with mobile search expected to generate annual revenues of $4.8bn by 2013, potentially the most popular method of all with advertisers in the not too distant future.

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