Today, the mobile phone is a mass media. With equipment rates at more than 70% in most OECD countries, with this little “forth screen” in the palm of everyone’s hand, with the emotional and highly personal rapport that consumers have with it, the mobile phone is incontestably the new growth driver at the dawn of the 21st century.

In 2005, The Mobile Marketing Conference Europe has the following sub-title: “The new age of mobile marketing”. Why a new age? Because it involves presenting new forms of communication and purchasing including the mobile, even though until now, the communication of these brand name companies on mobiles in Europe has been principally limited to push, that is to say, SMS message sending campaigns. At best, some advertisers propose their response targets, to partake in a quiz or game by SMS, but hardly much more than that.

Therefore, to understand the future evolutions of mobile marketing, a look towards Asian is necessary.

The question How is it that in countries such as South Korea and Japan, leaders in regards to mobile services, brand name companies communicate via the mobile?

The answer Interactivity, between the mobile and other media, and certainly not by push, as in Europe.

The reasons for this evolution are simple :

The first reason : Spam is seriously detrimental to the sending of advertising on mobiles. Today, in Japan, a subscriber can receive up to 50 advertisements per day, the majority coming from erotic or dating sites.

The second reason : The graphic limitations of the media. Even if the arrival of MMS campaigns seemed to have been hailed by European advertisers, the mobile has remained rather poor in terms of graphic possibilities for advertising companies (and even if some do show great creativity to better exploit this media).

The third reason for the limitations of push on mobiles : This mode of communication isolates the mobile, and it therefore cannot benefit from any complementation with other media. It is this last point that Japanese and Korean Advertisers massively exploit the complementation of the mobile with other media, to act as a rebound device, at any moment.

Numerous technologies have appeared in the last few months and years, in order to allow mobile users to “rebound” from a mobile site on an advertisement seen in a magazine, on a poster or even on TV. In addition, QR barcodes, and their Korean equivalent, color codes, allow mobile users in Japan to scan a code using the camera of their mobile, thus obtaining the URL link (information contained in the code), and directly connect to a mobile Internet site. Today, 90% of the Japanese population, of all ages, is aware of these QR barcodes. They are used in magazines, mail-order catalogues or on posters. One only has to scan the code to arrive on the page of the mobile Internet site complementary to tradition communication tools. Toku Numbers, original numbers to access a web site, on the portal of the three Japanese operators, have the same function.

Using a mobile as a scanner to directly connect to a mobile Internet site is henceforth suitable for image recognition. In addition, a Japanese company has developed an application that allows the recognition of an electronic filigree integrated into an image, or even into a logo previously saved on the server. The application then offers to connect to the mobile Internet site corresponding to the advertising poster.

Other possibilities exist, like the interactive posters “Denpa Poster”, of DNP, which integrate a RFID label reader and a communication module, and allow one to send a message to anyone that passes the RFID label containing their coordinates in front of the poster. There are also some solutions using the wireless Bluetooth communication norm in Europe, to make posters interactive on mobiles.

This new age of mobile marketing that is being sketched out therefore involves a complementation to media. The PDG of the organizer of the Mobile Marketing Conference of Tokyo, Mr. FUJITA Akihisa of D2Communications, explained that marketing today must mix the advantages and make up for the flaws of different media, preferring the “Media Blend”, to the “Media Mix” which will be overtaken in the age of complementary media.

Within this context, the mobile offers immense possibilities to advertisers: a finesse of data consultation unequaled by traditional media (who connects, when, and from which poster?), the impact of media, at the same time mass and highly personal and the seduction of a playful support.

All of these aspects, without leaving out the Mobile FeliCa revolution – contactless smart cards integrated into mobiles by NTT DoCoMo – will be dealt with and elaborated on during the Mobile Marketing Conference Europe, which takes place in Paris in October 2005, with the participation of European and Asian players of the mobile marketing market.

Philippe Le Fessant, CEO InnovAsia Research - Paris, le 30 juin 2005