Advertisers In Malaysia Eyeing The Handphone

The future of advertising is in the mobile phone segment, according
to Ericsson, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and related
services to mobile and fixed network operators.
    The handphone, now the most personal item in people’s lives,
makes it an ideal channel for better targeted advertisements, said Manoj Menon,
a Frost & Sullivan Malaysia
partner.
    However, he said, advertisers will need to think of creative
ways to make such advertisements less obstrusive.
    Frost & Sullivan said advertisers are increasingly
investing in mobile advertising to get the message across to customers.
    “It provides good customer analytics to telcos, it’s a
reliable user-measuring tool for solutions providers, and it offers advertisers
the ability to create more targeted promotions campaigns,” Manoj said during a
conference here on this type of advertising recently.
    Elin Elkehag, strategic product manager at Ericsson, said
mobile advertising does not necessarily mean delivering advertisements to the
cellphone.
    Citing fellow Swedish company, furniture maker and retailer
Ikea, she pointed out that Ikea’s commercial jingles in its home market are
popular ringtones and ringback tones for consumers.
    “All it takes is a little creativity from the ad agency to
come up with a catchy jingle that people will love,” she said.
    Elkehag said another way of utilising the handset as an
advertising vehicle without being intrusive is to put some element of
interactivity into the A&P (advertising and promotions) campaigns.
    Using Ikea as a case study again, she said the company has a
TV commercial that uses both its catalogue and the mobile phone to engage its
customers.
    In this campaign, consumers are rewarded with a special
discount on an item if they can answer a simple question in relation to that
item.
    “An example would be ‘On which page of the catalogue can
this item be found?’ and if the viewer texts in the right answer, he will be
rewarded,” she said.
    Used right, she said the mobile phone is indeed a powerful
marketing tool because of how it is a very personal item.
    “In Western Europe alone last year, there were about 234
million SMS users and 22 million active mobile TV and video users; so you can
imagine how many people you can reach through mobile advertising,” Elkehag said.
    She stressed that creative teams in advertising agencies
need to think outside the box to be able to make the ads non-intrusive.
    “This is a new challenge to them and if they can overcome
that, mobile advertising will prove to be a good investment,” she added.