The Wireless Advertising Revolution

Every business owner dreams of being able to reach consumers anytime and anywhere. The ideal situation would be to engage consumers when they are already out, about, and shopping. This would cause more consumers to act on impulse and, hopefully, spend more money! Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Instead, most consumers don't see commercials until they are at home and relaxing after a hefty dinner. With the growth of the Internet and new "appliances" that can access the Internet, the first scenario is quickly becoming a reality. "How?" you ask. Two words tell it all: wireless advertising.

More and more consumers are using wireless devices such as pagers, cell phones, and palmtop computers. Manufacturers are have begun producing devices that use Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), an open global specification for wireless data service. As I stated in the beginning of this article, this is great for businesses, but what about consumers? Let's take a look at this new medium, what businesses are doing to attract consumers to this form of advertising, and privacy issues related to wireless advertising.

Currently the number of WAP servers in the world runs in the thousands. This is a sure sign, like the early days of the Internet, of a new frontier ready to be explored. Consumers are now beginning to see ads come across their cell phone screens and pagers. The technology used to deliver wireless ads is still developing, however. Most of the wireless gadgets have tiny, black-and-white screens with very grainy displays. The text can be difficult to decipher and pictures are non-existent. Right now, advertisers are limited to sending short text messages to potential customers. Many are awaiting the arrival of "3G" devices that use broadband wireless services. The connections are fast and bandwidth is enormous. Until then, advertisers are trying to get consumers to notice their wireless ads. They are doing this in a variety of ways.

One way companies are attracting customers and entering into this wireless market is by partnering with leaders in this field. Businesses can look for opportunities with companies like Yahoo or Amazon.com. Companies like these offer many products and services geared towards wireless users. For example, they may sponsor a contest. Businesses can volunteer their services and products as incentives for the contest. In this way, they get free exposure to consumers viewing wireless advertisements.

Believe it or not, another popular method is bribery. One company, Advertising.com, launched a program to actually pay consumers to accept targeted wireless ads. It has already signed up more that 70,000 customers. They get paid between 5 to 10 cents for each ad that goes across their mobile phone screens. No one is getting rich by viewing these ads. Businesses, after all, want you to spend money with them. By measuring the effectiveness of these ads they are able to create more targeted ads and become familiar with what works in the wireless world. This is a completely good thing. Right? Wrong! There is one word in the last sentence that is worry to most consumers: targeted.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic