How 3G Can Help Best Marketing Your Product via a Unique Route Mobile Video Advertising Date:   Wednesday , November 04, 2009 Managing strategic marketing not only involves choosing the right target market but also getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value. In the present Indian market environment, getting connected to the correct target audience becomes all the more difficult with all mediums getting cluttered and monotonous, keeping aside delivering the required customer value. The demand states of consumers – negative, non-existent, latent, declining, irregular, unwholesome, full, over-full – have by far been the unpredictable factors and so the one who has the analytic reasoning to control them emerges as the best player in the field. Developing marketing strategies, capturing marketing insights, connecting with customers, building strong brands, shaping market offerings, delivering, and communicating value, besides creating long-term growth remain ineffective if the core message ceases to reach the customer at the right time. As all the traditional communicative mediums are getting cluttered with more product players moving in, it becomes a challenge to secure one’s own product positioning. This includes intensive and out-of-the-box advertising promotion, increased number of projection, involving the customers, and making them interested so that they allow you to command their demand states. Marketing is now seen as a strategic creativity, which means looking beyond the traditional modes of communications. The mobile media is gaining momentum and with the 3G policy being announced shortly by the government, marketing is set to reach a new and different scale of revolution. 3G has inherent benefits of economies of scale and time to market facility that becomes crucial in the present competitive market conditions. It is foreseen that by 2012, 60 to 80 million mobile subscribers in India will be 3G-enabled and 30 percent of all future handsets will have 3G capabilities, making way for mobile marketing to become a medium that every product will be banking on. Mobile Marketing – Video Technology Platform An ABI forecast estimates that the mobile marketing and advertising ? including search and video advertising ? will grow to reach $19 billion by 2011. The study also found that some of the highest levels of spending would come in the broadcast mobile video space. It should exceed SMS as a source of mobile marketing spending and mobile broadcast networks should be present in all major markets by 2011. The ABI research also estimated that spending for broadcast mobile video advertising would reach $9 billion by 2011. The providers of such communication and technology platforms have developed certain video applications that are ideal for 3G mobile marketing, making it interactive to users. Some of the key direct to consumer marketing in the mobile space includes WAP Push and also a unique interactive marketing on a video call. WAP Push is a simple process wherein an SMS containing a unique URL is sent to a mobile phone. The link to a Web page is sent to the mobile phone as a text message. Once opened, the phone can connect to a mobile website, video, picture, rotating picture, music, or sound file compatible to both 2.5 and 3G markets. But there are some disadvantages particularly in the interactivity feature. To overcome that, 3G provides a way of sending videos on a video call that is completely interactive and viral. For the end customer, it provides user-friendly access to videos, and for the marketers it provides an excellent opportunity to get customer feedback and to complete the sales cycle. Besides giving an opportunity to have a better consumer mindshare, this campaign can also be made viral as users can forward the video to anyone (as it is a video call). Its ease of reaching the user making him interested in allowing you to advertise with his consent helps in building up a positive consumer relationship and value ? the two main concerns for a product’s long-term existence in the market. Ideal for Push and Pull marketing, its one touch convenience allows a vast array of possibilities for the consumer, especially when considering that a full color video can be displayed to advertise a business or brand. Thousands of messages can be simultaneously sent to a list of numbers allowing a considerable amount of people access to a promotional video, which can be made very interactive using this video platform. This form of advertising has the potential to be more effective than any other medium, including television, as customers can be sent marketing material for products and services they are genuinely interested in. It is personal to each individual, minimizing wasted marketing and allowing for a direct tangible result. As customization, personalization, and convenience are increasingly gaining importance for today's customers, newer applications enabling advertisers reach their markets are being developed. Making the product information accessibility easier and timely for the user ? only with the sending of an SMS to watch an interactive video will enable users have a window shopping experience via the mobile phone itself as well as taking care of user’s privacy. These technologies and platforms are developed to address concerns such as privacy and spamming and are designed to satisfy the needs of both advertisers and consumers. Invertising or ‘invited advertising’ allows consumers seek specific information they need and the advertiser can then send a mobile video or a voice SMS to the specific consumer. The sales team can then create a direct relationship with potential customers. Such targeted and relevant advertising is likely to be more result oriented and will help operators increase their average revenue per user. With the mobile penetration in India increasing at double the rate every year and mobile advertising becoming a necessary driver for the development and commercialization of the mobile Internet, just as online video advertising has been for the Internet to date, the future prospect of such a medium is about to revolutionize the way of product marketing. Raghunath Vijayaraghavan, Director - Marketing, Bay Talkitec