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For most people, being without a mobile phone nowadays simply seems unthinkable. Each year, our obsession with new phone designs, technology and functionality gets cranked up another few degrees. The handset – once an ungainly slab of plastic, is now the ‘must-have’ fashion and lifestyle accessory. Significantly, we are now increasingly willing to pay (and keep paying) for the ‘right’ content.

The continuing strong growth in wireless marketing has been greatly helped by the rapid expansion in network coverage and, critically, capacity. Wireless hotspots are springing up almost everywhere and brand providers now have the means to creatively package and deliver genuinely rich content.

From a transactional perspective, wireless marketing provides brand owners real-time one-to-one targeting and interactivity on a scale unmatched by any other single medium, including the ability to see transactions as they happen. And wireless marketing closes the ‘marketing loop’ in establishing a highly measurable link between marketing investment and commercial return.

In seeking to maximise the commercial value of your brand, the first point to highlight is that wireless should be viewed as important as areas like licensing and merchandising, based on sound brand marketing principles and a clear strategy. Define your brand and what it wants to achieve. Make sure you exploit all of the revenue opportunities available through wireless. Where possible, utilise the appropriate partners (with access to budgets) that can help ‘amplify’ the available spend.

In terms of straightforward transactional revenue, these are likely to include ringtones, truetones, video clips (just look at how the BBC is offering exclusive previews of BBC3 comedies), wallpapers, voice mail and ring-backs. Promotional revenue can be generated through cross-promotions (covering wireless and non-wireless channels), third party tie-ins, sponsorship, contests and even new formats (for example, discovering the new face of the brand).

Wireless can also help to extend your existing brand model by ‘industrialising’ and replicating your brand’s intellectual property (IP) value. For an entertainment brand (with clear IP value, for example), it is feasible to look at three core strategies:

• Exploiting the existing brand IP and content
• Developing and exploiting new brand IP and content
• Extending the brand and IP content model across new stars (and even genres)

Pulling this all together is crucial, and extending the value and impact of the brand means effectively integrating your wireless strategy within an overall marketing strategy. Continuing with the entertainment theme, this might include:

• Events (ticketing, special performances)
• Traditional media (advertising, PR)
• Technology (email campaign)
• Retail (in-store promotion)
• Licensing
• Production (special TV and radio programming)
• Third party promotions (e.g. footwear, clothing, food and beverages)

You only have to look at the commercial success enjoyed by Endemol and its Who Wants to be a Millionaire property to see how a wireless marketing has been not just integral to the show’s format, but a significant element of its broader strategic approach. At the moment, however, many consumer brands are still unable or unwilling to see wireless as a core part of their marketing plans. The plain truth is that the infrastructure is now in place and consumers have made the mobile phone their ‘must-have’ technology. The challenge lies in understanding the intrinsic IP value of your brand and having the confidence, plans (and partners) to exploit it.

 

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