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Automotive mobile marketing’s devil is in the details

By Grant Owens

In the U.S. alone there are upward of 250 million mobile phones whose owners would feel naked without them. Combine these sheer audience numbers with the carriers offering more affordable data plans, the improvement in device capabilities and the buzz capturing 3G iPhone, and it would seem to be an ideal time for automotive marketers to find a best friend in mobile advertising. However, the mobile space remains immensely complex and while innovations are starting to pave the way for deep brand experiences, automotive marketers will need to spend the next 12 to 18 months experimenting and optimizing mobile ideas.

Does the 3G iPhone represent the final catalyst before automotive marketers jump into mobile headfirst?

Careful crafting is required
Greater consumer access to services beyond voice, such as Sprint offering a $99 unlimited services plan, would seemingly spell a perfect opportunity for engaging phone experiences to showcase vehicles and attributes. While this opportunity does exist, it takes crafty experience planning and above-average logistical skills to implement.

It’s not as simple as flipping the switch on mobile marketing and moving some online or print assets over to the phone. The restricted screen size on most mobile phones can often mean a very low-common-denominator experience if the effort is aiming for broad penetration.

Then when the screen size and technical capabilities are well understood, mobile planning requires a unique set of design conventions in order to engage consumers rather than annoy them. Unlike desktop web browsers and Auto OEM sites, there are very few standard design conventions to guide the development of mobile content. While there are pockets of standards among Blackberry addicts or iPhone fanatics, these players make up just a fraction of smartphones on the market and, according to JD Power, smartphones represent just a tenth of all phones in consumers hands today. So we are still many years and many partnerships away from audience numbers and standards nearing that, of say, Internet Explorer and Firefox for the web.

New engagement models
These exceptional issues might begin to sound daunting and insurmountable, but it certainly is accomplishable and automotive marketers who get it right stand to win over the hearts and minds of an influential early-adopter audience. And while they present challenges, mobile marketing’s inherent differences open the door to new engagement models that align very well with the automotive dealer sales model and can break through passive media’s white noise.

In addition to offering some elements similar to a web experience, mobile phones contain unique offerings regarding location-based marketing and allow users to easily toggle over to voice and text messaging two-way communication. As Terri Walter suggested, these features could pave the way for an entirely new dealer and showroom experience while shoppers are physically out in the market.

Navigating the last mile
With dozens of carriers and phone manufacturers, deploying content and features often require use of mobile service partners. These partners, sometimes referred to as aggregators, will ensure that your marketing campaigns can be executed across the major players like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Additionally, most outbound mobile campaigns must be approved by each of the carriers and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) - your aggregating partners will often oversee this process.

If your campaign crosses countries, regions or even age groups, it also might take on unique experiences tailored to language, network bandwidth, phone capabilities and common consumer behaviors. For example, markets such as Japan and Korea might be fully prepared for a video feature, but other markets might only be comfortable with text.

-Grant Owens

Related links:
Mobile Marketing Association
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0; W3C, 11.06.06
Understanding the Mobile Marketing Ecosystem; ClickZ, 05.01.08
Apple is third in global smartphone rankings; ZDNet.co.uk, 06.08.08

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