Cellphone ads are the next big thing

By MACHARIA KAMAU

The mobile telephone has been touted as the next big thing in marketing and advertising globally.

The uptake in Kenya has been tremendous especially in the recent past, offering a fertile ground for marketers and advertisers to reach their target audiences at a level that no other medium offers in a cost effective manner. In spite of the opportunities that it offers, many advertisers are yet to factor mobile advertising in their budgets.

This is not only in Kenya but a global trend. According to an American research firm Informa Media, the global advertising spend on mobile phone was $871 million (Sh65 billion) compared to $24 billion (Sh1.8 trillion) spend on Internet advertising and the overall $450 billion (Sh34 trillion) spent on all media.

Players in the industry forecast that cell phone ad spending will go up to between $11 billion and $20 billion in the next three years. A local start up JBA advertising has been trying to get marketers and advertisers to adopt the idea for the last two years but it is only in the last eight months that there has been signs of acceptability.

Experts say cell phones will with time supplement not only Internet advertising but also television, radio, print and billboards [PHOTO: TOM MARUKO/STANDARD]

"We have companies slowly coming on board and can now say with certainty that even in Kenya, mobile phones are the next big frontier in advertising," said Ms Wairimu Karumwa of JBA advertising. The company has integrated Internet and mobile technology as an advertising medium. Advertisers post their products and services on the website and they are available to prospective clients on their phones upon requests through text messages.

NEW IDEA

"The website is modeled on the concept of a shopping mall where companies place their products on smaller shops. One big popular mall offers advantage for companies as they enjoy same advantage of visibility as the bigger mall compared to a remotely located shop," she said.

The cyber shop, that comes from the analogy with a shopping malls, provides companies with space to place their ‘smaller shops’ or mini-websites and display their products and also offers a direct link to the company’s actual site.Prospective clients can also access products and services listed on the website through an SMS query.

"We link the clients with the service providers as when sends a query about a product or service, we send them the contacts of the service providers and the products they have on offer and also alert the providers about the query and give them the contacts of the prospective client," said Wairimu.

Locally, few companies allocate any money to be used on cell phone advertising. According to Mr James Ngomeli Chairman Chattered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Kenya Chapter, even those that have embraced the idea, they allocate an insignificant amount estimated to be less than five per cent of the entire advertising budget.

COMPETITION

He attributed this to the fact that the idea is still new and prohibitive costs by the local mobile phone operators. JBA advertising has been unable to go around this and clients enquiring about products have to pay a premium rate of Sh10 for every text message.Ngomeli however said that as a marketing and advertising medium, cell phones will with time supplement not only Internet advertising but also television, radio, print and billboards, the four traditional pillars of the business.

This is especially so because with increased competition, companies are being compelled to be innovative in the manner that they approach customers.

"To be able to have one’s message resonate easily with one’s prospective clients, the best medium used to convey the message should be as close as possible to the audience," he said.