Innovative Technologies to Drive Mobile Marketing in Asia-Pacific

Frost: Mobile marketing services are an emerging but fast-developing segment in Asia Pacific, driven by the introduction of numerous enabling technologies. Mobile phones are increasingly ubiquitous and the penetration rate continues to grow at a phenomenal rate across the region, making this an excellent and much sought-after marketing and promotions channel for companies.

Since mobile devices are normally switched on and connected to the communications network, they provide marketers with the opportunity to communicate spontaneously with consumers,.

When integrated into a cross-media marketing communications campaign that uses multiple channels combined with print or TV, marketers gain a flexible new medium to target consumers that is likely to be more effective than using a single medium.

Mobile phone camera-based information search services are one of the most noteworthy developments that are rapidly gaining popularity in Asian countries. These solutions provide customized content to phone users by recognizing codes or images at the mere click of the phones’ camera. One such innovation is the ColorCodeTM solution developed in South Korea which is driving the growth of these information search services.

The ColorCodeTM solution is ideal for promotional offers and discounts advertised in print and electronic (television) media. Not only does its colorful coding structure make an appealing design statement, it also serves as a sophisticated system of recognition that allows users to keep track of and access various promotions and discounts.

With ColorCode’s vibrant coding structure disguised as design and the flexibility it allows in choosing the print medium, this revolutionary solution has a large market potential, particularly in developed countries.

Another emerging and highly promising development is bCODE’s electronic ticketing solution based on standard text messaging through SMS (short message service). It allows consumers to have paperless tickets delivered to their mobile devices instantly, thereby eliminating the need to wait in queues. This solution is also supported by the majority of mobile phones available today, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), Blackberries, Palm Treos and Apple iPODs.

This gives it a strong advantage over the barcode solution which is supported by a limited number of phones and has compatibility issues on different devices, thus requiring customization of the barcode format. The bCODE solution is also far simpler to use, delivering tickets in plain text message, and works on any device that displays text messages.

We expect mobile marketing to eventually converge with other services such as mobile ticketing, resulting in a more comprehensive solution. Such integrated solution will not only capture data using mobile phone cameras and pull related content onto the phone screen, but will also be capable of sending paperless coupons or tickets to the user related to the images or color codes captured by the camera phone.

The Mobile Innovations from Asia Pacific Publ 20060728