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Marketers may find youth market more of a target on mobile

The youth market is always an attractive but elusive demographic to target in marketing.  For mobile marketing though, the recommendation has normally been to forget about targeting them with mobile marketing, simply because the cost of data services alone is a hindrance to get this demographic to respond.

Well, there are few trends and a couple of research reports that show that this may be changing somewhat.  First, a report from Pew Internet says that 27% of teens have accessed the internet wirelessly:

If you go up from the teen market, and consider “young adults”, you find that they are even heavier users of wireless data, especially when it comes to accessing social networks, where Pew Internet found that 81% of of online 18-29 year olds (and I doubt many of them are not online) are wireless internet users, and 72% access Facebook.  Now if you look at the growth of Facebook on mobile, you will see they recently announced passing 100m active mobile users.  If you compare that to the total of 400m active users on Facebook, it means 25% of Facebook users go mobile, where no doubt a large part of the teen/younger adults desire to access the wireless internet is due demands for always on social networking.

Another trend is that smartphones are becoming common, and no longer just in the business domain or high income domain.  Wedbush expects over 20% of phones shipped in 2011 will be smartphones, and it is safe to assume that nearly all will be sold with some sort of data package, whether pre- or post-paid.  Smartphones, with Apple leading the way, have gone from geek to chic, as you can see from this video where young adults in Malaysia are embracing smartphones in a big way.  However, another important trend to watch is whether data is included in pre-paid plans, which is traditionally the preferred choice of the younger generation.   The following shows a snapshot of 4 different operators (Virgin Mobile and Optus in Australia, Boost in the US and 3 in the UK – click images for larger versions):

Virgin Mobile (AUS)	Optus Mobile (AUS)
Boost Mobile (USA)	3 (UK)

Plans vary, including as much as 1GB bonuses (Virgin), offering free use of major services like YouTube (Optus), unlimited access for $0.35/day (Boost), or 150mb free per month (3), which should definitely not scare away teens or young adults.

There is no doubt that if it is not broken already, the barrier to target teens – and more so young adults – with mobile marketing campaigns that goes beyond simple SMS interaction will soon be broken.

Ericsson eStore: Sounds vaguely familiar…

This was one that I almost did not catch, but Ericsson announced their eStore initiative in Barcelona a few weeks back. Essentially it is a managed service app store concept they are pushing to mobile operators and media companies.  In that regards, not too different from what Motricity and heaps of others provide.

But honestly, Ericsson has been pushing managed service content portals since 2004, mainly affiliated with Ericsson Mobility World which was/is their center for expertise in mobile content and services. So eStore honestly seems like an old concept in a new wrapping.   The old Mobility World link now leads to “Ericsson Developer Connection“, which is only one component of their offering.

Forgive me for not being excited about this one.  Mobility World has been around for 6 years and has to my knowledge not had any major launches or successes.  Also, if a differentiator for eStore is what Telco 2.0 says, in that they can support multiple business models, then eStore will not make much impact as this must surely be a minimum requirement to even play in the app space.

Maybe I am being too hard on Ericsson here, but putting a new name on a 6 year old initiative is hardly going to make a difference.  Please chime in with your own thoughts through the comments!

Aussie start-up takes on Foursquare,Gowalla (..and Google?)

Aussie start-up Dream Walk Mobile just launched their Dream Walk App. Essentially this is a “treasure hunt” style app, where users fire it up, and can see offers from local retail stores in their vicinity.  The principle is fairly simple: As an advertiser, you offer instant prizes, stamps that need collecting, or clues, which the user has to solve that leads to the ultimate prize.

To make it all work, they have a few, but very important rules that advertisers must obey:

• Prizes must be giveaways, not discounts or other offers
• Winner must not perform any task other than provide basic identification
• Products must be “real”, i.e. no promotional giveaways (like pens with company name etc)
• Giveaways must not be freely available elsewhere

The rules are probably what will make this work for Dream Walk.  Gowalla and Foursquare offer a lot more in terms of network value and integration with social networks.  Dream Walk Mobile is simple: Use it and you will get free stuff.  Dream Walk also has the advantage that the value of using their app is not tied to the number for people or friends using it.

You can of course argue how long it would take Google to offer the same if they decided to. A week?  But Google does not at least currently have this model, and allows advertising on maps based on bidding.  It could very well be that Dream Walk Mobile’s model is what will have them be somewhat unique, at least for a while.

Of course, they still need to solve the issue of getting enough users, and that those users actually fire up the app while walking around the cities. In this regards, they have had a heavy focus towards advertisers, and using the service is quite simple.  I would certainly jump at the chance for a free coffe – but doubt I see the day when I see a free car get offered. Then again, if they get an advertiser to jump on that, solving how to get users and having them have the app running would not be a problem.  The concept is tried and tested, and scavenger hunts like Norway’s Radio 1 “The Hunted” has been proven to successfully drive listeners, users and traffic.  Stay tuned.

What do you think? Will this type of model prevail? Or will it be marginalized? Please add your comments.

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