Mobile Culture affects Mobile Marketing

How Mobile Culture affects Mobile Marketing

As an American living in Europe I always find it interesting to see cultural differences drive completely different behaviour even when then underlying technology is fundamentally the same. The mobile phone in both America and Europe is fundamentally the same, but creating a compelling mobile call to action (MCA) is actually quite different.

Why don’t consumers in the US “get” text-ing?

It is widely accepted that text messaging has not seen the adoption rates in the US as it has across Europe. Some people attribute it to the fact that we American’s are just not very bright... or we are just very caught up in always doing things our own way. But there are actually two main factors that have inhibited growth of text messaging in the US. It didn’t work for everyone until April 2003 – and it had no financial driver.

1) Ubiquity: Until April 2003 there were no inter-carrier agreements for text messaging. So if you were on Verizon you couldn’t send a text message to a subscriber on the Sprint network. The problem in the US was further complicated in that there are at least 3 different mobile network technologies in use. GSM, CDMA and IDEN. Across Europe nearly all communication is via GSM (Although the good people at Qualcomm have a vision to change this…)

2) Cost: Mobile calls in Europe are expensive. When the European operators first introduced text messaging they had no idea the demand that it would generate. And as such they priced the cost of a text message fairly low. The actual price set made sending a text message cheaper than making a 1 minute voice call. Cost conscious consumers grabbed onto this fact and the service really started to take off. By setting the price the way they did, the consumer adoption was fantastic.

In the US it was a different situation. Mobile billing models in the US offer consumers hundreds – sometimes thousands – of free minutes for calls. And, having seen the huge business potential of text messaging in Europe US carriers priced text messaging at a price that was good for business, but bad for adoption. It was cheaper for consumers to make a phone call than to try to figure out how to send a text message. There was no financial incentive to text.

European MCAs

Today more and more brands and marketers are implementing MCAs into their traditional marketing. Yesterday’s trend was that ever ad had to contain a URL to access from the Internet. Today every add contains an MCA giving consumers a key word and a short code. i.e.; “Text SPORTS to 88800”. For consumers that have grown up sending text messages since they received their first mobile this is a trivial thing to do. Consumers regularly order ringtones and other mobile content all by sending text message. And from everything we see, this trend is not going to slow anytime soon.

But what about a US MCA?

A recent consumer study from Zoove shows that US consumers are more likely to engage with mobile marketing by placing a phone call that is associated with a special way of dialling. Zoove’s StarStar™ dialling takes advantage of the cultural traits in the US. Rather than trying to get US consumers to learn how to text and then to remove the fear of cost associated with text messaging, get the consumer to make a phone call by dialling a special number. This is cool.

Dial by name

One other cultural difference between the US and the rest of the world is the trend to “dial by name”. Since marketers first started trying to get consumers to call to place an order they have been trying to find a way to help consumers remember their number. The longest running – and most successful – was the dial by name.

If you look at any telephone you’ll find that there are a series of letters associated with each of the numbers except for 1 and 0. For instance, the number “2” is associated with the letters “ABC”. The number “8” is associated with “TUV”. If you want people to remember your special toll free number you could say “Dial 1-800-469-2653” or you could say “Dial 1-800-4-MY-COKE”

In the UK, SMS short codes are currently restricted to the range from 60000-69999 and 80000-89999 – so that means you can only spell words that begin with “MNO” or “TUV”. In the US the full range of short codes is available so you can spell any 5 letter word you want.

The Zoove solution shows how this is implemented by asking consumers to dial **CAR from their mobile phone. The Europeans would say, “That’s confusing – how would you do that?” – The Americans will simply pick up their phone and dial **227 and then hit the dial button.

Culture – Work with it rather than trying to change it

What I’m getting at is that it is really nice to see someone (Zoove) working “with” the current culture rather than trying to change it. Rather than trying to educate American consumers on how to text they have capitalized on the way their consumers already think, behave and respond.

For those marketers trying to run “global” campaigns you need to think about more than the fact that the word Nova in English might be a great name for a car, but when your consumer base is at least 15% Mexican – and the word Nova in Spanish means “No Go.”. You also need to think about how people behave and interact in their own world. Mobile marketing is a global thing – but it isn’t the same thing across the globe.

Related Press Release:

Zoove Corp. Releases Mobile Marketing Study; Results Call for Changes in Mobile Marketing Campaigns