The Future’s Mobile, Is the Future Bright?

Whilst the technological gravy train rattles along, and new generations of iPhones and Androids achieve greater market penetration, I don’t believe content marketers, communicators and PR folk have got to grips with mobile yet.

We’ve only just got used to writing for the web, implementing search engine optimization best practice, and exploring what social media communications channels can do for us. But if we look over our shoulder, mobile is about steam roll over us.

Mobile is Picking Up Speed

Nielsen revealed at the start of August that 25 percent of American’s own a smart phone.

I can’t find the figure for Sweden, but if traveling on the Stockholm T-bana is anything to go by, I’d put the figure at over 50 percent here – and that’s a low estimate. Literally everywhere you look in this city people have iPhones or Androids. At my morning meeting there were: 3 iphones, 1 iPad and an Android. Nuff said!

No wonder the big guns are muscling in. Apple’s exciting some (content) marketers with iAds – promising to give brands access to the global audience of iPhone touch users. And Google is gearing up to dominate everything else.

Despite the wonderful potential for B2B marketing, I’m afraid I just can’t get excited by mobile ads.

No to interruption

I don’t want my cell phone experience polluted by ads. I get enough advertising thrown at me on a daily basis via the TV, Net, billboards, on the flat screens every 5 meters in the shopping mall.

My mobile is an incredibly personal device. It goes pretty much everywhere with me – with the exception of the sauna!

Imagine that personal space, that small electronic wealth of information and communication that feels uniquely mine, raided by advertisers.

Don’t fill my favourite apps with interruptive marketing. Don’t ruin my mobile experience. Be social, instead. Converse with me. Reach out to the person – not the customer.

Offer me a free salad with my pizza if I check in with Gowalla or Foursquare instead. Give me a free coffee if I tweet publicly to a friend to join me at Wayne’s Coffee. Or if I tell my friends on Facebook that I Like you.