I have the ability to be rather annoying when it comes to the shape of the future with mobile technology. One of my favourite analogies that I present to most of the people that care enough to listen is that of the Sony Bravia commercial on television a while back. I have said on numerous occasions that I thought it to be one of the best commercials I’ve seen in a long time. In addition to that, I have quoted on a previous blog article of mine, that should the Sony Bravia had a mobile hook to the commercial, with the user being able to order a Bravia by return text message from a number on the television screen, that the sales of the television might have increased dramatically.

The pipedream when I explain it to my friends is a world where mobile networks and our local banks would come to some sort of relationship whereby it is possible for a consumer to use his mobile phone as a purchasing mechanism, much like a credit card.

This was all more than a year ago, and while it seemed to have been a pipedream back then, South Korea has now already advanced to the stage where more than 100,000 people in the country are using mobile phones as purchasing mechanism, varying from credit to debit transactions using multiple technologies for it like bar code reading. Simply by creating a SIM card where banking details and credit card information can be stored, the phone can then be used at checkout points to purchase the item. The user’s account will automatically be debited with the appropriate amount, rendering the actual plastic version credit card as rather useless.

In fact, the credit card facilities in South Korea now include this mobile credit technology as a default into their subscriptions, offering the plastic credit card as an optional extra.

The greatest problem, as explained on the Communities Dominate Brands Blog, is that countries like South Africa still has an entrenched status quo where it seems that the banks are situated in one corner, mobile operators in another, credit card facilities yet again in another and for some reason cannot fathom the idea of merging technologies and expertise to create a more convenient user experience.

I have no doubt that in the nearby future such mergers and relationships will be performed and I quite look forward to the day when I can use my mobile phone for every day purchases.

To prove this many of you would probably acknowledge that nearly a year or two ago it was unimaginable to even suggest writing an entire blog article using nothing else than a mobile phone, which is exactly what I have done. From the recorded voice file, I simply transferred the sound clip to my laptop and have a programme, Dragon’s Naturally Speaking, convert the text that I recorded into written text. The interaction I had to date with my keyboard was to make minor edits and change around some words and sentences.

We are rapidly entering a world where convenience forms the pinnacle of consumer decision making and with a mobile penetration rate in South Africa of close to 90%, the logical progression would most probably be the advancement of mobile technologies in our everyday life.

What are some of the more profound things you use your mobile phone for?

From the Communities Dominate Brand’s Blog it is shown that mobile technology now has 4 billion subscribers. Recognizing that the world has about 6.7 billion people, it means there is a mobile phone subscription now for 60% of the entire planet.

From the Mobile Active Blog, research from Informa indicates that by 2010 half of the planet’s population will have access to the Internet through a mobile device.

From a previous article of mine, where I have also quoted the Communities Dominate Brand Blog, it was shown that there are approximately 1.4 billion Internet users in the world. Compared to about 1.5 billion television sets, newspaper circulation of 480 million, one billion desktops, laptops and netbooks and roughly 1.30 billion e-mail users, one has to wonder why South African businesses still disregard mobile marketing as their primary source of return on marketing investments.

The Mobile active blog asks a very enticing question: Should you make your website mobile?

I would like to rephrase the question: Shouldn’t you make your website mobile?

If you consider the amount of smartphones (mobile phones with Internet, e-mail capacities), and the research results of Informa, together with the up and coming generation of technology users, it seems fairly obvious that the marketing times are changing.

Again, like a stuck record, the question begs why small businesses in particular refrain from adapting mobile marketing practices. Considering the substantially lower input costs, distribution cost and the proven the high returns on campaigns, mobile marketing sounds almost too good to be true.

Now, mommy used to tell you that anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is. But then again, mummy didn’t live in the digital era, did she?

The time has come for businesses to cast away their nappies, grow up, and start conducting business in a mature and intelligent manner.

You can only take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. The mobile marketing society has been leading, in fact predicting, the exponential rise of mobile marketing potential for quite some time.

It is time for businesses to start drinking from the pool of wisdom reality.

I have just written an article on another blog of mine, which falls slap bang into the context of this blog here. So I thought I’d share the link.

“Our society, especially the younger generation, lives in a time where their desired location demands connectivity. If you own a coffee shop, you better have a wireless connection, preferably free, because your competitor round the corner has.

If you’re thinking that this generation is not your critical target market, you’ll be in for a surprise too. Today’s youth is tomorrow’s business leaders. And they’re growing up fast. One only needs to browse the internet to find these twenty-somethings, sharing ideas, creating businesses with virtual partners and labeling themselves entrepreneurs.”

Read the rest of the article here…

For a company that’s in dire straits, Ford (in the US) seem be to extravagantly spending time and money on engaging niche markets with mobile marketing campaigns.

Of late, both the Ford Ka, focused on the youth market, and the Ford Flex, a monstrosity of a truck in the Dallas, Texas region (not surprisingly) have been ceremoniously praised for its mobile campaign initiatives.

The Ford Ka campaign in particular struck my interest. Direct mail packs were distributed among bars, music festivals, colleges and what not. Contained in these packs were material with QR codes (similar to a bar code which can be scanned with your mobile phone’s camera) and the objective of the campaign is for people to “Find it” (As in find the Ka obviously). Hence, once you spot one of these QR codes, by browsing your phone over the code, a picture of the Ford Ka will appear on your screen and an application will direct you to the Go Find It website.

Now, upon landing on this website, there are a bunch of things for the user to do. Things like customizing a Ford Ka, watching videos, placing your latest finds on the map for others in your region to see and a whole plethora of uhm…well, cool stuff.

There are a number of things I have derived from scanning this campaign:

1. The new Ford Ka is a very sexy little car.
2. The campaign certainly seems to be a lot of fun. (If this is the kind of thing that you enjoy doing)
3. Ford has gone out of their way to make this campaign what it is…nifty.

But nifty isn’t good enough for me. And I wouldn’t recommend nifty for 2009 either. ‘cause it’s recession time baby and companies aren’t supposed to a) have the money for these types of campaigns, b) spend these types of money when their financials read like a college dropout’s report card and c)have the audacity to spend these moneys while their Chief Executives are begging at the feet of local government for bailout money.

One would imagine, and this is rich even coming from me, that the main focus of these mobile campaigns should be geared either toward sales, value added services (which are monetized rather well these days) or if you’re really smart, a combination of the two.

Two things may happen though: One – the guys over at Branding Unbound will provide me with the stats of these campaigns, and the success of it will shock my socks off.

Or two – they might argue that the monetary ROI is irrelevant to the brand equity obtained through these campaigns.

One would reckon that a piece of pie on my face is not what you’d call a desired ending to this engagement. But…regardless, yes this is a bold statement, but regardless of the outcome of these two campaigns, I will go on my knees and beg of you (the businesses out there in these trying times) to keep it simple.

Keep it focused. Keep it niche. Keep it cost effective. Keep it convenience centric. Keep it easy for people to react – sales- or otherwise. Customers love outrageously cool things, but they also appreciate an honest, direct approach, especially so if they’re current customers of a company that’s facing extinction.