• by Masha Geller , January 30, 2002

Who says marketing to consumers via their mobile phones - "m-marketing" - is destined for greatness? Not surprisingly, Nokia does. A new study undertaken by the HPI Research Group on behalf of Nokia demonstrated that the core mobile phone market (16-45 year olds) is not only receptive to m-marketing, but in certain situations would actively welcome it.

It should be mentioned that HPI interviewed over 3300 people across eleven key global markets - Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and USA.

When asked about receiving an e-coupon for a nearby shop, nearly a third (31%) of all respondents said they would actually welcome such marketing.

A section of the study dealt with consumers who had expressed interest in mobile visual entertainment. Of these, over three quarters (76%) would find it acceptable if the programs they viewed were punctuated with very short ads.

Interestingly enough, just over a half (51%) of these respondents said that they would not see advertising as an intrusion if it were presented to them in the same way as on television.

Beyond this, respondents were asked if receiving 'some advertising' via their mobiles would be acceptable if it helped to keep the cost of mobile services down. Nearly nine out of ten (86%) agreed with this, suggesting that m-marketing would be even more widely embraced if seen as beneficial to the end user.

Now if we could just figure out how to make it all work on a tiny cell phone screen, we'd be all set!