• by Christopher M. Schroeder , October 4, 2004

Helsinki - I have spent the better part of the week touring media and technology companies here in Finland and interviewing regular folks - especially college students.

Why? Because this lovely country has brought some of the greatest innovation in cellular phone technology - it has set the standards of the industry through its juggernaut Nokia and related companies. I wanted to see the latest in cellular and handheld technology - and wondered how people, especially younger people are using it and finding their lives changed.

I'll write more in my next column about some of the technology that is coming down the pike, but I want to consider how even today's technology could have ramifications for marketers.

There is much talk in marketing circles about the potential offered by cell phone devices. They are consistently on one's person, and considered a device of life necessity. They are extremely targetable, both through knowledge of who the user actually is, and progressively with knowledge of where they are physically.

In Japan, DoCoMo started piloting systems that when users walk through shopping malls, chips will pick up your location and, even not knowing who you are but knowing you are 15 feet from the Banana Republic, SMS you a coupon or special deal. Finland has experimented with a host of, mostly, SMS tests as well.

A brave new world. And one that raises just about every privacy and spam red flag imaginable.

I spoke at length with handset makers, wireless operators, media companies, marketers, even college kids there -- and they are all asking more asking questions than offering answers.

But some interesting and consistent research is making the rounds. As one executive said to me, "when we have asked consumers if they would like to have advertising on their phones, literally 100 percent say absolutely 'no.' When we ask, 'would you be willing to easily share some of your areas of interest and receive information on your phone about those areas, even if commercial in nature?' Ninety-one percent said 'yes.'"

The United States is a fraction of the messaging country as those in Europe and Asia, but is no less in love with their cell phones. Attempts of marketing on cell phones and PDAs have, frankly, been atrocious and uninventive. And yet, useful data to the user, and the ability to share it, will only increase. There must be, to quote Ronald Reagan's favorite story, a pony in here somewhere.

Cell phone marketing may not represent a major part of ad spends in 2005, but it is coming. While I've not seen exactly what it will look like, there are four principals any marketer looking to experiment should keep in mind:

1) Anything marketers offer by push of a commercial nature should be permission-based only.

2) Anything marketers can do on their Web sites, should be thought out for a cellular or wireless experience. Marketers can create pull by having destinations of valued, data-based, easy-to-use commercial information. (Imagine one or two pushes on the phone key that would give a user a data base of whatever is "for sale" in the market today, by categories of his/her choosing?)

3) Paid links on very clean search results should work on cell phones and PDAs too. If on a device, one calls up "Chinese restaurants near me" and seven names come up, that the first two are in a different color and paid, should be as acceptable on a phone as it is online.

4) Video downloads (likely a year away here, but released now in Finland) offer interesting branding opportunities. To the degree users begin to download video segments - 7 or 8 second "screen gem presentation"-like advertising intros or a "click here to buy X" at the end is interesting to explore.

The fundamentals always win out. Offer people something that is of value when and how they want it, and everyone benefits. Jam the learning of one medium and one device into another, and you risk wasting a ton of money, and losing the very audience you are trying to attract.