• Ad Age, Thursday, January 4, 2007 12:15 PM

Perhaps the biggest hurdle the mobile-marketing business faces is that nearly three-quarters of Americans are annoyed at the thought of receiving marketing messages on their phones. That's according to a new Forrester Research report entitled "Is the U.S. Ready for Mobile Marketing?"

Marketers, carriers, tech vendors and phone makers would all say "yes" to that question but consumers, at least 79% according to Forrester, say "no." And just 3% say they trust text ads. "We've grown up with this...ad-equals-interruption mind-set," said Christine Spivey Overby, the Forrester analyst who co-authored the study.

Thus, text ads are an area where marketers need to tread lightly, but when it comes to surfing the Net on a mobile phone, consumers can't argue with banner ads. Sprint recently became the first major carrier to announce ads on its Web landing page for mobile customers (called a "deck"). Verizon Wireless followed suit last week, and Cingular Wireless (soon to be AT&T) is expected to announce something soon.

Branded content, another area of mobile marketing, has been around for several years and is widely accepted. Spending on the three disciplines, text, browser banners and branded content should ramp up over the next few years, topping out at $1.3 billion in 2009, up from $150 million last year, according to research firm Ovum.

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