• by Christopher M. Schroeder , October 11, 2004

HELSINKI - I wrote last week from Finland about the marketing potential I observed in the latest wireless phone devices coming down the pike. Though it is early to turn significant attention to these devices, their penetration and processing power clearly offer opportunities to reach consumers never before available.

I noted four general themes marketers should consider as they experiment with phones:

1) If you're pushing messages on the limited space of the phone, make it permission-based only.
2) As Internet access becomes more widely available on the cell phone, marketers need to take into account screen size in their experiences for users who come to their sites from phones.
3) Paid links on search results should be as valuable on cell phones as they are on PCs.
4) As more television and video download experiences will be available, short, clever video lead-ins should have great value.

Brilliant. But in some respects, this piece had the horse before the cart. Before one spends a lot of time and money planning a "cell phone campaign," what capabilities will truly be adopted and when?

A visit to Nokia labs is quite eye-opening. Imagine devices, lighter and more narrow than the latest Trio but with remarkable screen size and clarity. They have all the basic capabilities of voice, messaging, calendar, e-mail, Internet access - and Bluetooth enabled. With broadband access via upgrades of their GMS or CDMA delivery and the latest 3G release, digital TV signals are available as well as the ability to download short video segments.

Cameras will break the 3 megapixel mark, and video cameras will allow you to shoot and send over 30 minutes of your kid's soccer games. With more than a gig of storage, you can download hundreds of your favorite songs. With GPS capability, you can find your way at any time of day or night, or find the nearest restaurant from wherever you're standing. For business applications, or for checking in at home, walkie-talkie like "push to talk" will be available this year. In one year, as you speak, you can show your friends what you're looking at with "video to talk."

Whether we're using Nokias or Motorolas or Trios or Microsoft's pocket PCs, or some converged devices not yet imagined, it's easy to see the convenience and power of having on our person the perfect device that is an extension of what we can do at the home and office. But there are a few questions to rain on this parade.

First, how much is really possible in the absence of true broadband access? Even in Europe, the land of 3G roll-out, folks are worried about the "concurrency" issue. Too many users doing the same things at the same time means the world slows down. Folks may be able to download video segments, but it won't be possible to stream television (except through separate DTV).

Second, how much do users really want? One of the lessons in the development of hand-held devices is the law of unintended consequences. SMS was an add-on capability thrown into new devices pretty much at the whim of an engineer. There was no market testing. But revolution was born. Digital cameras on the phone are extremely popular, but so far - to the dismay of the service providers - very few people actually SEND photos anywhere. Will users really want every capability in one device?

Third, how much are users willing to pay? The perfect all-in-one device could save us all money in consolidation of our purchases - but will $500 or more be acceptable? As consumers spend on voice each month, how much will they be willing to spend on additional services? Research is showing that consumers also think of their cell phone as a fashion statement, switching every six to eight months - how will this match if the cell phone becomes as complicated and expensive as a small PC?

I think the answer, in the short-run, will be to watch Europe, Japan and Korea. They are ahead of us in wireless broadband access and consumer adoption of additional cell phone services. In the meantime, marketers can experiment for more advanced phone and PDA users along the line of the four principals I outlined above.

We cannot predict everything users will do in these brave new worlds, but we do know that the people we all want to reach will have wireless devices for communication and data on their person. That the trajectory and velocity towards reaching them may not be in the next year in no way takes away from the inevitable opportunity.