• by Adam Bernard , April 13, 2001

Wireless has long been promoted as the next big thing in advertising. But is it really? Since Nostradamus isn't available, going straight to the source is the only way to find an answer to the burning question of "what will the wireless future bring and when?" After speaking with four of the top advertising companies, the only coherent answer is "eventually."

Although many companies are doing wireless advertising today, America is still lagging far behind many foreign markets. Scott Ferber, CEO of Advertising.com, noted that this is because the U.S. needs some standards when it comes to wireless. "It takes time. We need all the groups to agree on a standard." Ferber added, "It will take five years for a decent enough sized penetration to say 'wow, wireless is here.'"

Jamie Byrne, Director of Strategic Development for DoubleClick, would agree with this statement, as he said DoubleClick is going to focus on building the technology for when the wireless market develops. So when there is a demand, DoubleClick will be able to serve.

SkyGo is another company that agrees that America is still very young in its wireless life. Daren Tsui, CEO of SkyGo, noted that, while other countries are already at 70% wireless penetration, America is only at 35-40%. America is also still mostly analog, with only 4-5 million cell phones actually having Internet accessibility.

Ferber added that another problem with wireless in America is that Americans don't see small screen surfing as useful. Until a realization that one can actually navigate the web on a small screen, there isn't going to be a whole lot of use advertising on one.

That being said, there are still companies that are making a huge push into the world of wireless advertising today. WindWire, for example, launched their wireless advertising service in October of 2000, deeming it "First to Wireless." Most recently, WindWire worked with the Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL (the team formerly known as the Hartford Whalers), for ticket sales campaign. David Wilson, Executive VP of Marketing and Business Development for WindWire, says that campaign, that was done in Virginia, and the Carolinas, netted a 15% call through rate, and a 910% return on investment.

ESPN.com, and Chevy trucks just recently teamed up with AT&T to do an NCAA Tournament promotion, and ShareSpan, a provider of outsource wireless messaging services, recently reached the 250 affiliate partner mark, doubling their customer base in only 90 days. This shows wireless advertising has started, but it still has a long way to go before it reaches the lofty goals set for it by 2005. Jupiter has already said that they expect to see 95 million web-enabled cell phones by that year. That's a jump of over 90 million from the number of web-enabled cell phones in America today.

One concept that is universally agreed upon is that everything dealing with wireless has to be permission based. This leads to an interesting definition of advertising. Is it truly advertising if someone is asking for it? Well, yes. The kinds of advertising that wireless will end up having are reward, and incentive, based messages.

A common concern among these companies is how to define wireless. Byrne feels that there should be a segmentation of wireless, due to the differences in devices. According to Byrne, PDA's (Palm devices), phones, and pagers, should all be treated differently, and companies should have a different response to each segment. Ferber seconded that when he said the technological differences between WAP enabled phones, and Palm devices would require separate strategies.

All that being said, Byrne feels that "wireless is going to be a huge market." Citing the strength of foreign markets, Byrne notes that these markets have things on their phones that we have on our PC's, which makes it easier, and more comfortable, for them to surf the web.

The next logical question with all of this is what's so great about wireless that makes everyone think there's a future in it? Wilson feels that the personal touch wireless has will have a big impact on advertising. Since it's something that a person always has with them, it allows for advertisers to do a lot of things. Coupon clipping, and call through, are two of the current ways of advertising on wireless.

The concept of targeting is also something that wireless may be able to do better than any other medium. It could be like a television that only gives you ads from your area.

While wireless web usage overseas is predominantly youth centered, here in the U.S., it's thought that there might be a different target leading the way. When speaking about who is going to start suing the wireless web on a regular basis in America first, Ferber was quick to say that the biggest short-term market will be business people on the go. He feels these people will have to start using the wireless web due to the nature of their lives. Other people have alternatives, these people don't. The feeling is, people will like what they see, and the boom will start.

Regardless of who starts the wireless advertising boom, it seems as though companies will be making room for it in their advertising budgets. Eventually.

- Adam Bernard may be reached at Adambernard@mediapost.com