Adver-Whatever: The Problem with Mobile Ads

...Everything.

My phone beeps at me - I've gotten a text message. 9 times out of 10, that will be my boyfriend saying something sweet, or a friend from home updating me on a new game release. Or...Carrie asking me if I have an orange... But no, this time it's an ad. I'm not 100% sure, but I may have just had to actually pay 10 cents for some jibberish text message that not only did I delete immediately on principle, but which I never read. I'll be annoyed at the world of advertising for the rest of the day. That's right, mobile advertisers - you have successfully ruined my day. And because of this, I never buy the product or service that you are physically shoving into my pocket, and you can be 100% assured that whatever you spent on getting my personal telephone number, writing the ad, and sending it has been utterly wasted. Congratulations.

I am very much not alone in my undiluted hatred of having marketing messages sent to my phone. According to the honorable New York Times, about 13 percent of people said they they would be open to ads if they improve the mobile content available, while about 14 percent said they were open to ads as long as they were relevant to their interests, the survey found. So, a resounding 87% of people DO NOT want to see mobile advertising, even if it meant that it would improve the content available, and 86% of people don't want to see it even if it is relevant to their interests.

By the way - the ads that I have been receiving have absolutely nothing to do with my interests, and in no way improve my mobile content, as I don't use the internet on my phone. I don't have any statistics about how many people want to see ads that don't relate to their interests, and give them absolutely nothing in return, but I'm going to guess that it's somewhere down around 0%. When I'm watching television, I can accept the commercials, because they are sponsoring the program I'm watching. The same is true of online ads, for the most part. But these mobile ads are not bringing me anything - in fact, they are actually making me pay for them - and that's what is so unacceptable.

But does it matter that so few people want to see these things on their phones? No - of course not. Mobile ads are on the rise! About 23% of U.S. mobile phone users have seen advertising on their cell phones in the last 30 days, which is up by 38%! About 11% of people even responded to these ads. (89% did not.) The Times says Service providers such as AT&T Inc <T.N> and

Sprint Nextel Corp

<S.N> have long-discussed the concept of augmenting revenue with mobile phone ads and have been easing into the market slowly for fear of bombarding customers. Be prepared for bombardment in the coming months.

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"Or...Carrie asking me if I have an orange..."

So I totally just noticed this. And I actually just finished eating an orange.

In terms of the topic, I've actually noticed that, since moving to the UK and getting a phone here, I haven't gotten one single mobile ad. Interesting, considering people would probably get LESS upset about receiving mobile ads here -- it's free to receive texts and calls, regardless of what company/plan you're on here.

Posted by: Carrie | October 28, 2008 at 08:45 AM