Marketers Slow to Pick Up On Mobile Marketing

Marketing to the third screen is nothing new--at least not in concept. And research we did this fall on the *Digital Millennials  confirmed that the mobile phone is their lifeline -- an untapped proverbial goldmine but ONLY if marketers resist the urge to treat it like a one-way conduit.

But marketers have been slow to test mobile marketing for a host of reasons that include lack of scalable infrastructure. Nonetheless, retailers like Starbuck's and Dunkin' Donuts have begun to experiment. I expected to see more evidence of mobile testing from our Holiday E-commerce Watch research once our  team came out of the field (a field that included 30 leading e-retailers and 30 more that we chose just because we thought they might do something interesting) and didn't find one implementing mobile marketing.

But then earlier this week I received an email from CB2, at the bottom of which was an invitation to sign up for the new CB2 Go--so they can send me "news, sales, ideas and happenings" on my cell phone.

Of course I had to try it out--despite my concerns that they didn't actually tell me (in any tangible way) what to expect for content or frequency, nor did they let me have any input on the subjects. Am I going to be spammed? (THAT will make me very unhappy.)  And the confirmation message I received immediately on the phone wasn't actually from "CB2," but a 5-digit call number.

One thing we know for sure from our research is that consumers want TO SELF-INITIATE mobile communications -- and not just the sign up. EVERY interaction, unlike how email and direct mail generally work. We even developed some exploratory prototypes for VS PINK to show how retailers could deliver real consumer value by tying store communications with online account functionality with mobile marketing. Pretty jazzy stuff and the stuff of the not-so-distant future.

I'm guessing this is just the beginning--for CB2 and hopefully others -- because as consumers become more mobile so must marketers' communications. Get ready. ; )

*Digital Millennials are individuals born between 1982 and 2000, and whose aliases include Echo Boomers, Gen Y and the IM or Bling Generation.