Mobile Marketing- Indias Golden Goose

Mobile Marketing- India’s Golden Goose

India- A mobile crazy nation? India has more mobile phones than toilets- UNICEF A growing number of cell phone users in India are suffering from Nomophobia or no-mobile-

phone phobia- Indian Journal of Community Medicine research. In India, some people display their phone number at their door, rather than their name- Jay

Altschuler, director of global media innovation at Unilever. Some of the headlines which everyone must have read during the past few months and would

have laughed about it….

So is India really a mobile crazy nation???

Facts As per TRAI, there are 911 million telecom subscribers in India. Overall Tele-density in India

stands at 78.10% at the end of February, 2012 while the Urban Tele-density standing at 162.61%.

On an average it has added 10 million subscribers every month over the last year. As per Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights average Indian Smartphone user spends 2.5 hours a

day using their phones An Indian Journal of Community Medicine research states that in terms of usage '73 percent

of students keep their mobile phone with them even when they go to sleep - the cell phone is with them for 24 hours a day.'

Indians are definitely mobile crazy. And definitely a huge market for mobile marketers to poach

Reality- Marketers have a different story Lot of advertisers have been gaga over mobile marketing, but if look at the actual spend by

them it gives a different picture. A recent report by Pitch Madison Media Advertising Outlook (PMMAO) shows how Indian

marketers have spent their advertising budgets for 2011. In fact there is no separate mention of Mobile marketing in this but according to Vinod Thadani, COO Madhouse India. “The Indian mobile media market stands at Rs.125 crore which amounts to roughly 0.5% of the total spend

44.8

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0.5

TVPrintInternetRadioOutdoorCinema

Total ad-spend was Rs 25,594 crore in 2011.

Why this Kolaveri di So, why a nation with 911 million telecom subscribers still has only 0.5 % share in the

marketers budget. Few factors mentioned below Mobile marketing is a new phenomenon- Globally too it just accounts for 3.8 % of the

total global ad spend for all media Marketers in India still have a very traditional thinking and are either not aware or just

wary of trying a new media Indian advertisers who have ventured into mobile marketing have mostly tried Push

strategy like Bulk SMS & pesky calls leading to a lot of dissatisfaction among the Indian consumers towards the medium

Very few specialised mobile marketing agencies in India who can not only add value to the brand but also agencies who can make the traditional marketers understand the need of mobile marketing

In terms of OS share by 2012 end, Android will be leading in India with 50 % share, Symbian 23.3%, IOS 2.4%. But with android fragmentation, High cost of developing IOS apps & low reach of IOS, Symbian about to be wiped out, Mobile application development for Indian market has a lot of challenges

India still lacks proper infrastructure- Limited Wi-fi spots and with 3G technology not taking off that well in India, marketers have a huge challenge to reach out to the masses. Only 15 millions users are actively using 3G as per a report by Cybermedia

Why in spite of all this negativity, marketers should look at mobile as the new tool in their marketing warfare

India will not be just mobile but smart too We have already seen how huge the indian

market is but one of the biggest change happening over the years is the availability of smartphones

Branded smartphones are available at as low as Rs.3399 (Spice Mi-270). The adjacent graph also shows how the lowest price point for smartphones has come down to just around 100$.

If we look at the adjacent graph it shows that smartphones shipments have grown from 2% in 2009 to 6% in 2011

During CY 2011, close to 250 unique 3G handset models were shipped from approximately 30 different vendors

In future, globally smartphones shipments will increase from 2.9% to 9.3 % by 2016, making India the 3rd topmost nation in terms of smartphones usage (IDC).

*Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2011, December 2011 release

Smart phones will open up a lot of avenues for the Indian mobile marketers

Bigger screens & Tablets will drive better content &make it more engaging Smarter phones coming with High- Resolutions & bigger size screens would help marketers to

drive content the to their users in a better manner Tablets will also become a new medium of media consumption among the India user. Also we

have seen a lot of brands launching tablets in India. With brands like Micromax launching quality tablets at just Rs 6,500, one would see a lot of people accessing tablets.

Mobile will be the biggest medium of consumption An Inmobi report suggest that the average mobile web user in India consumes 5 hours of media daily and Mobile devices represent 94 mins i.e. 33% of this time

Mobile consistently scored higher than TV across a variety of activities for mobile Internet users in India. These include entertainment (41 per cent on mobile compared to 26 per cent on TV), information access (58 per cent on mobile compared to 20 per cent on TV).

Mobile also overtook desktop across a variety of activities like communication. (72 per cent on mobile compared to 16 per cent on desktop and laptops) and shopping, including activities related to shopping such as search (27 per cent on mobile compared to 19 per cent on desktop and laptops).

Source: Inmobi India_MediaConsumption_Feb 2012

Mobile will be the new ‘Idiot box’ Indian consumers are beginning to consume television content on non-TV devices like smart-

phones, tablets, and personal computers. MTNL which started with its Mobile TV service is reported to have a subscriber base of one million active users of mobile TV.

In early March 2012, Zee New Media launched India’s first over-the-top (OTT) TV distribution platform, Ditto TV.

Zenga, a free platform, already operates in the mobile TV segment in India is reported to have achieved a 250 percent growth in revenues over last year and has a subscriber base of 7 million.

YouTube has released over 19,000 Indian TV Shows to watch Online While the TRPs for IPL 5 hit a five year low this year, IPL website ipl.indiatimes.com, in

partnership with YouTube, has already recorded 13.7 million views, as against 8.8 million views last year. Almost 0.6 million viewers have enjoyed the match action on their mobiles over the last week on Apalya mobile TV platform. This is double the traffic registered last year.

Mobile will be the new ‘Idiot box’ The above graph shows that by 2016

Internet users will soon come close to television viewers. And with more content being available online, we will have a huge audience accessing TV content on go. i.e mobile, tablets, laptops.

With 3G rates coming down & mobile becoming the major medium to access the internet we will see Mobile becoming the new idiot box.

Mobile video consumption on growth curve YouTube mobile worldwide gets over 600 million views a day, and traffic from mobile devices tripled

in 2011 As per Google India, 29% of YouTube views in India come from mobile. Of 50 million views of the famous song, Kolaveri Di, 30 per cent views were through mobile phones. Graph below shows how smartphone users in India are interacting and engaging with video

platforms

YouTube has definitely demonstrated that there is an increase in video consumption through mobile phones.

Mobile ads- India leads the pack India is the leading nation with the

maximum no of ads being served on mobile

India overtook Indonesia in the fourth quarter of 2010, India held onto its number one ranking throughout 2011. Now ads served in India is almost double of what Indonesia does. Annual growth of ad impressions was a whopping 197%

Another interesting fact is that the reach is almost 93 million unique users per month with 77% of the audience in the age group of 20-34

Indian consumer are also more open to Mobile ads. An Inmobi study states that 73% Indians are more or equally comfortable with mobile advertising vs. TV or online ads.

India

Indonesia

United st

ates

Canada0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

9,557

5,600

2,810

1,383

Ads Served (Q4 2011) in millions

Ads Served (Q4 2011) in millions

Source: Buzzcity.com

India with its huge mobile population definitely seems to be the country which will dominate mobile advertising for a long time

Mobile apps- The magic wand Mobile apps have become a way of life. Apps have become so dominant in our lives that we

decide whether a phone or OS is good, not by its specifications but by the inventory of apps it provides. In short they are the magic wands of our smart phones.

According to search engine giant Google, there are 30 million apps downloads in one week. While according to a Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights an Android user installs an average of 19 apps in a month compared to 10 apps for a Symbian user.

Beside’s Each OS app stores, nowadays lot of telecom service providers have also ventured into apps. Vodafone India's Beta app store (launched in December 2011) crossed 2 million downloads.

Moving from an operator-dominated ecosystem to a handset-makers platform has also made a lot of developers getting into it. Nowadays, developers have a margin of 70 per cent for themselves.

At the same times, a study by Flurry indicates that only 5-10% of users continue to use an app after 6 months of download, making retention of users as one of the biggest challenge for brands and developers.

Indian consumers are open with having apps on their mobile but getting them hooked on to it will be the biggest challenge for Indian marketers

Mobile Gaming will push mobile marketing to a new level A 2011 study by Nielsen states that in India 84% of Android users played a game in the last

month compared to 59% for Symbian users The mobile gaming market generated revenues of about INR 4.3 billion in 2011, growing 55

percent from last year. It is anticipated that the segment will grow at a 31 percent CAGR to INR 16.6 billion in 2016, driven by the increase in mobile internet users.

Definitely, mobile gaming is one of the biggest weapon that the marketers have to reach out their TG effectively. At the same time marketers should make sure that they don’t bombard the gamers with ads and interrupt their game play. Few golden rules followed by marketers here would make a win- win experience for both marketers as well as the gamers. Instead of interrupting gamers during the game-play, reward him with a product

discount/freebies for passing a higher level. E.g. Kiip.me- This service awards the gamers when they reach a certain level without obstructing their game play.

Integrate social networking components into gaming. Multi player games have more chances of success and even better chances of consumer

bragging about it If one is working on a smaller budget, instead of creating expensive games from the

ground-up, consider theme or character-based placement within popular applications. Not only is it more cost efficient, but you now have access to an already existing user base. E.g.: Samsung-sponsored Angry Birds Christmas game gets half a million hours of brand exposure

Mobile & social media will re-define the purchase process Facebook and Forrester had commissioned a study to understand the digital consumer called

‘Building Brands For The Connected World’. As per the study… To succeed in the connected world, marketers must create connected brands: brands that

continuously engage with people when they want, where they want, and how they want The Connected World Has rerouted The Customer Journey- From a Linear funnel to the

continuous process of exploration and interaction. The journey is not isolated to just one person at a time — the entire connected world

influences it.

Indian mobile consumers in the connected world Mobile is becoming the primary medium for being connected and even accessing social

networks. Hence the Connected model applies well to the mobile user. And from an Indian perspective this is how it works Learn- Large number of Indian users are accessing internet to gather new information

about products. In fact we go by stats *56 per cent of smartphone users in the country access the Internet multiple times a day and 78% of users access search engine through smartphones.

Investigate- Smart shopping, stretching one's money and getting great deals have always been part of the Indian consumer's shopping psyche. Mobile is only going to enhance it. A survey by Nielsen says that Recommendations from friends and family with 91%, online consumer reviews with 77 %, are the top 2 trusted forms of advertising for the Indian consumer. Mobile will be the biggest medium of being connected with friends & families and accessing consumer reviews

Interaction- Mobile is also becoming one of the biggest ways for consumer to interact with the brand. *After noticing a mobile ad, 41% of the smartphones users have clicked the ad and around 34 % have visited the websites. *65% Consumers are also using mobile to access social media- a platform where brand can interact & engage with users

Purchase- Consumers are also using smartphones to transact & buy products. *50% of the users have purchased on smartphones while 40% have used it for online banking. As per Juniper research, in 2014, more than 500 million people will make m-payments on the Indian Sub Continent.

Source: *Our mobile planet

Daily Deals will become even bigger with LBS According to trendwatching.com, in 2012, not only will consumers continue to hunt for deals

and discounts, but they will do so with relish if not pride. And the same applies even more for the hard bargaining Indian consumer.

As per the latest reports there are more than 30 deals sites in India and as per a Comscore study in November 2011, 7.6 million Indians visited coupon sites.

Daily deals will become more bigger with Marketers using LBS technology to give their consumers better & more specific deals

Brands like Aircel have in fact gone a step ahead and launched location based services without a GPS enabled handset. All these measures will help LBS to reach across to masses at an even faster rate.

Also with 3G getting launched, getting daily deals with LBS has become more ease than what we have been experiencing.

Indian Consumers ready totrade privacy for better deals Privacy has been one of the biggest threats for the digital consumer. With him being

connected every time, there is always a fear of being monitored 24/7 and having no privacy. In a study by KPMG in 2010, 78% Indian respondents said that they worried about their

privacy. And at the same time 65% said that they would be willing to trade their personal information and let service providers use it for marketing or context-based tracking in return for incentives such as discounts, personalized offers, content or new services.

What will be important for marketers is to make sure that they use consumer privacy data for consumer benefits. Anything else would only begin to haunt the marketers.

More regulation on Spam Till now consumers associate mobile marketing with spam and pesky Tele callers . One of the

biggest reasons why mobile marketing has not been a hit in India As per TRAI data, an urban mobile user receives approximately four marketing or promotional

messages in a day on his device Thankfully with new regulations like DND and the regulatory bodies taking a tough stand

against spammers we could see this changing According to the regulatory body, as on 29th March 2012, 161.66 million customers have

registered with the NCPR (National Customer Preference Register). TRAI has disconnected 22,769 subscribers and issued notices to 36,156 subscribers, who

were found making unsolicited calls and sending spam SMSs, violating the TRAI’s SMS Spam regulations.

Spam will be the biggest challenge facing the Mobile Marketers and the way they approach this issue will decide how the Indian mobile marketing market sets up

Few golden rules India definitely has the potential to be one of the biggest market for mobile marketing Indian Consumer has already shown his love for mobile With so many favourable factors, it will now purely depends upon the marketers on how they

use this powerful weapon to reach out to the junta. At the same time, Mobile Marketers will have to start respecting the Indian consumer and also

be extra careful to make sure that they don’t go overboard and bombard the consumers with irrelevant content

In simple words, Indian marketers should not get over excited and kill the Golden goose

ThanksJeetendra Lalwani

Please share your views on Twitter@jeetendra25