Advertisers target mobile phone users

The world's biggest brands are gearing up to advertise on mobile phones

The companies behind some of the world's biggest brands are shifting their marketing resources to advertising on mobile phones, research published today has claimed.

An independent survey of 50 brand-name companies commissioned by mobile infrastructure software firm Airwide Solutions found that 89 per cent of brands will use text and multimedia messaging by 2008 to reach new audiences.

The report estimated that almost a third of brand owners are planning to spend in excess of 10 per cent of their marketing budget on mobile marketing.

And over half of brand owners expect to spend between five and 25 per cent of their total marketing budget on the medium within five years.

Recognising the prevalence of mobile text messaging, 40 per cent of respondent advertisers have already deployed text messaging campaigns, and 18 per cent have deployed multimedia messaging (MMS) campaigns.

But despite this enthusiasm to adopt mobile marketing, the report found that growth is still inhibited by the lack of supporting information to manage and optimise marketing programmes.