Came across this article at the TMC Net and thought I’d share

A recent survey of about 300 college students conducted by Ball State University found that 27 percent own a smart phone as compared to the national average of 19 percent for working adults. The research also found that 99.7 percent of students have a mobile communications device and the rates of sending text messages, e-mail, photos and videos are increasing.

SMS has overtaken email and instant messaging as the main form of communication for college students, 94 percent of whom send and receive text messages.

When using their mobiles to keep in touch with family and friends with 59 percent text, 17 percent call, nine percent send IMs and seven percent use email.

As lucrative as many believe mobile marketing will be, there are warning signs. The study indicates 52 percent of respondents received ads on their cell phone in the last few months, up from 24 percent in 2005. But a backlash might be building.

"In 2005, we found that 30 percent of students said they were annoyed at getting an advertisement, and that has grown to 48 percent in the most recent survey," says researcher  Michael Hanley, Ball State journalism assistant professor.

"What good is an ad if nearly half of your target market is not happy about receiving it?" he asks.

We at Mobivity have been saying for quite sometime that Mobile Marketing can be an extremely powerful tool if used properly and destructive to a brand if used improperly. Messages and ads must deliver value  or offer some sort of appeal to the reader. Though the article does not elaborate on whether the ads are opt in text or mobile web, marketers still need to ask themselves "what person likes to see an ad or message that has nothing to do with who they are and what they like".

Granted we are still in the infancy stages with Mobile Marketing and we will experience growing pains, but marketers need to tread lightly as to not tarnish the image of potentially the most powerful marketing tool to ever be introduced. As a reminder, the world has roughly 6.7 Billion people with about 4 billion of them being mobile subscribers. This means about 60% of the planet Earth has a mobile phone. Now that’s power!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing, SMS. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.