One Third of Europeans Interested in Mobile Marketing

Eight percent of Western European consumers have participated in some form of mobile marketing in the past year, and one third express “interest” in the medium. That’s according to the Mobile Marketing Association’s 2008 Annual Global Mobile Attitude and Usage Survey.

At a press event in London on Thursday, Paul Berney, MMA’s managing director, Europe, said the results revealed “solid participation across Europe.” However, he stressed the role of the MMA now, within Europe at least, is to help its members understand the trends shown in the report. “The question is, ‘How do we help members take this data and do something with it?’ ”

The survey found the most popular forms of mobile interaction within the U.K. involved the use of text messaging, with 64 percent of respondents engaging in text-based contests or voting, and 25 percent making use of SMS alert services. In addition, it found that around 10 percent of U.K. respondents use mobile Internet services every week.

In addition, the MMA last month updated its Global Mobile Advertising Guidelines, which are designed to promote consistency throughout the industry on a global scale. Points of note included revised multimedia messaging unit sizes and audio format recommendations. Mobile video and TV guidelines were also introduced for the first time, addressing issues such as ad unit characteristics, aspect ratios, and optimum bit rates.

The guidelines have been “very widely adopted and accepted as standard” within the U.K. market, suggested Jana Eisenstein, MMA co-chair and GM, U.K. at Microsoft ScreenTonic. She added the organization is currently working towards publishing a whitepaper addressing best practices for ads within mobile applications, a platform not included in the guidelines this time around.

“There are a huge number of brands that want to do something in mobile, but don’t know where to start,” said Alex Meisl, MMA U.K. Council co-chair and chairman of Sponge Ltd., stressing the importance of industry education going forward. “We want to see key brands and win them over, to tell them what can be achieved and point them in the right direction.”