Mobile Marketing Taxonomy – A Proposal
Page 12 of NMA (27.11.08) contains a piece by Charlotte McEleny who writes that “Some 65% of young consumers find mobile messaging from brands too intrusive, according to a report by lifestyle research company Tuned In.”
The headline screams ‘Young people alienated by brands using mobile for marketing’
I think its time we nail down some taxonomy here.
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My suggestion is this:
All research, stats, findings and reports that conduct or relay information on mobile marketing need to include one of these 3 definitions:
- Permission based
OR
- Permission & Preference based
OR
- Non-Permission/Preference based
My reasoning is that the information we are receiving is distorted by the lack of definition. We are left with a comparison between apples and pears.
Asking people their feelings about something that is not based on them being in control provides what I see as a fundamentally different context.
Likewise, if permission has been given but their preferences have not been recorded, the research and findings provide a distinct variant.
Otherwise, its like setting out on a project to find out if people who use automotive transport, find the weather to be an issue during journeys – only to take the motorbike riders opinion and apply it in a context to those who drive cars.
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We need to move away from inflammatory headlines or at the very least, add context to the headlines so they are more productive rather than scare-mongering. Just adding the words ‘without permission’ to the end of the above headline would have shown a more accurate picture. As it stands, at a glance you could argue that mobile is troublesome, anti-productive and interfering.
We live in a sound-bite world where our peers, colleagues, bosses and regulators are looking in and grasping a few take-away lines and using it to bolster biased beliefs.
We, as an industry, have a collective responsibility to present ourselves in a positive manner (in my opinion) and not to feed negativity into an already delicate situation.
We are in an emerging digital world and without the taxonomy I propose, I fear we are doing ourselves no favors.
Thus, my suggestion is to clarify for clarity’s sake. Let’s add the context where we can to enable balanced decisions and rational actions based on the full story rather than propaganda.
We owe it to ourselves, to every single one of us.
