The US is finally catching up to the rest of the world in terms of mobile technology adaptation. If you look at the industry five years ago it was almost non-existent and now it has exploded into the largest (and possibly only) growing marketing channels. TV, radio and newspapers have all been expected to decrease while mobile is projected to keep growing. Now, more than ever, it is important for American companies to create a mobile campaign in conjunction with another media.

My last post covered Smirnoff’s successful mobile campaign in the UK. But what companies in the US are creating these amazing campaigns? For one, our banks. Banks seemed to be the first into the recession and it seems like they are the first ones coming out. They’re creating mobile helpful applications for smartphones that help customers manage their accounts and creating mobile version of their sites. Banks can’t advertise their rates on sites like Twitter due to strict compliance laws but they are creating ways to get customers to their sites and offering mobile services is one of them.

In the future of mobile, I see a lot more visual campaigns. SMS is very common right now but as the technology changes, I think we’ll see a lot more media flying around and super speeds on our phones. YouTube videos, hopefully Flash components (if Adobe plays nice with Apple) and the magic that comes from HTML5 will open doors to content on mobile phones. Location-based services will also increase as well as in-text ad integration.

At first, I can see these changes being expensive to the consumer. The cost of 4G, 5G and G to the nth will be high while a large chunk of the country is still using 2G. Once more consumers make the switch, I think the costs will even out and we’ll be able to move forward and be able to offer competitive prices for data plans. Carriers such as US Cellular that don’t offer big 3G packages like AT&T and Verizon won’t have a place in the mobile world when they are only offering slow and unreliable data plans for the same price as a 3G plan at AT&T.

Sources:

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/research/3850.html

http://www.apptera.com/looking-ahead-to-2009-mobile-advertising.html

http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=4365