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By Simon Fuller. Upward mobility? When it comes to mobile marketing it’s easy to get swept away with a tide of buzz that includes smartphones, GPS technology and augmented reality. But there may be disappointments ahead.
“The market is peppered right now with unbridled enthusiasm and is seeing a lot of demand driven by trial, testing and curiosity,” says Gib Bassett, director of marketing at mobile marketing outfit Interactive Mediums.

Monied apps. Hachette Filipacchi Media US has released a quintet of branded apps – Elle Shopping Guide, Elle Astrology, Woman’s Day Cooking Assistant, Car and Driver Buyer’s Guide and Cycle World – to strut their mobile stuff on the iPhone and iPod touch.
The Cooking Assistant and Car and Driver Buyer’s Guide are the publisher’s first applications focused on providing utility and have been launched as free, ad-supported services. Both apps have major sponsors in Unilever/Knorr and Toyota, respectively.

By Simon Fuller. Smart marketers. Many in marketing think augmented reality is the future rather than the present. But could there be widespread adoption of AR sooner than we think?
“Two thousand and nine has been a banner year for augmented reality, in that more and more people are being introduced to it, and becoming aware that the technology exists,” says Brian Selzer, co-founder of mobile AR outfit Ogmento.
“[Large-scale adoption of augmented reality is] likely within three years, if not sooner,” says Robert Rice, CEO of AR developers Neogence Enterprises. “Once the next generation of mobile devices and wearable displays that look like sunglasses are on the market, the adoption curve will accelerate dramatically.”

By Simon Fuller. Customer connections. Next year could be a good one for mobile marketing. Increases in measurability and the ongoing roll out of campaigns and apps like the Android smartphone ad platform from Net-radio service Pandora, as well as the track-mixing app courtesy of rapper 50 Cent, indicate increasing confidence in mobile.
“Brands that succeed with mobile marketing see sales lifts, increased loyalty and engagement on consumer terms because it is permission-based and therefore welcomed,” says Jeff Hasen, CMO at mobile marketers HipCricket.

More mobile. Forty percent of all US adult consumers have downloaded at least one mobile application, while almost three quarters of smartphone owners have got their hands on an app, according to a survey carried out by Luth Research/The Mobile Marketing Association.
More than 50% of those consumers who had downloaded apps said the ones that provided entertainment were used most often, while 40% said they used those which offered news or current info.

By Simon Fuller. Mobile reality. Augmented reality is turning up simply everywhere, and those at the forefront of AR reckon the smartphone is just the place for the tech to eally hit its stride. And that thanks to the fact that mobiles tend to GPS, cameras and image recognition – all of which really help the experience along.
And Nintendo showed just what could be done this summer, creating a spooky viral video to promo Ghostwire, a game enabling players to use their mobile phones ‘to communicate with ghosts’. The idea was to capture ghosts on the phone’s screen using augmented reality, tocollect them and then ‘solve their puzzles.’