Neven Bosilj * , Goran Bubaš ** , Neven Vrček ***

1. Neven Bosilj*, Goran Bubaš**, Neven Vrček*** User Experience with Advertising over Mobile Phone: A Pilot Study *T-mobile, Croatia **University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organisation and Informatics 1 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

2. Mobile phone and SMS users In comparison to land-line telephones, television, radio, and most other electronic communication media, mobile phones are much more personal devices. A mobile phone usually only has a single user and this attribute makes mobile phones suitable for high-precision targeting in marketing campaigns. 2.7 billion users of mobile phones in 2007 (in comparison to 1.1 billion users of the Internet). 4 billion subscriptions for mobile devices in 2009 and 2.7 billion active SMS users (Ahonen, 2009). Mobile message services (SMS & MMS): SMS - text of 168 characters MMS - pictures, audio or video Availability and simplicity Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

3. Issues in mobile marketing E-mail message is opened, on average, within 24 hours and a reply occurs within 48 hours. SMS messages are read within 15 minutes of their arrival and the average response time amounts to less than 60 minutes. As much as 65% of e-mails are spam; the percentage of spam among SMS messages is less than 10%. Some important factors to consider: Customerization (mCRM & alike) Customization (user profiles) Viral marketing Privacy – mSpam (PBMS) Location-based mobile marketing Adoption problems (users, advertizers) Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

4. Mobile marketing campaigns Interactivity of push, pull and dialogue campaigns (Jelassi & Enders, 2004). Push campaigns Dialogue campaigns High Advertiser activity Low Traditional (non-interactive) campaigns – TV, radio, print Pull campaigns Low High Consumer activity Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

5. Gateway Permission database Server Number Price formation Campaign logic Media mix Technological problems Key points in creation of mCRM (Sinisalo et al., 2006): Technologies Marketing Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

6. Research motivation Main goals and problem: Investigate how potential clients would react to a mobile advertising campaign. Conduct a pilot study on a small group of students who would receive 1-4 marketing SMS messages per day for a period of two weeks and evaluate the usefulness of each of the incoming messages. Determine the potential acceptance rate of SMS marketing. Collect quantitative and qualitative data on students’ responses to mobile marketing messages. Determine the factors which contribute to the acceptance of SMS marketing. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

7. Hypotheses H1: Students in our convenience sample will on average demonstrate a high level of acceptance of SMS marketing. H2: The level of engagement of students in our convenience sample during the marketing campaign will not decrease over time. H3: Message attributes (related to brand, information value, entertainment, personalization, perceived usefulness) have an influence on the acceptance of mobile marketing. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

8. Methodology Subjects, instruments and procedure: Convenience sample, 62 students of the fourth year of study of informatics. The subjects were aged between 21 and 24, 66% of them were male and 34% female. They were given a written statement regarding the privacy and confidentiality of collected data. A survey was used regarding the actual use of mobile technology (phone, Internet etc.). Self-assessment scales were also used that measured various constructs (user attributes): attitude (Shimp and Kavas, 1984; Pollay and Mittal, 1993); perceived usefulness (Venkatesh et al., 2003); message attributes (brand, information value, entertainment, personalization); use of services related to mobile advertising (Merisavo et al., 2007). The mobile marketing campaign lasted two weeks during which the subjects received 2-4 SMS messages per day that were related to their college, program of the local cinema and theatre, city swimming pool, student restaurants and town bars/pubs, or included diverse advertisements of products and services. (10 kn per 120 SMS). The subjects were asked to respond to each of the received SMS messages regarding its usefulness on a 1-5 Likert-type scale. After a week of participation in the mobile marketing campaign they also completed a brief survey regarding the received messages and their effects. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

9. Results /1 Percentage of subjects who responded with an evaluation of the received marketing SMS during the first and second week of the campaign. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

10. Results /1 H2: The level of engagement of students in our convenience sample during the marketing campaign will not decrease over time. NOT CONFIRMED! Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

11. Results 2 Acceptance of mobile marketing After a week of exposure to the mobile marketing campaign the subjects in our convenience sample responded to the survey question “Mobile advertising is a useful concept which I plan to use in the future”. An average response was 4.14 on a Likert-type scale ranging from “1 – I do not agree at all” to “5 – I completely agree”. Most of the SMS’s (85% of messages) during the first week of the mobile marketing campaign were highly personalized and received an average rating for usefulness of 3.0 or above from the subjects in the study. Typical positive verbal responses of subjects “Many messages were very useful to me (menu at the student restaurant, cinema, discount at the city swimming pool, college information) and I will miss them when the campaign is over.” “Interesting, I approve of it and support this kind of advertising as long as the user is capable of choosing and controlling the content that he/she receives and its amount.” “I support this and hope that it will benefit the students”. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

12. Results /2 H1: Students in our convenience sample will on average demonstrate a high level of acceptance of SMS marketing. CONFIRMED! Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

13. Results /3 Correlation of acceptance of mobile marketing with the constructs related to the attributes of mobile marketing messages and internal consistency of scales used to measure these constructs (N=62) Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

14. Results /3 H3: Message attributes (related to brand, information value, entertainment, personalization, perceived usefulness) have an influence on the acceptance of mobile marketing. CONFIRMED! Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

15. Conclusion Mobile marketing could be accepted at least by a younger generation of computer literate mobile phone users. Most of the subjects positively evaluated their experience with the mobile marketing campaign in our pilot study. However, our findings also indicate that user/consumer interest in the participation in mobile marketing campaigns may decrease over time. Mobile advertising messages need to be personalized and contain adequate information value to attract attention, receive greater interest, and avoid being perceived as spam. None of the participants indicated that they felt uncomfortable because of their participation in our pilot study and the verbal content of their SMS responses to received mobile advertising messages was predominantly positive. Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček

16. Thank you for your attention! goran.bubas@foi.hr neven.bosilj@t-mobile.hr neven.vrcek@foi.hr Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček