According to Stuart Elliott, mobile marketing is at a nascent stage in the United States, as evidenced by spending last year of just $150 million. But that figure is expected to grow to almost $1.3 billion by 2009, as more advertisers change their media choices to reflect the fast-moving shifts in consumer behavior.
“The 15-to-24-year-old can’t imagine a world without technology,” said Jon Maron, senior director for marketing at LG Electronics MobileComm USA in San Diego, a division of LG Electronics, “so we have to think about our marketing programs in very different terms.”
“The mobile phone is an extension of everything they do,” Mr. Maron said of the young members of the connected generation, “and blogging is becoming as much of a news source for them as the news itself.”
With this consumer insight in mind, LG is joining with the respected music publication Billboard for its Mobile Beat promotion that will send up to 30 contestants (and would be rock critics) to concerts around the country.
The 30 or so youthful “critics” will file reviews and photos on deadline from concert sites, from late June through mid-September. Their reports will be posted on blogs housed on Billboard.com. In true democratic fashion, the bloatosphere will then select the contest’s three finalists as well as the ultimate winner, all chosen based on the number of hits to the individual blogs.