The Evolution of Mobile Marketing
- Meshanah Mendoza
- Apr 9, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 7, 2020
Gone are the days when consumers lugged around ‘brick phones’ and marketers relied upon newspapers and billboards to advertise their products, because today we see marketing messages everyday on our phones.
1970
1973: Martin Cooper introduced the DynaTAC phone at a press conference in New York. Despite the phone weighing 1.1kg, he was able to successfully conduct a phone call demonstration. He had the vision of inventing a wireless handheld telephone, which was inspired by Captain Kirk’s communicator in Star Trek.
1980
1983: Motorola produced the world’s first commercial portable cell phone called the Motorola's DynaTAC 8000X, which was priced at $3,995.
1990
1992: The idea of text messages was established and at the end of this year engineer Neil Papworth sent the first SMS message to Richard Jarrvis, which was “Merry Christmas”.
1993: The first mobile phone that simultaneously sends and receives texts was introduced by Nokia. This new method of communication transformed the marketing environment and it began to evolve rapidly.
1996: The Motorola StarTAC was released and it was the first mobile phone that was capable of browsing the internet. It was marketed as a luxury item during the time.
2000
2000: A Finnish news provider saw an opportunity for marketing via SMS, so they began to offer and release free news headlines on SMS, which was sponsored by advertising. This enabled marketers to begin experimenting with other forms of marketing.
2005: As more businesses joined the SMS marketing scheme, it eventually led to large scale campaigns such as Nike’s SMS campaign which was the biggest campaign during this time.
2007: The first iPhone was released and the proliferation of 3G led to more consumers purchasing mobile phones. Marketers began to see this device as the first point of contact with their consumers.
2010
2010 :During the release of Apple’s iPad, it was estimated that in the United States alone the mobile advertising market had grown to $1.45 billion.
2014: Developers were beginning to integrate advertisements into mobile apps. As it was found that users were spending most of their time playing games such as Candy Crush or scrolling through Facebook, compared to surfing the net.
2017: Mobile e-commerce became prevalent, and during this time it was calculated that 34% of transactions were now conducted via mobile devices.
2020 and the future
Some of my predictions for the future of mobile marketing is that…
Influencer marketing will continue to rise in every business industry and many marketers will seek partnerships with influencers to promote their brands.
5G network will be released soon. This will include lower rates of latency, massive network capacities and more uniform user experiences for all consumers. And thus, this higher performance and improved efficiency will allow new users to connect with new industries.
What are your predictions for the future of mobile marketing? Leave a comment below.
References
https://www.clickatell.com/articles/digital-marketing/brief-history-mobile-marketing/
https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-influencer-marketing/
https://medium.com/mobile-marketing-lab/the-timeline-of-mobile-marketing-a5b08d1037d2
https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/5-trends-that-will-move-mobile-marketing-in-2020/569725/
https://www.qualcomm.com/invention/5g/what-is-5g
Thanks for reading and commenting Bahar. I agree with you, hopefully the path that mobile marketing is heading, is solely for the better and will not involve tracking consumers with engraved technologies!
I really appreciate how you gave a timeline of the history of cellphones, they really have come a long way! It's amazing to see what humans are capable of doing in such a short amount of time. Once again, we see just how much of an impact Steve Jobs has made in modern life. I honestly have no idea where we're going or what's coming next, but I really do hope that engraving technology into our physical bodies like some sci-fi horror movie doesn't ever become a thing.
Awesome post!
Thank you so much for reading my post Lindy! Thanks for your hypothesis as well, it’s very hard to predict what will happen in the future as mobile marketing is advancing/changing everyday. :)
Very detailed and interesting Meshanah! Reading this made me realise how far mobile marketing has come and how so much has changed over the years. To answer your question, my predictions for the future of mobile marketing would be that devices will continue to develop and include advanced features which will allow marketers to gain valuable data of their consumers to enable them to continuously target their needs.
Thanks Shashika! I know it is hard to hypothesis what the future of digital marketing is, because it’s evolving every single day.