Sometimes one might think Mobile Marketing was a big classroom in which all those sitting in were talking all at once, speculating a lot and nobody really knows what is most important. In any case the blackboard drawing is rather confusing: Which kind of advertising takes effect, does the customer accept promotional text messages or not, if yes under which aspects? Or will advertising on mobile phones never do? Do customers want entertainment in the form of videos or are mobile phones still not the right platform for this? Is Bluetooth-Marketing a good way? There are no hard and fast answers, only yes and no. It depends on the case.

The opinions are diverging and so every marketing expert has different advice. One of them, Drew Neisser, abandons his latest “Top Ten Marketing Ideas” for 2008 at adweek.com. They are definitely also interesting for the field of mobile.

Like many experts Neisser relies on Social Networking, particularly on niche networks beyond facebook and myspace. He relies on games, because according to him, gaming now permeates society. Even senior citizen centers offer Nintendo’s Wii; MTV invested 500 million US-Dollars in online games. Neisser furthermore sees potential in the inconspicuously existing widgets, of which some are quietly finding millions of users. A prime example for such a widget is iLike which allows facebook users to share iTunes playlists.

Decisive in any case is to regard marketing far in excess of advertising. “Marketers who treat marketing as a service and deliver real value to customers and prospects alike will undoubtedly triumph in 2008.” The concept of “branded utility” seems to be best in line with mobile phones because, as Scott Symonds (AKQA) estimates, they are still “in a utility-focused place”.

If this statement only applies to the USA or to Europe as well, remains to be seen at this point. It is safe to say that campaigns providing an additional value for the users have best chances on the one hand to cast a positive light on the brand, and on the other hand to come across as a real enrichment – be it subway coupons for starving disco visitors at 4 a.m., Knorr recipes for the unimaginative student at the supermarket or the make-up consultant for the lady on the go.