Avoid annoying ads
Consumers today are wary of ad overload on their mobile phones. Consumers who opt-in for a brand's handset application access it on demand, avoiding disruptive advertising from text messages. In addition, applications themselves might contain few or no ads, if a brand's primary aim is to build brand exposure and gain direct and persistent relationships with consumers through "content and community."  Nevertheless, a brand might experiment with the consumers' tolerance for advertising by showing, for example, a short pre-roll ad prior to the consumer's viewing of a high-interest video clip.

Escape shortcomings of text messaging and WAP
A handset-resident application overcomes the limitations of text-message marketing campaigns and mobile WAP websites. SMS text message marketing -- although it reaches the broadest set of mobile phones -- remains expensive to execute, has a limit of 160 characters per message and is devoid of rich media content. A text message might contain a link to a downloadable ringtone or wallpaper image, a photograph or short video, a mobile WAP site, or even a downloadable application. However, once the download is fulfilled, the text message, in and of itself, cannot establish a persistent relationship between a company and consumers. Therefore, text messaging is best used as a one-time discovery for content and rich-media mobile applications.

WAP sites extend a brand's presence to the mobile channel. However, WAP is frustratingly slow and cumbersome to navigate via drill-down menus.