iAnywhere's Crystal King says mobile marketers need to move beyond the youth audience.

When most people think of mobile marketing, the campaign that probably comes to mind is the one tied to the wildly popular "American Idol" television show. This spring, during season four, over 49 million Cingular wireless subscribers will be able to tap into Idol-related trivia, ringtones and interactive wireless games, in addition to being able to vote for their favorite contestants.

The Idol campaign is a prime example of how mobile marketing is particularly successful among teens and young adults, which is also the demographic with one of the largest upsurges in cell phone usage in the last year. According to a study by WPP Group's MindShare Online Research, cell phone ownership among U.S. teens 13 to 17 increased 43 percent in the past year, with teen girls (61 percent) more likely to carry them than teen boys (46 percent). Daily cell phone usage in this group has more than doubled in the past year, again with teen girls leading the way 41 percent to 27 percent.

A testament to these powerful statistics, CosmoGIRL, ELLEGirl, Teen People and Seventeen magazine have recently jumped onto the mobile marketing bandwagon, looking for ways to further reach out to their audience -- young girls with a mobile phone hermetically sealed to their ears. Along with weekly fashion tips and entertainment news, the magazines will also be including targeted advertisements and promotions via text messages to subscribers.

Retail marketers such as Reebok and FCUK have also leveraged investments in mobile marketing to reach a teen audience. Last fall, Reebok implemented an SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) mobile program to promote Finish Line retail stores and Reebok’s line of NBA merchandise to male sport fans between the ages of 16 and 26. Clothing retailer FCUK targeted young adult shoppers in their UK and U.S. stores with SMS-based rock or dance music trivia quizzes, offering the chance to win prizes such as a $250 FCUK gift certificate.

Young adults are the primary adopters of text-messaging technologies. It's not unusual to see teenagers texting their friends on their mobile phones, but you would be hard-pressed to find a business traveler using her mobile device in the same way. For one thing, business professionals tend to need access to different information than your typical teenager or student. Rather than a bevy of crazy ringtones, MP3 files and lists of instant messaging nicknames, you'll find extensive contact information, calendars, travel itineraries, daily news and business documents. SMS isn’t the most important application for the business executive -- email and access to up-to-date news and information are.

As a result, the mobile devices used by these two groups tend to be different. Cell phone purchases might be climbing with teen audiences, but it's the affluent, well-educated business professional that is driving PDA and smartphone sales ever upward. Worldwide PDA shipments totaled 3.4 million units in Q1 2005, a 25 percent increase from Q1 2004, according to Gartner. JupiterResearch reports that smartphones will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent through 2009, accounting for 9.3 percent of handsets sold in 2009, up from 3.7 percent in 2004. Additionally, the primary users of PDAs and smartphones tend to be male, between the ages of 24 and 54, with annual incomes that top $75k.

There are two advantages marketers have when targeting smartphone and PDA users. First of all, the buying power and influence among these individuals is far greater than that of your typical teenager. Rather than buying and downloading countless ringtones, a smartphone user may research his next car purchase while sitting on the subway. Another user could be the decision maker for her company's IT purchases, checking up on the latest software and hardware reviews. Yet another might be a doctor who relies on his PDA to access key medical publications or the latest clinical trial information. An advertisement for the new Mercedes M-Class sedan would have greater influence on this demographic than on a 16-year-old who works at the local mall.

Screen-size is also a big differentiator. Rather than relying on text-messaging that is more conducive to the small cell phone screen, marketers can take advantage of rich, interactive media on mobile internet services that use larger PDA and smartphone screens. Mobile internet services deliver both text and graphics for smartphones and PDAs that can be leveraged for a broad range of marketing programs, from simple banner advertisements to sophisticated CRM programs. In many cases they also offer extensive tracking and reporting of success metrics. In contrast, SMS or instant messaging deliver a text message similar to an email, though limited to a few dozen words. And like email marketing, although it can reach large audiences relatively inexpensively, SMS does not engage consumers at a personal level and can only track responses, not delivery.

This spring, Nissan and Microsoft ran campaigns on mobile internet services that rely on rich user interaction found only on smartphones and PDAs. During March Madness, Nissan sponsored a College Hoops mobile website, which provided smartphone and PDA users with news and editorials, as well as the latest scores and schedules to stay current with the college basketball tournament. More importantly for Nissan, the mobile website helped build awareness for the Infiniti M luxury performance sedan, helping Infiniti to reach a captive and engaged audience of 24- to54-year-old tech-savvy users.

Smartphone and PDA users tend to view their mobile content during downtimes, such as during a morning commute, while waiting for an appointment or traveling on a plane. Users are more likely to interact with content during downtime, simply because they have the time to. There is also a strong argument that viewing content in this relaxed state of mind makes them more receptive to the marketing messages. 

Microsoft and Universal McCann (Microsoft’s agency of record) were looking to tap into this captive audience when they launched a multi-faceted campaign that employed mobile, print and online advertising. Microsoft wanted to take advantage of mobile users’ downtime and keep messages about Microsoft Office in front of busy executives. The end result was a Concentration-like mobile advergame for smartphone and PDA users. Users were receptive to the marketing message -- evident by the 17 percent clickthrough rate on mobile website banners that allowed users to download the game directly onto their handheld device. In total, over 64,000 users downloaded the game. Best of all, in a survey conducted on the users’ mobile device after downloading the game, over half of the players said they had learned something about Microsoft Office.

Texting and SMS, while currently hot marketing vehicles, are limited to short, brief messages and primarily target a youth demographic. In contrast, mobile internet services for smartphone and PDA users will increasingly provide companies with an extremely effective, flexible and cost-conscious way of reaching a highly desirable demographic of affluent, tech-savvy business professionals when they are most open to receiving the message -- during their downtime.

Crystal King is Senior Product Marketing Manager at AvantGo, a service of iAnywhere Solutions, a Sybase company. King oversees marketing, branding, communications and public relations for the AvantGo mobile internet service. Today, more than 2,500 major brands, including American Airlines, CNET, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Volkswagen leverage AvantGo to target a highly desirable demographic of more than 7 million registered users. Prior to joining iAnywhere, King was marketing director at Taxware, a First Data company. She has worked in high tech marketing for over twelve years at companies such as Nexaweb, Bowne, GE Capital and a handful of dot.com startups. She holds an M.A. in critical and creative thinking from the University of Massachusetts-Boston.