مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Mobile marketing, defined as, “the two-way or multi-way communication and promotion of an offer between a firm and its customers using a mobile medium, device, or technology,” (Shankar and Balasubramanian 2009, p. 118) is quickly becoming a mainstream activity. Industry analysts point to an increase in all categories of mobile marketing spending with eMarketer (2013) claiming a 10-fold overall increase between 2010 and 2015. It is estimated that 20% of Google’s search revenue can now be attributed to mobile (Sterling 2015). Twitter has reported that 86% of its advertising revenue now comes from mobile (Sullivan 2015). U.S. mobile advertising expenditures are expected to grow from $29 billion (49% of digital ad spending) in 2015 to $66 billion (72% of digital ad expenditures) by 2019 (eMarketer 2015a). Mobile coupons are thought to be used by more than 40% of US companies with more than 100 employees as of 2015 (eMarketer 2015b).

There is no reason to expect the above-cited growth in mobile marketing to slow down. In fact, we observe a further proliferation of mobile devices, particularly in the developed world. Devices now span form factors from basic feature phones to smart phones, through “phablets” to tablets. Wearables figure to add complexity to the mobile marketing mix as the smartwatch market alone is expected to reach $32.9 globally by 2020 (Kohli 2015). Emerging technologies such as beacons (Martin 2014) will likely shift marketing spending even further toward mobile if they prove effective.

Many businesses are therefore affected by the mobile marketing and mobile technology trends discussed above but perhaps none more than retailing (Shankar et al. 2010). Annual global mobile retail purchases are expected to surpass $700 billion and account for 30% of online purchases by 2018 (Juniper Research 2014). The portability of mobile devices means that the customer has a device with her near to and within the retailer’s space. Traditionally, customers enter the retailer’s space, but with mobile devices, retailers can invert the paradigm and enter the customer’s personal environment. In fact, the location-centric services enabled by mobile platforms change the nature of the primary source of competitive advantage in retailing, namely location (Shankar et al. 2010).