Interview:

Mobile Marketing to Consumers on the Move: A Conversation with iLoop Mobile’s Michael Becker

What handset are you talking on? There are the business power cells with their Blackberries, and the enviable but elite iPhone set. And then there are the rest of us. And while the average cell phone user has no doubt dipped their thumbs into the world of text, it won’t be long before we’re interacting with our cell phones at an entirely new, convenient and exciting level. Benchmark caught up with one of mobile marketing’s leading thinkers, Michael Becker of iLoop Mobile, to find out how marketers are using mobile to reach out and touch consumers.

Benchmark: Few people are as dialed in to the world of mobile marketing as you are, between your work with iLoop Mobile and with the Mobile Marketing Association. What’s been the big news in mobile for 2008?

Michael Becker: First and foremost, we’re finally seeing the concept of mobile marketing move from the awareness stage to the ‘I’ve gotta do it’ stage. In the early days – ’03, ’04, through ’07 – in the United States we heard, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard about that thing called mobile marketing, but there is nothing in it for me.’ Now, in 2008, we’re finally seeing a very large push by most all of the major brands to embrace mobile and actively integrate it into their communications programs. It’s fascinating to see marketers not just embracing text but actually taking it far beyond that.

Benchmark: What do you think is responsible for that? Is there a technological reason? A critical mass? Consumer acceptance?

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