Neven Bosilj Goran Buba Neven Vrek User Experience

Neven Bosilj*, Goran Bubaš**, Neven Vrček*** User Experience with Advertising over Mobile Phone: A Pilot Study *T-mobile, Croatia ** University of Zagreb, Faculty of. Vrček Organisation and Informatics INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, 1

Mobile phone and SMS users In comparison to land-line telephones, television, radio, and most other electronic communication media, mobile phones are much more personal devices. A mobile phone usually only has a single user and this attribute makes mobile phones suitable for high-precision targeting in marketing campaigns. 2. 7 billion users of mobile phones in 2007 (in comparison to 1. 1 billion users of the Internet). 4 billion subscriptions for mobile devices in 2009 and 2. 7 billion active SMS users (Ahonen, 2009). Mobile message services (SMS & MMS): SMS - text of 168 characters INFuture 2009 MMS - pictures, audio or video Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček Availability and simplicity 2

Issues in mobile marketing E-mail message is opened, on average, within 24 hours and a reply occurs within 48 hours. SMS messages are read within 15 minutes of their arrival and the average response time amounts to less than 60 minutes. As much as 65% of e-mails are spam; the percentage of spam among SMS messages is less than 10%. Some important factors to consider: Customerization (m. CRM & alike) Customization (user profiles) Viral marketing Privacy – m. Spam (PBMS) Location-based mobile marketing Adoption problems (users, advertizers) INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 3

Mobile marketing campaigns Interactivity of push, pull and dialogue campaigns (Jelassi & Enders, 2004). High Advertise r activity Low Push campaigns Dialogue campaigns Traditional (noninteractive) campaigns – TV, radio, Lowprint Pull campaigns High Consumer activity INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 4

Technological problems Key points in creation of m. CRM (Sinisalo et al. , 2006): Server Number Campaign logic INFuture 2009 Gateway Technologi es Price formation Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček Permission database Marketing Media mix 5

Research motivation Main goals and problem: Investigate how potential clients would react to a mobile advertising campaign. Conduct a pilot study on a small group of students who would receive 1 -4 marketing SMS messages per day for a period of two weeks and evaluate the usefulness of each of the incoming messages. Determine the potential acceptance rate of SMS marketing. Collect quantitative and qualitative data on students’ responses to mobile marketing messages. Determine the factors which contribute to the acceptance of SMS marketing. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 6

Hypotheses H 1: Students in our convenience sample will on average demonstrate a high level of acceptance of SMS marketing. H 2: The level of engagement of students in our convenience sample during the marketing campaign will not decrease over time. H 3: Message attributes (related to brand, information value, entertainment, personalization, perceived usefulness) have an influence on the acceptance of mobile marketing. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 7

Methodology Subjects, instruments and procedure: Convenience sample, 62 students of the fourth year of study of informatics. The subjects were aged between 21 and 24, 66% of them were male and 34% female. They were given a written statement regarding the privacy and confidentiality of collected data. A survey was used regarding the actual use of mobile technology (phone, Internet etc. ). Self-assessment scales were also used that measured various constructs (user attributes): attitude (Shimp and Kavas, 1984; Pollay and Mittal, 1993); perceived usefulness (Venkatesh et al. , 2003); message attributes (brand, information value, entertainment, personalization); use of services related to mobile advertising (Merisavo et al. , 2007). The mobile marketing campaign lasted two weeks during which the subjects received 24 SMS messages per day that were related to their college, program of the local cinema and theatre, city swimming pool, student restaurants and town bars/pubs, or included diverse advertisements of products and services. (10 kn per 120 SMS). The subjects were asked to respond to each of the received SMS messages regarding its usefulness on a 1 -5 Likert-type scale. After a week of participation in the mobile marketing campaign they also completed a brief survey regarding the received messages and their effects. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 8

Results /1 Percentage of subjects who responded with an evaluation of the received marketing SMS during the first and second week of the campaign. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 9

Results /1 H 2: The level of engagement of students in our convenience sample during the marketing campaign will not decrease over time. NOT CONFIRMED! INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 10

Results 2 Acceptance of mobile marketing After a week of exposure to the mobile marketing campaign the subjects in our convenience sample responded to the survey question “Mobile advertising is a useful concept which I plan to use in the future”. An average response was 4. 14 on a Likert-type scale ranging from “ 1 – I do not agree at all” to “ 5 – I completely agree”. Most of the SMS’s (85% of messages) during the first week of the mobile marketing campaign were highly personalized and received an average rating for usefulness of 3. 0 or above from the subjects in the study. Typical positive verbal responses of subjects “Many messages were very useful to me (menu at the student restaurant, cinema, discount at the city swimming pool, college information) and I will miss them when the campaign is over. ” “Interesting, I approve of it and support this kind of advertising as long as the user is capable of choosing and controlling the content that he/she receives and its amount. ” “I support this and hope that it will benefit the students”. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 11

Results /2 H 1: Students in our convenience sample will on average demonstrate a high level of acceptance of SMS marketing. CONFIRMED! INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 12

Results /3 Correlation of acceptance of mobile marketing with the constructs related to the attributes of mobile marketing messages and internal consistency of scales used to measure these constructs (N=62) MESSAGE RELATED CONSTRUCTS INFuture 2009 Attractive brand in messages Information value of messages Entertainment value of messages Personalizatio n of message content CORRELATION WITH ACCEPTANCE OF MOBILE MARKETING INTERNAL CONSISTENCY OF SCALE (CRONBACH ALPHA) 0. 47 0. 90 0. 59 0. 81 0. 33 0. 65 0. 67 0. 70 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 13

Results /3 H 3: Message attributes (related to brand, information value, entertainment, personalization, perceived usefulness) have an influence on the acceptance of mobile marketing. CONFIRMED! INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 14

Conclusion Mobile marketing could be accepted at least by a younger generation of computer literate mobile phone users. Most of the subjects positively evaluated their experience with the mobile marketing campaign in our pilot study. However, our findings also indicate that user/consumer interest in the participation in mobile marketing campaigns may decrease over time. Mobile advertising messages need to be personalized and contain adequate information value to attract attention, receive greater interest, and avoid being perceived as spam. None of the participants indicated that they felt uncomfortable because of their participation in our pilot study and the verbal content of their SMS responses to received mobile advertising messages was predominantly positive. INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 15

Thank you for your attention! goran. bubas@foi. hr neven. bosilj@t-mobile. hr neven. vrcek@foi. hr INFuture 2009 Bosilj, Bubaš, Vrček 16