SMS ads ‘fuel mass defections’

Mobile phone operators have been warned they risk mass defections by selling ads to third-party advertisers, according to the results of a new study.
The YouGuv poll, which was commissioned by mobile marketing solutions provider Upstream, shows the majority of people polled (52 per cent) said they saw operators as “highly trusted advertisers”.
Only eight per cent of people said they thought of third party advertisers as trusted and 72 per cent of people said they would leave an operator serving third party SMS ads.
Upstream chief executive Alex Vratskides said the research showed the SMS advertising space was a clear way for operators to communicate effectively but warned of the dangers of going too far with third party advertise.
“As they are not promoting third parties, operators have de facto opt-in; they also have an enormous amount of customer data pre-gathered as well as an in-depth knowledge of their own products – all of these factors can allow them to be highly targeted in their promotions,” Vratskides said.
“Consumers will only tolerate a finite number of these extremely personal contacts via mobile and operators must be cautious not to abuse the clear trust that consumers have in them.
“Offers can clearly have great value when delivered via the mobile but this is not like the ‘daily deals’ phenomenon we see with brands like Groupon. As far as mobile marketing is concerned, less is almost always more when it comes to generating consumer response.”