From geogargeting to a barcode scanning app, mobile commerce is getting wider and more creative.
Smartphones are a part of the daily lives of half of all cell phone owners in the United States, and are also rapidly increasing their penetration around the world, so it only makes sense that mobile commerce should be taking off at an equally significant rate, and that it should be implemented in a broad range of new ways in order to keep up with the latest trends.
Mobile marketing has opened up a wide world of options for those in the industry to flex their creative muscles.
Examples of different techniques that are being commonly used include mobile coupons, geotargeting (location-based efforts), and the use of a barcode scanning app for QR codes and other similar scannables.
Among the campaigns that are more relevant at the moment are the Father’s Day mobile commerce ads.
Though the tradition had once been to buy dad a new t-shirt or necktie for this holiday, that appears to be a thing of the past. Dads want gadgets, and right now that means a smartphone, tablet, e-reader, or other device of this nature. Device manufacturers are far from ignorant of this fact, and the top players, such as Apple, are working to make sure that theirs are the must-have gift.
In fact, Apple has already sent out a mobile marketing blast as of June 3, when it told device users to “Show Dad you know what’s best”, with an offer to allow them to purchase an AppleTV, iPhone 4S or iPad online and avoid any shipping fees. According to that company, the iPad is the number one advertised item for fathers.
At the same time, Crate and Barrel has built their own mobile commerce strategy, which uses a barcode scanning app to allow consumers to manage their wedding and other gift registries. This free application is available for iPhones and allows users to scan barcodes throughout the store to create, update, and change their registries.
T.J. Maxx, on the other hand, has focused on geotargeting as their main mobile commerce element, as they use the location of a consumer to help them to draw those individuals into their shops.
