Marketing through mobile communications may be weak elsewhere, but in the Asia-Pacific region, mobile marketing and advertising is projected to reach nearly $7.7 billion by 2011. These predictions come from the latest research report from ABI Research, "Mobile Marketing and Advertising. According to ABI Senior Analyst Jeff Orr, "Spending on mobile marketing and advertising in 2009 is at least flat compared to 2008 if not slightly growing. That's very encouraging compared to the numbers for advertising in other media. It's less money per campaign, spent more intelligently, with greater benefit per dollar." The good market news results from the wide adoption of text messaging, the downloading of ad-supported games and applications, and the mobile web throughout Japan and South Korea.
Mobile marketing requires a new way of thinking in terms of advertising, according to Orr: "Mobile advertising is intrinsically more targeted than ads in conventional media or even online. It also offers much greater potential for interactivity: it's really a conversation' with your customer, one that can allow the consumer to take direct purchasing action. And it offers extremely accurate measurement of campaign results." The new report is part of ABI's Mobile Consumer Research Service.