An article in today’s Bangkok Post referenced a decision by M-Web to expand its online advertising/marketing business to include mobile phones. M-Web is a major player in the internet economy within Thailand and runs the Thai language portal sanook.com. The news signals an ongoing trend towards using personal mobile devices in combination with internet marketing.
The idea of multimedia and text messages on a mobile phone is a somewhat foreign concept in the rest of the world but makes sense in Thailand where almost everyone carries a cellular phone and few own a personal computer with internet access. M-Web is trying to gain mass acceptance of its online advertising engine by leveraging mobile popularity.
The divergence can also be seen from the mobile carrier side. All you have to do is shop around for the latest cell phone model to see that internet, photo sharing, and text messaging, are all standard. Add this with unlimited GPRS mobile plans and the internet is a touch away virtually anywhere in Thailand. As a marketer, you can’t ignore the power of the internet on mobile devices.
Americans are also catching on as trendy companies in the states are using mobile messaging to create a unified marketing front. A few weeks ago an article reported on Google using text messages to enable new gmail accounts. They claim it’s only for verification purposes…but there may be more to it than meets the eye.
Matt Fong
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