'Waiting for the Kiss of Life': Mobile Media and Advertising
Rowan Wilken and John Sinclair
Convergence 2009; 15; 427
DOI: 10.1177/1354856509342343
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Abstract
Mobile media, especially cellphones, are now seen and heard everywhere, forming an intrinsic part of the daily lives and habits of billions of people worldwide. Curiously, despite this wide diffusion and remarkable rate of adoption, as an advertising platform the cellphone is, in the words of one commentator, still very much ‘a mass medium waiting for the kiss of life’.
Rowan Wilken and John Sinclair
Convergence 2009; 15; 427
DOI: 10.1177/1354856509342343
Abstract
Mobile media, especially cellphones, are now seen and heard everywhere, forming an intrinsic part of the daily lives and habits of billions of people worldwide. Curiously, despite this wide diffusion and remarkable rate of adoption, as an advertising platform the cellphone is, in the words of one commentator, still very much ‘a mass medium waiting for the kiss of life’.
This article examines why this is the case, by exploring the ‘complex mobile phone ecosystem’ and the factors that contribute to the rather hesitant adoption of mobile advertising, with particular attention to the inherent conflicts amongst the interested parties in the system. It does this through a metaanalysis of themes and issues evinced in mainstream media and the advertising trade press. Study of this data is supplemented by drawing on a number of critical studies within the available research literature on the subject.
Conclusion
This examination of mobile advertising develops a fuller picture of what has been described as a ‘complicated mobile phone ecosystem’.
Conclusion
This examination of mobile advertising develops a fuller picture of what has been described as a ‘complicated mobile phone ecosystem’.
From this examination, three key observations can be made that are significant for how we understand this ‘ecosystem’.
The first of these is to note the ongoing importance of the convoluted and at times tense relationship between mobile operators (telcos), advertising agencies and marketers, content providers, and handset manufacturers, and the crucial if fraught role this relationship plays in shaping the present and future directions of mobile advertising.
The second key observation, or finding, is that the internet – in the broadest sense of a worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks – remains a leading medium. This is despite statistics that show a plateauing of worldwide new internet connections, which contrast with rapid growth in new mobile phone connections. With the arrival of 3G technology, the mobile phone – at least from a marketing perspective – works increasingly as a kind of mobile ‘portal’ to connect consumers with the mobile internet, and thus, by extension, advertisers and content providers more directly with consumers. Even beyond the advent of mobile advertising itself, this development represents a further respatialization of the relationship between producers and consumers, a state of affairs not anticipated in the traditional political economy of communications (Mosco, 1996).
The third and final point to emerge from this picture of the mobile phone ecology concerns the ongoing difficulties marketers face in negotiating the complexities of the medium, given their desire for increased simplicity. To a large extent, the hurdles facing mobile advertisers and impeding ‘effective’ mobile advertising strategies can be seen as ‘structural’ and are not easily overcome. By structural we mean that the inherent conflicts and challenges to mobile advertising course through and underpin all facets of mobile media development and use – from interface design, service provision, and the complex socio-cultural and socio-spatial uses of mobile media, to the increasingly divergent content options that are opened up by 3G technology and ‘convergent’ devices like the iPhone.
There is a more theoretical conclusion to be drawn from the observed structural complexities, specifically with regard to the emergent critical perspective, the ‘global capitalism thesis’, which argues that a coalescence of national and international ‘class fractions’, or a ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Robinson, 2005: 5), is driving global capitalist development, including that of telecommunications and new technologies in general (Simpson and Wilkinson, 2002). However, while the Gramscian concept of class fractions is appropriate in recognizing that there are divisions within this new ruling class, the case of mobile telephone advertising suggests that these divisions, even within the one industry, can be based on quite antagonistic interests, and be the cause of conflict. Thus, rather than seeing fractions as based on broad divisions between industrial and financial capital, it would appear from this case that the ensemble of distinct corporate interests which surround the commercialization of mobile telephony demands a more nuanced understanding of how contradictions can develop in just one industrial sector, especially when it is structured on a global scale. If such conflicts are to be found across many other sectors of corporate activity, that would imply that the transnational capitalist class is too fractured to be a ‘ruling class’ in any meaningful sense.
There are further theoretical implications that could be drawn from an analysis of the mobile advertising ecosystem for our understanding of the social structure and culture of capitalist societies in the era of personalized communication technologies, but that would go far beyond the scope of the present work. Suffice it to say that, given the degree to which concern over users’ resistance appears to be responsible for the evident reluctance in the nascent industry to fully exploit its new commercial technology, there seems to be a certain shift in the balance of power between producers and consumers, at least in comparison to traditional mass media. This situation would require the political economy of communications to incorporate more of a cultural studies perspective to arrive at an adequate account.
Finally then, given the many structural complexities attending mobile media use and mobile advertising, as they have been documented in this article, the proverbial ‘land of plenty’ sought by advertisers could well remain a distant vision for some time, a promised land somewhere over the horizon. All the while, mobile marketers continue to speak and write with cautious optimism of this ‘golden land of opportunity’ awaiting. Yet to return to the metaphor with which this article began, truly effective and lucrative mobile media advertising would appear to be still waiting for a truly breath-giving kiss of life, but where is the prince who will hack through the thorns to reach the Sleeping Beauty?
The first of these is to note the ongoing importance of the convoluted and at times tense relationship between mobile operators (telcos), advertising agencies and marketers, content providers, and handset manufacturers, and the crucial if fraught role this relationship plays in shaping the present and future directions of mobile advertising.
The second key observation, or finding, is that the internet – in the broadest sense of a worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks – remains a leading medium. This is despite statistics that show a plateauing of worldwide new internet connections, which contrast with rapid growth in new mobile phone connections. With the arrival of 3G technology, the mobile phone – at least from a marketing perspective – works increasingly as a kind of mobile ‘portal’ to connect consumers with the mobile internet, and thus, by extension, advertisers and content providers more directly with consumers. Even beyond the advent of mobile advertising itself, this development represents a further respatialization of the relationship between producers and consumers, a state of affairs not anticipated in the traditional political economy of communications (Mosco, 1996).
The third and final point to emerge from this picture of the mobile phone ecology concerns the ongoing difficulties marketers face in negotiating the complexities of the medium, given their desire for increased simplicity. To a large extent, the hurdles facing mobile advertisers and impeding ‘effective’ mobile advertising strategies can be seen as ‘structural’ and are not easily overcome. By structural we mean that the inherent conflicts and challenges to mobile advertising course through and underpin all facets of mobile media development and use – from interface design, service provision, and the complex socio-cultural and socio-spatial uses of mobile media, to the increasingly divergent content options that are opened up by 3G technology and ‘convergent’ devices like the iPhone.
There is a more theoretical conclusion to be drawn from the observed structural complexities, specifically with regard to the emergent critical perspective, the ‘global capitalism thesis’, which argues that a coalescence of national and international ‘class fractions’, or a ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Robinson, 2005: 5), is driving global capitalist development, including that of telecommunications and new technologies in general (Simpson and Wilkinson, 2002). However, while the Gramscian concept of class fractions is appropriate in recognizing that there are divisions within this new ruling class, the case of mobile telephone advertising suggests that these divisions, even within the one industry, can be based on quite antagonistic interests, and be the cause of conflict. Thus, rather than seeing fractions as based on broad divisions between industrial and financial capital, it would appear from this case that the ensemble of distinct corporate interests which surround the commercialization of mobile telephony demands a more nuanced understanding of how contradictions can develop in just one industrial sector, especially when it is structured on a global scale. If such conflicts are to be found across many other sectors of corporate activity, that would imply that the transnational capitalist class is too fractured to be a ‘ruling class’ in any meaningful sense.
There are further theoretical implications that could be drawn from an analysis of the mobile advertising ecosystem for our understanding of the social structure and culture of capitalist societies in the era of personalized communication technologies, but that would go far beyond the scope of the present work. Suffice it to say that, given the degree to which concern over users’ resistance appears to be responsible for the evident reluctance in the nascent industry to fully exploit its new commercial technology, there seems to be a certain shift in the balance of power between producers and consumers, at least in comparison to traditional mass media. This situation would require the political economy of communications to incorporate more of a cultural studies perspective to arrive at an adequate account.
Finally then, given the many structural complexities attending mobile media use and mobile advertising, as they have been documented in this article, the proverbial ‘land of plenty’ sought by advertisers could well remain a distant vision for some time, a promised land somewhere over the horizon. All the while, mobile marketers continue to speak and write with cautious optimism of this ‘golden land of opportunity’ awaiting. Yet to return to the metaphor with which this article began, truly effective and lucrative mobile media advertising would appear to be still waiting for a truly breath-giving kiss of life, but where is the prince who will hack through the thorns to reach the Sleeping Beauty?
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