Mobile Marketing Forum, Barcelona: talk from Richard Saggers, still advertising staggers

Rating: where’s the action?

By Annie Turner

Richard Saggers who is responsible for Vodafone’s advertising strategy said little that was new in his presentation (in the 1960’s you could hit 80% of your target audience in three advertising slots, the origin of the term soap opera – ie domestic drama sponsored by ads for washing power etc), but he did at least stress that mobile advertising should not be thought of as a sub-set of other types of advertising – ie online.

He reckons that we are now on the cusp of real action in mobile advertising and wheeled out a survey undertaken by its unit in the Czech Republic of consumer reaction to mobile marketing. Predictably if found that if you package it in the right way – relevance, relevance, relevance – 80% acceptance rate of advertising on the mobile phone. Lies, damned lies and statistics to you too, Richard. This is too vague to be meaningful in any way and I’m bored to death with the surveys, where’s the action?