Should mobile marketing replace people with devices?

At the Buzzworthy event in San Francisco tonight, I had the opportunity to chat with the Managing Director of one the companies running it. Attack! Marketing is a real-world marketing company that is extremely interested in getting into mobile - and MD Christian Jurinka was able to give me an interesting new perspective on mobile marketing.

I say a “new perspective” because I spend more of my time talking to people who are already in mobile marketing, and are trying to convince other people to use that channel. Christian is looking at mobile as a valuable tool, and trying to figure out the best way to integrate with the existing Attack! offer.

So what does Attack! do?

Attack! works by getting feet on the pavement. It works by human-to-human interaction, face-to-face. For example, Jamba Juice is a current client of Attack! and is advertising a new breakfast option through the agency. One of the Attack! solutions is to place people at areas of heavy foot traffic in San Francisco, at the right time of day for people who are looking for breakfast, and handing out paper coupons. There are a lot of other methods Attack! can use (for example, the Attack! logo below is a “spray chalk” logo on the sidewalk outside the event), but this is the one we were discussing.

The question I asked Christian is how do you turn that coupon delivery system from a person into a mobile? After all, the end result is to get a coupon into the pocket of a customer. Whether it’s a paper coupon handed over by a person or a digital coupon delivered by a mobile shouldn’t make a difference.

What interested me is that Attack! has no intention of getting rid of the person handing out the coupon. The effectiveness of actual human contact can’t be replicated by a device. Attacks! has been running successful campaigns of this sort for 8 years now, and is interested in the intersection between it’s methods and those of mobile. Part of the problem is that mobile is actually too personal. If you blindside someone with an ad they weren’t expecting, they’ll treat it like spam. At best you’ll be ignored, at worst you’ll have turned that person against you.

Bluetooth is often taken as the worst example of this kind of marketing - but Bluetooth can be used effectively if used correctly (see the GoMo News article on that topic here). But a possible area Attack! is looking at is how Bluetooth can be combined with a person on the street: “We’ve got coupons and special offers for Jamba Juice today, and if you want to get a bonus digital coupon for a free coffee delivered straight to your phone, just turn your bluetooth on in this area!”

What we think?

It was really great to talk to an advertiser who wasn’t an expert in mobile. Attack! wasn’t pitching how GREAT mobile is - it’s a company that is confident in how it’s advertising model worked, and is really interested in how mobile can be used to enhance that offering, rather than replace it.

And one other point, on which Christian agreed with me: every advertising agency, no matter how large or small, needs to have a mobile strategy. Or at least be able to fake it.