Synchronous and Asynchronous consumer ...

Synchronous and Asynchronous consumer targeting in Mobile Marketing Ioannis Pachoulakis Department of Applied Informatics & Multimedia, TEI of Crete and Centre for Technological Research of Crete [email protected]

Abstract The marketing effort of a company is a main driving force behind most research, development, and resource allocation. Key strategic planning efforts of marketing departments seek to identify the needs of actual and prospective customers, but also to create new needs to fulfil. The introduction and eventual proliferation of mobile devices in all aspects of today’s life presents marketers with unique opportunities to reach people, and new technologies can help focus marketing efforts. This paper presents ways that these new technologies can be employed to increase the accuracy of marketing campaigns by matching customers’ contexts of use to marketing efforts so as to orient marketing campaigns within known contexts of use. However, gaining such knowledge on the customer base raises important privacy issues, rendering push-based marketing efforts unwelcome by customers and, therefore, ineffective.

Keywords Mobile marketing, wearable devices, ubiquitous mobile computing

1. Introduction Synchronicity, a familiar concept in the world of desktop computing, is based on two key concepts: (a) time sequence, i.e., the premise that a task must complete before another task takes over and, (b) user involvement, i.e., that the user must respond to a dialogue, usually through a window pop up or modal screen in order to continue. On the opposite end, asynchronous behaviour functions mainly as a mechanism for notification: when some task completes, some other task may continue. Arguably, the killer asynchronous applications used in mainstream marketing are email for e-Marketing and its counterpart (SMS) in mMarketing. Looking behind this simplistic façade of synchronicity, one finds a deeper meaning in reflecting that synchronicity and a-synchronicity simply differentiate between in-context and out-of-context tasks: synchronous events occur within the context of a certain task, whereas asynchronous events do not. However, even for fundamentally asynchronous applications, such as email, a user may inject a degree of synchronicity e.g., by tracking a time-critical email as it hops across network nodes until it is delivered. In most cases, however, the sender does not care on the exact time that the email will be delivered and the issue of ascertaining deliverance may be settled simply by requesting a delivery receipt (which is also sent back to the sender asynchronously). It is exactly this deeper aspect of synchronicity that this article -1-

focuses on by extending its application to m-Marketing campaigns and discussing its ramifications within the prospective customers’ own individual contexts. Accordingly, the advantages that synchronous marketing campaigns can have over a-synchronous campaigns are discussed along with possible ways that wireless technology can help m-Marketing capitalize on the potential of dynamically-forming human groups to gain a clear advantage over internet Marketing.

2. Mobile vs. Electronic Marketing It may be said that mobile marketing is really e-marketing, conducted over the mobile network. However, since wireless 3G cards have been made available for laptops, it has become possible for mobile users to fully access internet services in no different way than if they were using a LAN or WLAN card to connect to their local intranet: the mobile network is used as an alternative wireless medium providing long-range communications through a connection to an ISP. However, marketing campaigns reaching laptop users can not be considered mobile marketing campaigns. The main difference, therefore, between m- and emarketing must be sought in the devices used, which in the case of m-marketing are basically mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Figure 1: The consolidation of PDAs and Mobile Phones into Smart Phones Although these two types of devices evolved almost in parallel, there is a distinct trend for their convergence into smart phones (Chang and Chen, 2005), which have been rolling out in a large variety of shapes and features to cover the wide ranges of tastes and wallets (Figure 1). The reasons for this convergence are partly related to the complementary features of mobile phones and PDAs, the former touting communications over long ranges but having small -2-

screens and tiresome to navigate list-based structures, and the latter providing a useful graphical user interface (GUI), but only local (WLAN or Bluetooth) access. By contrast, these new devices combine the pros of both hardware platforms to provide both long-range (over GPRS or UMTS standard) and short range (over Bluetooth) communications, deliver Multimedia Message Service (MMS) messages and offer new capabilities for m-commerce. These new network capabilities signal a shift to new paradigms of communication between people as well as between devices. M-marketing targets users of mobile (actually wearable and not stationary) devices in any context they may be found. M-marketing users may be walking on the street, sitting at a café, watching a football game at a stadium or at home, working at their office, etc. Furthermore, there are two basic types of advertising to customers, depending on who originates a session: (a) push-based advertising, where the mobile operator capitalizes on the automated and reliable nature of the SMS, to reach customers (Barnes and Scornavacca, 2004, Leppaniemi and Karjaluoto, 2005), and (b) pull-based advertising, where the operator creates the interest to attract users to begin interaction sessions based on their interests. However, many users consider push-based advertisement as invasive and unwelcome, as messages frequently reach them completely out of context, i.e., the service advertised is unrelated to what they are doing at the time. Considering that in countries like the U.S. and Japan the recipient is charged for the cost of an SMS, it is easy to understand how things can quickly scale out of hand and out of badget. To protect the customers from unrelated advertisement and unwelcome charges and also to foster mobile marketing as a means to initiate financial transactions over the wireless medium (mcommerce), efforts are under way at various levels: from reaching a consensus between customers and mobile operators, to legislature that forces companies to secure explicit customer permission before including them in their mobile marketing campaigns (Sarrocco, 2004). As an example, the M-Marketing Code of Practice (put forth by the Australian Direct Marketing Association which comprises industry, regulatory and consumer representatives) will be binding on all organisations that use either email or mobile services as a primary form of marketing, as well as on third parties who market on behalf of a client. However, when it comes to controlling push-based advertising, astricting regulation can only be part of a solution. A long-lasting solution must be based on technology to amalgamate push- and pulltype techniques into a golden mean where push-type advertising stops when it reaches the customer base and makes its services known. Thereafter, a variety of pull-type methods can serve customer response (Pachoulakis, 2005a).

3. Synchronous and Asynchronous marketing Strategies From the point of view of marketing, the notion of synchronicity is not really applicable to settings of users working on a desktop or laptop, be it in an office, at home or even on a moving boat, plane or train. Instead, synchronicity should thrive in mobile contexts of use: people shopping, walking, relaxing at a café, taking a trip, watching a football game on their home TV set or at a stadium, watching a movie at home or at a theatre, etc. The two most important reasons that people are more likely to use mobile services during these times are (a) they more likely than not interact with other people or (b) someone else supplies input to their senses (watching TV or a live game).

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Accordingly, the definition for synchronous marketing is one that allows operators target consumers in the exact contexts they find themselves in, where they are more likely to respond. An example of a setting where synchronous marketing may apply is Purdue University’s E-Stadium project, the result of a synergy between the university’s intercollegiate athletics and the Center for Wireless Systems and Applications, to provide students, staff, alumni, and visitors with a unique experience through highly interactive wireless applications running on PDAs and Smart Phones. Sample applications available during a game are the Sports Ticker, the Player and Coach info service, a sports trivia game, and public announcements. The reason it is not difficult to conceive applications for this type of audiences is that by watching the same game at a common location, participants automatically find themselves in a common context. Therefore, mobile operators can easily target such audiences by advertising via wireless spots immersed in a known setting to offer additional services: statistics, seasonal bets, etc. Local operators may also conduct business through m-commerce applications, since customers may easily order e.g., snacks and refreshments to be delivered to their seats. It is important to note, however, that in contrast to m-marketing which can be synchronous or asynchronous, all m-commerce is synchronous. On the opposite end, mass marketing techniques which use the SMS or MMS medium to advertise monthly specials have a truly asynchronous character: most subscribed customers will receive the message away from the store. However, the same (SMS) medium can be exploited in synchronous mode to target customers already in the store. This latter subset of customers may be easily identified using a grid of wireless hot spots throughout the store to identify and contact subscribed (and presumably interested) customers via short-range wireless. Accordingly, the campaign to reach all subscribed customers for monthly specials can be made even more effective if it is conducted in parallel with one reaching the significantly smaller customer set that is already in the store with daily specials. An interesting asynchronous application comes from the healthcare industry in the form of M-Pill developed by M-PLIFY (http://www.m-pill.com/), which increases patient compliance by sending SMS, e-mail, or voice messages to patients in order to remind them of their medication intakes, their doctor visits or refills and keep them motivated during treatment. The application adds convenient interactivity to the newly created relationships with the patients and offers new opportunities for m-marketing and clinical trials. Through satellite services, patients may experience improved quality of care by enforcing treatment follow-up using escalation features and receiving feedback on treatment or other relevant healthcare issues. Synchronous marketing which segments customers based on current context thus differs from the more general notion of targeted marketing which slices a customer base on various criteria such as demographics. This segmentation is dynamic since (a) synchronous groups form and dismantle in real time in the course of minutes or hours and (b) people move in or out of these groups quite naturally through typical social activities. Nevertheless, synchronous marketing should not be viewed as antagonistic or incompatible to targeted marketing. Instead, if handled correctly, it can function as a sharpening tool for targeted marketing.

4. Personal Data and Privacy issues Rask and Dholakia (2001) study how marketing strategies can be affected by m-commerce conducted using devices capable of communication, information and payment services, such -4-

as PDAs and Smart Phones. They argue that marketers will be forced to modify their strategies from one-to-many to one-to-one, so that services will be significantly more individualized than they presently are. There are various ways to attain this goal. One is to provide portals for users to register their needs and interests in order to receive personalized content. Mobile service providers will ideally want to maintain a customer database with information on individual user/customer communication patterns. Further customization of the services provided is possible through positioning technology, which can be used to couple subscriber locations to patterns of use. Granted that such a degree of customization serves both marketers and customers, its implementation must be considered carefully. For example, user positioning by external agents is viewed as a rampant violation of a user’s privacy. This is an important issue, since people resent being followed throughout their daily routines. As a result, mobile users remain very sceptical of GPS modules and want to be assured that their privacy will not be invaded. If people do not perceive their devices as safe, they will most likely to turn off those parts of system functionality they perceive as abusive to their privacy or even boycott GPS-enabled products. In either case, the result will be that users will not enjoy a host of very important services (such as map and orientation applications, or the security provided by emergency location positioning through GPS beacons in case of automobile or climbing accidents) and mobile operators will lose on a big source of revenue. Accordingly, it seems natural that technologies surviving the fierce market competition will be those that provide mechanisms for privacy protection at the system level that give users complete control over when, where and which data they give to operators. One way to achieve just that is through controlling application access to certain system services. Clearly, such control support must be provided at the operating system level. In addition, appropriate user interfaces must be provided so that users are able to customize this behaviour through profiling to achieve a certain degree of user-instructed automation in pairing applications to system services. Such services may remain dormant or locked, until the user activates an application that provides functionality dependent on these services. For example, if a maporientation application is activated, the GPS service which provides positioning functionality will be allowed to get stigmas only for those for appropriate functionality subsets, i.e., getting one’s current stigma for local processing. The user may thus explicitly dictate which services (e.g., positioning service) can be used by which applications. The relevant functionality will act as a firewall separating system services from applications. A further degree of security is possible (Pachoulakis, 2005b) by not surrendering the actual wearable set user id to an external agent. The reason is that messages with this id will penetrate the wearable’s safety mechanisms to be processed by applications and services as if they were messages originating in the Personal Area Network (PAN) of the user. Instead, a unique mock-up client id needs to be issued for the duration of an interaction session with each different external agent. This allows a PAN to communicate concurrently with the outside world through a “safety shell” which naturally forbids access to system internals. At the end of an interaction session with another PAN and following a timeout period the temporary client id will be flushed and a new one will be created for a different interaction session.

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5. Summary This paper discusses the idea of synchronicity in the context of m-Marketing campaigns and discussing its ramifications within the prospective customers’ own individual contexts. It is argued that m-Marketing campaigns can capitalize on the potential of dynamically-forming human groups to gain a clear advantage over internet Marketing. In addition, the models used by mobile operators to produce and deliver individualized content to users must be pull-based, where users register their needs and interests with their mobile service operator in order to receive personalized content. Indirect e-marketing advertising techniques such as those found in shareware are slowly finding their analogues in m-marketing, where users are rewarded for taking time to respond to operator initiated sessions. Such rewards can take many forms, such as coupons and bonus talk time.

References Australian Direct Marketing Association, “M-Marketing Code of Practice” June 2003 (online at: http://www.adma.com.au/asp/index.asp?pgid=1985). Barnes, S.J. and Scornavacca, E. (2004), “Mobile marketing: the role of permission and acceptance”, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Vol.2, pp. 128 – 139. Chang, Y.F. and Chen, C.S. (2005), “Smart phone - the choice of client platform for mobile commerce”, Computer Standards & Interfaces, Vol.27, pp.329-336. Leppaniemi, M. and Karjaluoto H. (2005), “Factors influencing consumers' willingness to accept mobile advertising: a conceptual model”, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Vol.3, pp. 197 – 213. Pachoulakis, I. (2005) “Balancing Push- and Pull- Based M-Marketing with Multimedia Wearable Sets”, in New Technologies and Marketing Conference, Ierapetra, Crete, 19-20 May (2005a). Pachoulakis, I. (2005) “Multimedia Wearable Sets: Devices and Communications”, in New Technologies and Marketing Conference, Ierapetra, Crete, 19-20 May, 2005 (2005b). Rask, M. & Dholakia, N. (2001) “Next to the Customer's Heart and Wallet: Frameworks for Exploring the Emerging M-commerce Arena”, In M. V. Ram Krishnan (Ed.), 2001 AMA Winter Marketing Educators' Conference, Vol. 12, pp. 372-378. Sarrocco, C. (2004), “Spam in the Information Society: Building Frameworks for International Cooperation”, ITU World Summit on the Information Society, Thematic Meeting on Countering Spam (online at: http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/).

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