I recently met two students from the Master HEC in Paris. They are carrying a study about mobile marketing ad its new possibilities for advertisers. They were told I was the right person for such a matter…
So I spent an hour with these two nice 25 year old boys.
They don't know many things about the mobile industry, which is not a surprise. Concepts are so new and the innovation pace is so fast…
But what struck me most is that they hadn't experienced the mobile phone in their own lives, but phone calls and SMS. None of them had ever tried to surf on a mobile handset, and "they had never felt like doing it". They even told me that among the 70 students of the Master HEC, one had tried (yes!), but "ruined herself by surfing a few minutes" (!!!).
No matter this was true or wrong, that was their perception of this media.
Flat rates announcements, easy & wide screens, where are you? Didn't Orange and SFR's ads touch these 70 young students?
The day after, I was with a 55 year old guy. I didn't try to tell him about the mobile revolution. He sometimes read SMS he receives but NEVER writes SMS. "Too tedious" he said. Sherry on the cake: when he urgently needs to say something to somebody and can't reach him/her on the phone, he goes to his carriers's web site and type his SMS from the web.
Thank goodness: still so many customers to conquest for mobile data usages! Besides, the mobile typing reluctant ones will be rescued by the web. The future is pink and open.
Emmanuel de Saint-Bon
