TENTATIVE
The tastes, soul and perception of life of the human being are open to an infinite set of demands. The active lifestyle of the 20th century has revealed the requirement for mobile communication systems. In our era, the Internet is considered one of the most important benefits of technology and it has provided very significant means in terms of reaching individuals, corporate communication and information since the very first time that it took its part on the new global order and the internet network has expanded continuously finally reaching to a level that provides the opportunity of unlimited access to almost any part of the world. In the last twenty years, when internet and information technologies have developed, serious changes and developments have occurred with regard to the circulation of information in the world. As a result, internet created the base for information that would expose wider systems than internet itself.
Through successive developments related with information technologies; many, once upon a time, imaginary instruments and devices have now gained dominant status that affect our entire lives and time. Among them, the most important instrument portable by a person is the mobile phone. The human being began to use this mobile environment of communication at any time, location and under any conditions. This phenomenon has caused certain genuine behavioral changes on societies. So, communication networks have turned into elements that strongly influence the human life.
Two systems come forth when mobile devices, which evolved in different ways based on the technological aspect, are evaluated according to the communication networks where they are used. One of these two systems is the Internet and the other one is the mobile phone. The mobile telephone and Internet are gradually turning into developing and interlocking elements.
The use of these systems especially in the business management and marketing issues, which are open to development, not only causes the further development of the systems but also serious changes and developments in marketing and business management approaches that are fed from these systems.
Quite naturally, both positive and negative consequences have arisen in communication due to both personal and corporate use. These consequences are as important for the user as they are for the system. Societies are deeply influenced from communication values that guide the social life and seriously affect the life frame.
In our era, internet and mobile instruments are the most important components of the communication, entertainment and information systems’ industries. Manual machine operated-based industries have also changed as a result of electronic computers transforming into more machinery and instruments that provide faster and better means of industry, management and marketing in a more suitable manner in response to demands. There is a correlation between the appearance of special demands and the development of machines that employ the new technology. It is possible to assign multi-functions to devices and machinery with high technology. According to Bayne (2002, p. 12), mobile instruments are the electronic devices that are owned and used by personal and professional users.
For example, the merging of the photo camera with the mobile phone is one of the most apparent characteristics of new mobile phones. In addition to other features such as sending and receiving e-mail on mobile phone and video recording, and the support of high speed data services in this respect, significant works are being carried out towards developing new areas of use and new styles of communication for mobile phones. At present, mobile phones even if they do not have e-mail sending and receiving features have been enabled to carry out such functions thanks to “push e-mail” service provided by third party service suppliers. www.emoze.com is a nice example in this regard. In one sentence, certain developments and advantages may also be created with interim solutions before dwelling on main solutions.
Mobile instruments are getting to be involved in every aspect of daily life. Pictures taken with a mobile phone at the time of a traffic accident accepted as legal evidence and the ability to make an appointment from a hospital via mobile phone and the receipt of warning messages sent to mobile phones are just a few of the high number of examples. Indeed, examples are gradually increasing and mobile phones are even involved in legal services. (Nevertheless, traffic accident rates are increasing due to calls on phone or text messaging while driving).
Also, experienced corporate changes, on the one hand, facilitate life with technology that triggers different structures and trends. On the other hand, they turn into a more complex form. The elements that influence and change our lives to such an extent should be taken into consideration from every point. In addition to the opportunities it has provided, the difficulties should also be better understood in order to make a clear evaluation of our present life.
Meanwhile, new born infants come into the world in this entire technological development. Not only generations of technology but also generations of people are also developing. For both, getting used to certain surprises in terms of the interaction and communication of the next generations will almost become an exigency. On the other hand, people have now become able to explore and evaluate the world from many different profiles. They even create many new and also virtual profiles for themselves. Paper-free document management provides up to significant cost savings (Backus, 2001). The add-ins in the legal field by virtue of e-mail, e-order, and e-state also provide time saving. Many cost-increasing processes are eliminated and savings are further increased. With these types of systems, the protection of the document against transportation, fire and similar risks is provided. E-document is developing both in the private sector and public, thus creating a brand new document supplier sector. As a bigger sized example, the European Union obtains 243 billion dollars savings per annum with e-document (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/studies/eei-3.2-e-invoicing_final_report.pdf retrieved 4/19/2009). The legal procedure will be completed with the acceptance of e-signature, which is to come into force in 2011.
Factors such as the increasing and aging population in the world, the gradually decreasing importance of brand and the increasing number of price-sensitive clients indicate that more different instruments will be required to reach these clients. In addition, companies now face a different environment and a stronger customer in terms of searching, selecting and bargaining. As for speed, efficiency and efficient management play critical roles, technology and information management also provide strategic superiorities. In this context, technology and information management has begun to create the infrastructure of all business practices.
According to Gilmore, the transformation of the printing press into a suitable form for circulation is defined as the most radical change that affected the status of the intellectual life in the history of Western Civilizations, and he expresses that sooner or later, its influences would be noted on every point of human activities (Postman, 1992, p. 22). A similar transformation is being experienced in our era with the mobile revolution brought by the information and communication technology.
Communication was provided via internet in recent years while the information and communication technology (ICT) was defined as the life of “network connected society”. With developing new technologies, the means of communicating via mobile systems have arisen and they have become influential on changing values through becoming a determinant on the social acts.
With internet, cable broadcasts, digital broadcasts and communication channels are established among workplaces (banking services, etc.). With the expansion of tele-sales methods, marketing strategy and practices have also experienced a certain transformation. It has created an understanding of information-based contemporariness, and set foot in the fields of production, sales and services. Applications such as fiber optic and mobile phone have created the continuity of the mentioned change in personal attitudes and behaviors, and made individuals associate with every person or organization from every point.
In ordinary life, people need products in order to meet their requirements and desires. The production of any product with superior qualities is both an element that develops marketing, and it is also important for meeting the general requirements. The conversion of production into a commercial scale can be expressed as a process where marketing is also included in the production. So, various efforts are required in commercial production. Actually, this requirement was already structured by the industrial revolution. The industry has created the technology and it was eager to use the technological means; thus, creating a background and an environment to develop technology.
It is not a coincidence that the phrase “assembly line” was even contained in song lyrics once. These songs reflect the industrial revolution and its influences. Mobile communication, the new phenomenon of our life, has now shown its influence on art and culture, and it has been subject to performance arts, articles and columns and even to caricatures.
Especially the innovation invented in the production of technological products has started a new production period based on product differentiation through changing and developing the features of the product day by day. So, the idea of continuously using changing features of the product arose in contemporary marketing. The means of marketing that put forth the changes on the product currently keeps the market brisk. Meanwhile, these types of changes have created differences in the relations between the capital and consumer goods with innovations in components, materials and programs. Compared to the goods of the industrial period, various means are available at present in production, supervision and marketing. The approach towards cost has also begun to change. On the other hand, the distances between the producers and consumers have become shorter and the means of direct selling and social network have become more effective. As a result, it caused changes in the functions of the intermediaries between the seller and the buyer. It has influenced processes related to delivery and supports the idea of the customer to obtain the item and leverages purchasing trends. It also provides adjustment according to speed through organization and coordination characteristics.
Technology both provides clarity in terms of fluency and urgency while stability in personal life arises. This situation, which may reflect on the personality as a conflict, may cause ambiguities in consideration of the future. In this context, doing the correct thing will yield in the advancement of humanity with a higher standard of life.
Technology is among the main elements for a good and high standard of life. For example, obtaining information services through mobile phones all over the world may add quality to personal communication. As the demands increase, the business field dealing with technological production expands further and the operators, publishers and content providers concentrate further their searches for successful business models to support the mobile platform. The number of registered users who use 3rd generation wireless technologies in the world has exceeded 488 million people in 135 countries (as of 9/13/2007).
This new generation technology supports the communication systems with small and handy screens. The screens of the latest technological changes seriously influence the lives of people. The screens; which were initially the screens of the cinema, are not the screens of TV, computer, gameboy, beeper, microwave oven, cardio-monitor device, alarm, mobile phone, etc. and every next day a new screen appears and gives a new direction to our lives. These screens have entered our lives following a trend from farther to nearer. Even, A. Postman suggested a new term: “screen time”. This term expresses the time we spend while using computers, videos and mobile phones (Postman, A., 2005, p.ix).
It is evident that people are gradually turning towards the structure named as the “3rd Screen”. TV, which is regarded as the 1st Screen, left its place to computer as the 2nd screen approximately 10 years ago. According to Postman (1994), TV is a tool that teaches consumerism to people. Likewise the way TV has changed the concepts such as “news”, and “public reaction”, the computer has changed the definition of “information” as the 2nd Screen (Postman, 1985). In recent years, the screens of mobile devices (3rd Screen) have appeared in front of us. Similar to the way the TV taught consumerism to people, mobile devices direct them to individualism.
This type of devices also caused further changes in the definitions of concepts such as “freedom”, “reality”, “information”, and “memory”. The small size of these screens has been preferred as they provide individuals with flexibility and comfort in terms of use. From time to time, the structures that put forth the mixture of these three screens similar to three eggs in a basket also appear and enable realizing effective promotional activities. Such tendencies are influential in integrating the progresses in technology and mobile technology with an integrative attitude, and increase the significance of the need for the effective use of promotions as an important instrument in marketing. It was in question at the beginning that operators would work with the existing TV programming system; however, mobile area-specific programs and systems have been required at present.
The spread of mobile instruments to the world was as rapid as the spread of certain viruses. The rapid adoption and internalization of these instruments by individuals at every point of the world is highly interesting. Together with this internalization, certain social behaviors have also changed. New technologies can even be more influential especially for those who desire to create a differentiation between the goods and services in this way. For example, the messages in the SMS structure influence the systems of thinking, reduce decision making times and convert them into rapid thinking and rapid acting-based processes. Those who divide their target masses into correct sections and prefer mass promotion, will also desire to be involved in a system that could also put forth individual selections. Opportunities such as mobile sales and advertising also bring along great opportunities for corporations. And mobile marketing is both an action and a lack of action between individuals and corporations. In this sense, it encompasses conflicts, which is a very important feature of the human body.
According to present technology, the “mobile human” era has begun and such systems are now being designed according to new trends. For example, the internet-based operating system Midori, which was developed after Windows, is being designed as a system that could be used on every computer connected to Internet. And high speed mobile Internet should be considered as an environment that could create many different opportunities for users. Many valuable books have been written so far with regard to mobile marketing and communication, and some of them have been directing technologies while some have dwelled on how their uses might be, and some others on the social influences.
The purpose of this book is to inspect the mobilizing marketing and customer-oriented changes in the changing world, and to discuss how we are affected by the mobile technology developments as consumers and the present situation of companies and customers, again under the light of technological developments. Because, ‘mobile human’ indicates a more different approach compared to normal human and new generations are more easily included in this group. 2000s may be expressed as the years when mobile instruments have expanded to the world. This book covers the generic concepts of mobile marketing to people who give importance to mobile marketing, to the present or future mobile marketers or to the people who are concerned with mobile marketing to learn some of the details such as students of information systems of business schools or IT managers intended to be the target audience.
Although the years between 2008 and 2010 will not probably be exactly the years for mobile marketing, but for the development of the iPhone and similar developments, this indicates that these will be the years for major experiments in order to put on line mobile marketers, and it is apparent that a book written in this period will guide for a sound basis making more effective work a reality, and enlighten the future.
Therefore, in the first section, technological developments in the world and general issues in the information age are being taken into account and some of the technical details are tried to be given. Mobile communication technologies' tremendously wide scope are examined and mobile services, installation systems, and the devices used on such a system's evolution and technological change is given in the second chapter. In chapter three, mobile marketing and the impacts of technology on marketing were investigated and the current situation is revised.
In chapter four, the most employed mobile marketing practices of today are clarified and practices such as mobile wap, mobile services (data, business, etc.), mobile messaging, mobile portal, research, broadcast, content, handsets and terminals are also elaborated. In chapter five, the changing customer structure and the transformation of individuals into mobile customers, individualization and the culture are detailed, generations and preferences are emphasized. Chapter six contains mobile promotions. Mobile advertising and the methods of consumer reach involving SMS and MMS are discussed in detail. The types, user profiles and some current activities are stated. In chapter seven, mobile distribution and sales are asserted in general. LBS applications and Bluetooth marketing are also taken into account in regards to their content delivery, convenience, and disparity. The present conditions of major important topics and some new trends in the world of mobilization are scrutinized in chapter eight such as the mobile family, mobile entertainment, mobile health, and mobile payment. Chapter nine is about socialization and change after the intrusion of the mobile phone and computer into our lives such as social networking, mobile dating concepts and the concept of Buzz Marketing. The book ends with chapter ten with the problems that have emerged after mobilization such as privacy concerns, terror, etc.
It is a fact that we are running towards the days that even our existence will not have any meaning if we do not have mobile phones. In a very short time, we are talking, exchanging texts, taking photographs, watching TV, listening to music, measuring our blood pressure, learning about the news, organizing our accounts, paying our bills, spending money and doing many other things with this device which we have accepted as if it was another limb. This book has been considered as a necessary source related with mobile marketing and the customer. Through the merging of many separate concepts and elements, this book somehow aims to fill in the gap in the literature in this regard.
Gonca Telli Yamamoto, Istanbul