Asia-Pacific Mobile Marketing Budget Expected to Get Big Boost

A new Asia-Pacific survey conducted by Warc for the Mobile Marketing Association found that 90 percent of marketers predict a substantial rise in budgets for mobile marketing, with 34 percent expecting increases of up to 75 percent. The rise, the MMA speculates, is largely due to mobile brands looking to capitalize on what has become an increasingly preferred channel choice for consumers.

According to the survey, most organizations do not currently have formal mobile strategies in place, and less than 10 percent of current budgets are being allocated to mobile.

The survey, which involved 336 client-side advertisers and marketing services agencies across the Asia-Pacific region, revealed that over the next year, app development and mobile display ads will most likely play a major role in marketing campaigns.

While 33 percent of those surveyed plan to use SMS marketing in the 2013-2014 fiscal year, text message marketing is expected to drop in popularity, and only 11 percent of those surveyed believed that they would still be using the channel five years down the road.

"Over the last six months since the first iteration of the survey, we are seeing a shift in attitude away from tapping mobile execution tactically to a more strategic imperative," MMA managing director for Asia-Pacific, Rohit Dadwal, says. "We expect to see substantial growth in budget allocations as mobile becomes a key part of the overall marketing mix."

Consumer mobile trends, the survey demonstrates, fueled by mobile are mobile payments (74 percent), multiscreening (67 percent), and showrooming (51 percent).

The MMA survey also evaluated consumer concerns over mobile use, and worries about privacy and security emerged as the biggest barriers holding the mobile industry back (42 percent of respondents), followed by lack of required skill sets and insufficient budgets. According to Dadwal, marketers shouldn't overlook the privacy factor and called for more education on how their information is being collected and used.

Respondents were also asked their opinion of the brands best using mobile as a marketing channel today, and chose Samsung as the most innovative, followed by Coca-Cola (16 percent) and Nike (10 percent). As for the most innovative industry using mobile, retail dominated with 40 percent.

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