Ifbyphone Blog

A new study by Forrester Research of interactive marketing finds that the “third screen” — mobile phone — gets short shrift in marketers’ plans, reports Rick Mathieson at Marketing Unbound.

“…only about 28% of marketers are using mobile marketing - and a full 36% say they have no plans to…Meanwhile, 15% said they don’t know their goals for mobile marketing.”

That’s because they’re looking at that little screen in exactly the wrong way: as another place to watch TV — and a pretty poor one at that, compared to that 50 inch in the living room. But the third screen has a big advantage over the set in your living room — its return channel. 

“What most marketers don’t realize is that mobile shouldn’t be viewed as a marketing delivery platform. It should be viewed as a response mechanism,” writes Mathieson.

In the last year mobile TV content has grown by leaps and bounds and a lot of that is video that’s uniquely suited to the device – – video snacks, interactive shows, specialized local information like traffic. And this creates a perfect opportunity for targeted, direct response advertising leveraging that return channel with a click-to-call.