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Jun. 27, 2007

For many years, many wireless industry professionals intuitively have acknowledged that consumers consider their mobile phones close to their hearts.

And today, there is a study that just underlines this fact.

A recent survey by Harris Interactive shows that about 63 percent of mobile phone users agree that their phones are very personal to them. Overall, 44 percent even say their phones have strengthened their personal relationships.

The study was commissioned by Ingenio, a U.S. provider of mobile Pay-per-Call advertising.

On average, about 83.2 percent of U.S. adults surveyed currently own a cell phone, compared with only about 71.3 percent who have a landline or home phone.

Marc Barach, chief marketing officer at Ingenio says "interestingly, the study also finds that only about 30 percent of phone users can recall seeing or hearing an advertisement on their mobile phone in the past year."

Overall, cell phone advertising represents one of the most intriguing business opportunities today. "It's almost like the next big frontier," added Barach. "It's like an open opportunity."

Ingenio works with advertisers and search engine companies for its Pay Per Call system, which parallels the pay-for-click model on the wired Internet, but it's voice centric. Like the Internet, it's an open bid system.

Similar to some other studies, this one also finds that younger cell phone owners are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to find various forms of mobile advertising to be at least somewhat acceptable.

For example, approx. 28 percent of 18 to 34-year-old mobile phone owners find text messages from companies to be at least somewhat acceptable, compared to only 14 percent of those aged 45 and more.

For example, from a list of people, the survey asked who they would most want to call them on their mobile phones. Oprah Winfrey topped the list by a wide margin, followed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Next in order of desired callers were: Tiger Woods, Brad Pitt, Rudy Giuliani, Katie Couric, Simon Cowell and last but not least, Britney Spears.

The survey was conducted online among 4,123 adults aged 18 and older in the U.S.

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Source: Wireless Week