To give you a small overview, what looks like a very recent update in the technological world, actually began in the year 2004 in Japan. The concept of an electronic wallet or a cell phone wallet was initiated by the telecommunication giant DoCoMo with their new technology called NTT. This technology allowed any user to make purchases via their cell phone that had their credit or debit card details fed into their phones. The trend took on, and now the entire world can use what is termed as ¡°Mobile Commerce¡± to make speedy purchases.
Even though it is no rocket science to determine that this new technology is sure to cause a revolution, there seems to be a need to delve deeper and understand the implications. Some of the most obvious benefits, for a consumer is that mobile commerce allows you to become clutter free and ¡°travel light¡± while carrying a higher purchasing power with you. A replacement of the plastic money, mobile banking offers the convenience of moving out without a wallet at all. You can contain your shopping and grocery list in the task manager of your phone and once all the purchases are made, pay for it via your smart phone. If you are running a hectic day and are too tied up to finish your grocery shopping, you can simply buy stuff online with your phone web browser and pay for it instantly.
While these points talk of the consumer behavior change with mobile commerce, there are bound to be changes in the core marketing and advertising by business as well. For instance, with the movement of stores from the physical world to the online medium or to cell phones, the focus shifts to getting noticed online and on consumer¡¯s cell phones. Businesses then have to change their branding strategies to suit them for online medium. Page ranking, SEO, online payment methods, online branding tips gain paramount importance to compete with the large unseen world of the entrepreneurs that appear on a customer¡¯s cell phone with a mere hit of a button. This represents a constant need to come up with new business ideas and branding tips to match the competition of the fast paced mobile world.
Even though a world without any paper or plastic money sounds like a distinct reality, the fact that the companies like Starbucks, Nike, Buy.com and Amazon.com are already enabled with these applications brings mobile commerce to our doorsteps.
So, a branding and marketing world, where promotional products and promo items will have some internet and mobile website referrals? instead of physical addresses on them does not sound much too far away now.
