Enjoy your ad-free mobile phone while it lasts…

Let’s face it, it’s inevitable that advertising on mobile phones will soon bombard us — just like it does in every other area of media. The economics of mobile advertising are just too tempting for marketers to resist. Just imagine, soon companies will be able to target us based on our precise location on a device that’s practically surgically attached to our bodies 24 hours a day! I mean, I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time I left the house without my cell phone switched on, in hand… and ready for action… So why hasn’t the onslaught begun? How is it that our collective cell phone experience has been a largely ad-free zone to date - uncluttered by the type of spammy viagra and diet pill ads that regularly load up our email boxes? Perhaps the mobile operators and advertisers have been exercising restraint out of a deep and abiding respect for consumer privacy? Or a commitment to delivering consumers with the highest possible level of quality service and customer focus….Nah! Don’t be silly! The guys with the big marketing bucks are literally chomping at the bit… waiting to bombard us with their ads at the earliest possible moment… The only thing holding them back is that they haven’t figured out exactly how to do it just yet! At least for the time being, the cell phone carriers in the US are so busy competing and trying to differentiate themselves from one another, that no one has been able to create any cohesive set of guidelines that can be broadly applied. Different carriers have different standards both in and outside of the US… and there are also different cell phone sizes, screens and data plans to contend with… So let’s all try to enjoy the calm… before the storm… Once the cell phone carriers learn how to play nice in the sandbox together… the ad-free mobile phone party is over for all of us! And with the kind of global advertising dollars at stake, I suspect it won’t be long in coming!