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eMarketer: Mobile to Be Hot, Faces Hurdles

Standalone mobile marketing campaigns won’t suddenly be all the rage in 2007, but mobile’s direct-response capabilities will be widely integrated into cross-media campaigns, according to eMarketer (via MarketingVox).

The global market for mobile marketing and advertising will grow from about $1.5 billion in 2006 to $13.9 billion in 2011, eMarketer predicts. In the U.S. mobile ad spend are forecast to increase from $421 million in 2006 to $4.8 billion in 2011, when mobile will constitute 12 percent of online ad spend, compared with 2.6 percent in 2006.

Quick-response mobile codes in print are likely to be used, as they are in Japan, and brands will likely seek foremost to increase brand familiarity as well as drive both information and sample requests (as in Europe). But revenue sharing, consumer privacy and the need for carriers to provide marketing-relevant measurements are hurdles that will confront marketers.

More broadly, “one of the main challenges for marketers and carriers will be how to evolve a mobile consumer culture that accepts and responds to advertising,” says John du Pre Guantt, eMarketer senior analyst and the author of eMarketer’s new Mobile Marketing and Advertising report.