In its new report, The 2010 U.S. Local Mobile Advertising & Promotions Forecast, leading research firm Borrell Associates Inc. calls mobile "the new disruptor" that has emerged on the local advertising scene faster than anything seen to date, and that mobile couponing is the category for local businesses to watch the closest.
Redemption rates for mobile coupons are 10 times that of mail- or newspaper-distributed coupons, said CEO Gordon Borrell, adding that text-based coupons will be the fastest-growing application in the emergence of mobile marketing. The report details how local mobile advertising is set to reach dominant penetration levels faster than any medium before it, easily outdistancing marketers' adoption of the Internet during the 1990s. By comparison, 80 percent of the population has cell phones today, 31 percent (and rising fast) already converted to smart phones, while only 8 percent of households had modem-enabled computers in the mid-nineties.
Local mobile advertising, according to the report, hit $285 million in 2009 and is expected to double this year to $586 million, then spike upward to $4.7 billion by 2014.