Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

Welcome to the future, where your cell phone is the center of everything. It tells you the time, plays music and videos, and allows other people to interact with you no matter where you are or what you’re doing. What’s more, the cell phone is also on the threshold of becoming the world’s ultimate marketing device because, like an opinion, everybody has one.

About 2.7 billion people on our planet now own cell phones and, with the exception of my mom (who mysteriously locks hers in the glove box of her car), every single one of these devices is persistently toted around like the invaluable link to the outside world that it is. As cell phones become increasingly embedded into the average American’s lifestyle, the number of ways they are used has increased, too. For example, 136 million Americans now regularly send and receive text messages.

On cue, mobile marketers have launched a plethora of platforms on which all sorts of industries are actively creating interactive bonds with consumers. In fact, according to EJL Wireless Research, mobile advertising will generate $2.3 billion in U.S. revenue by 2011. Since radio broadcasters face stiff competition from emerging entertainment sources already, you would think they’d be all over mobile marketing, right? Well … not so much.

“We knew that our listeners were using mobile technology already,” says Tom Poleman, senior VP of programming for Clear Channel/New York and OM of CHR/top 40 WHTZ (Z100). “It didn’t take a brain surgeon to know that cell phones were everywhere, and the stats showed us that 75% of them were text-enabled. It was becoming painfully obvious that we needed to figure out how to use this technology to market to our listeners.”

Duncan McLaren, VP of business development for mobile marketing firm Soapbox Mobile in Carlsbad, Calif., agrees. “You would think that mobile marketing would be a great extension for a radio station as a way to interact with a large number of users,” he says. “It’s such a blindingly natural fit, but adaptation to mobile [in the United States] in general has been slow.”

Times are changing quickly, however, as radio has begun to seriously consider the ramifications of not keeping up with the communications curve. For example, Poleman recently helped launch a customized mobile phone application for Clear Channel’s entire New York cluster, providing listeners with direct access to Z100, classic rock WAXQ (Q104), dance WKTU, urban WWPR (Power 105) and AC WLTW.

“I now understand that we have been slower than we should have by virtue of how quickly our audience has reacted,” he says. In fact, 18 months ago, when Z100 first stuck a toe in the mobile waters with a basic text-messaging application, “it was obvious that we were already behind the curve of the audience,” Poleman says. “The listeners were like, ‘Where’ve you been?’”

Source: “Radio & Records” Magazine