After lunch on Friday, when John, who is an ardent cartoon fan, was sitting in the office and feeling a little bored, he noticed that he had just received a WAP Push message on his mobile phone. Wow! It was a flash cartoon book, "Confucius Speaks: Words to Live By", that was just sent to him by his buddy Marry, through China Mobile's Monternet. John immediately clicked the link and downloaded the file to read it. After he finished, he was prompted to click an attached link to buy the cartoon series by Tsai Chih-chung, a famous cartoonist. John was even offered snippets of some other material to read on a trial basis. How considerate, he thought to himself! John immediately clicked the link and entered the Website. After reading a few pages, he decided to buy "The Tao Speaks: Lao-Tzu's Whispers of Wisdom", along with "The Dao of Zhuangzi: The Harmony of Nature". John again said to himself, "This is really great! How nice of Marry to think of me and send me this message, and Monternet's service is so wonderful!"

John's service experience reflects the mobile marketing approach that is currently being introduced by China Mobile on the basis of its content delivery platform (CDP). The CDP is a mobile online business system and supports mobile operators to provide business-to-customer (B2C) services based on value-added contents. Through mobile communication channels, it promotes mobile value-added contents to end users. This marketing mode is called mobile marketing.

Mobile advertising becomes a pioneer

Spanning the entire purchase process

	To date, China Mobile's Monternet has acquired more than 100 million subscribers and enjoys great success. Statistics show that in promoting Monternet services, mobile advertisements sent from the 1860 SMS platform were far more effective than that on the standard media promotion of service providers (SPs). Mobile advertising has become an important marketing tool to develop business transactions on the CDP. However, mobile advertising can also be a double-edged sword. For instance, if advertisements are randomly sent to subscribers, it is much like sending junk messages to email accounts on the Internet. Subscribers might become highly agitated, start complaining, or even decide to quit the network. Hence, an important key for successful mobile advertising would be to comply with the 4C model and focus on target subscribers. Complying with the 4C model In a survey conducted by the HPI Research Group on SMS advertising, over 3,300 mobile subscribers between the ages 16-45 were interviewed in 11 countries. The study reveals that as many as 86% of those surveyed agreed that it would be acceptable to receive commercial advertisements on their mobile phones if advertisers paid certain mobile charges for them. About 88% of the interviewees do not mind receiving such contents as stock information on their mobile phones, while nearly 31% expressed a high desire to receive stock information and related contents. The results show that subscribers would accept commercial advertisements if certain conditions are satisfied, and that subscribers would like to have the valueless information screened. In summary, consumers need 4C in order to accept mobile advertising under the following criteria: choice – they are free to decide whether or not to accept any advertising message; control – they can easily avoid unwanted sales information; customization – they can customize the types of information they want to receive; and C Quid pro quo – they want some form of pay-back from advertisers such as a reduction in service charges and electronic coupons that can be used in online department stores. If these principles are met, mobile advertisements based on the 4C model will be able to bring subscribers a wider range of added values, instead of irritation and discomfort. Focusing on target subscribers Most people need sufficient time and effort to completely read through a message they receive on their mobile phones. Therefore, if the message being received does not suit the subscriber, it will most likely be deleted and be considered as junk messages. Therefore, an important step to implement the 4C model is to target specific subscribers. Operators also have a greater advantage in this type of advertising since they already know the subscribers' basic interests and hobbies, as well as their likes and dislikes regarding product information. Hence, by adopting mobile advertising strategies, they can target subscribers and loyal customers and send the kind of mobile advertisements that the subscribers might be interested in. The advertisements sent to subscribers might also be used as coupons. In this way, operators can avoid agitating subscribers, while at the same time increasing the success rate of their advertisements.