Enhancing the Perceived Value of Mobile Marketing. a Romanian Case Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The increasingly presence of mobile marketing and mobile advertising is attracting both customers and marketers to a new dimension of business communication. Even though the adoption rates are high, the value of mobile marketing from a customers' perspective is hard to specify, as it is dependent on the features of the mobile instrument, the predominant traits of the customer and their attitudes towards the advertised product or service. The purpose of this article is to establish how the value of mobile marketing services is perceived by users with different demographic characteristics. For this purpose, an online study was conducted with more than 500 participants.JEL Classification: M31, M37, A13, O33Keywords: mobile marketing, consumer behaviour perceived valueIntroduction to mobile marketing and its perceived valueMobile marketing is the newest marketing form that enables business entities to use mobile phones as an ultimate marketing vehicle, thus establishing a perpetual presence in the life of their customers, anytime, anywhere (Varnali, Toker, 2010). Although mobile marketing and mobile advertising are still in their infancy stage (Soroa-Koury, Yang, 2010), they are becoming a feasible marketing channel for interested marketers and advertisers (Mobile Marketing Association, 2007), providing the fact that mobile campaigns are successful only when they are not intrusive (Andrews, 2006). More than having unprecedented opportunities in building and fostering customer relationships (Varnali, Toker, 2010), the personal nature of the mobile instruments suggest that there is a strong compatibility between a customer's own values and a lifestyle involving mobile marketing services (Roach, 2009).The mobile media can offer added value that is based on the distinctive features of mobile devices, such as always with the user, always on and always connected (Varnali, Toker, 2010). By underlining the personal use of mobile devices, companies can consequently credit the gained information to a single user (Cleff, 2008). Through shifting individualized marketing communication in the focus of the strategic considerations of the company (Tripathi, Mittal, 2008), these can provide individual customized products, services and communication messages to every unique (potential) client (Tripathi, Mittal, 2008). A bidirectional, one-on-one communication with every single consumer tends to build a strong level of trust and commitment between companies and its individual clients, allowing for a rise in perceived utility and value of a company. Since consumer perceived value is the ultimately goal of business entities, there is a deep need to understand what elements and features of the mobile medium can provide value from a consumer's point of view (Varnali, Toker, 2010).Is has been suggested (Pura, 2005) that commitment and perceived value can be leveraged by offering emotional and fun experience in the right context and although a consumer may not intentionally seek emotional benefits during a consumption experience (Yang, Jolly, 2009), positive emotions play an important role on a subliminal level when thinking of further acquisition making processes. Trust in the marketer has been found to have a positive influence on the attitude towards mobile marketing and advertising (Karjaluoto, Lehto, et al., 2008), but adoption of mobile marketing depends both on the perceived utilitarian value and hedonic value (Bauer et al., 2007; Kleijnen, Ruyter, & Wetzels, 2007) of its provided services. Although it was supported that hedonic value has a stronger influence than utilitarian value when building attitudes towards mobile marketing (Bruner & Kumar, 2005), additional results (Kim & Hwang, 2006) show that higher level of maturity consumers have a tendency to more utilitarian values, while lower maturity level consumers tend to exhibit more hedonic value seeking.Despite the fact that value dimensions vary in number and type, most of them including utilitarian, hedonic, social and monetary value (Gummerus, Pihlstrom, 2011), the importance and co-existence of emotional and functional values were demonstrated on many mobile marketing instruments, such as mobile internet (Kim et al. …