FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS MOBILE MARKETING IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The rapid change in technology and mobile phones has created new channels for marketing. Mobile marketing is an emerging marketing trend that has gained attention, and is becoming a popular direct marketing tool for marketers across the world. The Present research investigates factors affecting consumers’ attitude towards mobile marketing and explores the moderating role of permission based mobile marketing. The data was gathered by means of an adapted questionnaire from 123 respondents from the twin cities of Pakistan, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Correlation and regression analysis were used to find out the relationship between the dependent variable of attitude towards mobile marketing and independent variables of perceived informativeness, entertainment, irritation and source credibility, and a moderating affect of permission-based mobile marketing was analyzed. The study findings indicate that consumers generally have positive attitude towards mobile marketing. Entertainment was found to be the most significant factor affecting consumers’ attitude followed by source credibility whereas permission-based mobile marketing did not moderate the relationship between irritation and attitude towards mobile marketing. Some of the managerial implications are that mobile marketing messages should be designed keeping in mind consumers’ preferences for the information content, entertainment as well as the source credibility. Timely and relevant information should be provided to generate more favorable attitudes. Moreover, consumers’ privacy concerns should be valued by companies practicing mobile marketing so that consumers show their willingness to provide companies with their mobile numbers and demographical data so that companies can send advertising messages with consumers’ prior permission.