The Future of Branding.

What if the most important aspect of a brand's identity were not its trade name but it's SMS Text Messaging Code Number? That's right. A number. If everything that had to do with brand equity and brand personality were reduced to a simple five or six or even eight digit code to access your wireless web identity, what then?

What would be the relevance of typography? What would be the issues surrounding the use of color? Would the brand continue to exist as an icon if it's iconographic props were stripped away and all that was left was the experiences it could provide it's constituents?

How would those experiences be differentiated between, say, Coca-Cola and Amex?

And what of the audience? I like to refer to them as genZ. The end of the line for demographics, psychographics, infographics and any other feeble attempt at batch classification. Right now genZ is 5.8 years old and growing weary of Spongebob. In fact, genZ is spending more time on Nick.com than on Nickelodeon. In four more years or less genZ will have her own wireless account and her own entertainment budget. Her allowance will be administered by her own SmartCard.

GenZ will be the most financially independent, socially interdependent group in history. Their math skills will be phenomenal since the math and science incentives will be the only way most parents will be able to afford to send their genZ offspring to college.

In fact, college will be as mandatory as high school is now. To the genZ audience, memorizing a string of five or six digits will be child's play. The big issue looking forward is what will make a brand digit compelling enough to remember.

Right now print support and television promotional programming like that of "American Idol" and "Deal, No Deal" are salting the clouds. Urban radio in major markets are also launching major text messaging campaigns for companies who are supporting music event tie-ins. The golden prize is the double opt-in response that allows advertisers to send cell phone users text messaging at will.

The cellular phone industry is not about to make the same mistake that choked email with spam.

But that still doesn't answer the bigger question. Can the stewards of branding keep up with the velocity of technological change? If the tools keep changing, the rules need to keep changing. Most agency art directors are just starting to understand creating for the web, let alone the third screen restrictions of mobile marketing. And the design industry is totally behind the curve. Nobody is designing product packaging in web safe colors. Hell, they're not even designing product packaging in TV safe colors. Somehow the people who create packaging are still hung up on the realities of shelf space.

In the future fewer and fewer purchasers will be visiting retail outlets. If you think that's far fetched, take a look at the record industry. The record store is going the way of the buggy whip. And record covers have nothing to do with record sales anymore.

Here is a wake up call for you. According to Forrester there are two billion mobile devices worldwide as compared to one billion PCs. Still think the future belongs to internet advertising? Cell phones are a lot cheaper than PCs, Sparky.

The fact is that the mobile phone is fast becoming the on-ramp to technology for genZ as well as millions of new consumers in the nations of the emerging world. Big media potential.

Many believe that Mobile marketing, specifically SMS or text messaging is at the same place e-mail was ten years ago. Can you say "Ground Floor" boys and girls?

Not only is the future of branding moving faster than light, it's also becoming more and more complex every millisecond. Have you ever tried to launch an SMS campaign? OMG. It's a nightmare of numbers, codes, carrier issues, compliance requirements, double opt in restrictions, technology platforms and on and on and on.

And then there are the payment methods and cross-carrier concerns, aggregator reliability, Common Short Code Administration approval, code registration, leasing, and activation. I get a headache just writing about it.

But you gotta do it. Unless you're smart, (like me) and get a third party service provider to do the heavy lifting for you. That's where mobile marketing companies like mobileStorm come in. They provide a soup-to-nuts turnkey solution for mobile newbies and small to mid-sized players who want to get ahead of the curve.

Guys like me who don't know what all the buttons on their cell-phone are for, let alone the difference between MMA metrics and FTEU protocols fall down on their knees in thanks for companies like mobileStorm. These guys make mobile look easy and mobile marketing ain't no way easy. Give them a shout out.

So when you consider the future of branding, I suggest you think small (screen that is). The pay-off could be big.

Stay strong.

Comments from Mad163: Me, Unmasked.

Nobody had anything to say about that one. Ho-hum-HW