SAN JOSE, Calif.—Cellfire Inc. is the latest to get into the mobile-couponing game, partnering with retailers including T.G.I. Friday’s and Hollywood Video to deliver discount offers to wireless phones.
The startup today launched a downloadable application that delivers coupons from national and local retailers within a specified area. The offering initially will be available only to subscribers of Cingular Wireless L.L.C.; Cellfire promises other operators will support the service soon.
Marketing companies and retailers are increasingly looking to mobile coupons as a way to engage consumers on their handsets. BlueFire Digital, another California startup, last week released an offering that delivers coupons, music clips and video trailers to phones via Bluetooth. Virgin Mobile U.K. is delivering offers of free food and pints of beer to subscribers at concerts and other outdoor events.
And while mobile advertising will explode into a $10 billion industry worldwide by 2010, according to new figures from The Shosteck Group, wireless carriers will see only a fraction of the revenues. Operators are poised to receive only about one-fifth of mobile marketing dollars, the group said, and must protect their subscribers from intrusive marketing campaigns to see even that much.
“A damaging consumer backlash against intrusive and unsolicited mobile marketing could occur if overzealous marketers fail to respect consumers’ right to privacy and inundate them with unwanted and irrelevant mobile marketing messages,” said John Darnbrough, a senior associate at The Shosteck Group.
