US mobile-marketing companies must learn from Japan’s experience

According to this article (subscription required) in Wall Street Journal, “advertising on cellphones is still in its infancy in the U.S.” and it will probably take a couple of years before the cellphone marketing campaigns will bring a real value.

But, right now marketing via cellphones is good to create a buzz instead of producing actual sales. Another trend the article mentions is that additionally to text messaging mobile advertisers begin to “test ads similar to those run on the Internet and TV” thanks to the improved technology. In comparison, the article provides an example of Japan’s maturity in mobile marketing campaigns:

In some Asian and European countries, cellphones have long been an attractive channel for marketers. D2 Communications, a mobile-marketing company partly owned by Japanese wireless company NTT DoCoMo Inc., has been delivering banner advertisements on cellphones since 2000. A banner occupies about a quarter of a phone screen, with commercial information scrolling automatically. D2 says that it runs 100 million to 150 million banners on cellphones a month, with 3% to 5% of viewers clicking on the ads.