Will Retailers Really Buy Into Mobile Tuesday?

First Black Friday - formerly known as the after-Thanksgiving sale - then Cyber Monday. Now Mobile Tuesday?

We all know the story behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday: two days devoted to the most price-sensitive, deal-hungry consumers out there. And this year, more than any year in recent memory, the entire nation has watched and waited, hoping that the consumers really were rarin’ to choke down some bargains. The economy, after all, depends on it. (Don’t believe me, just look at all the Twitter discussion about Cyber Monday deals courtesy of CheapTweet). Well, never fear Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you have a new sidekick this year to help with the economic recovery: Mobile Tuesday.

Mobile Tuesday is the brainchild of Mobigosee, a mobile marketing firm. Apparently, research showed that the Tuesday after Thanksgiving was traditionally one of the slowest shopping days of the year and that spurred the idea. I suppose it never dawned on Mobigosee that shoppers might be all shopped out and already overmediated after a weekend sandwiched by incessant deals arriving via all communication channels available to man. I mean, The Retail Email Blog reports that the top 100 online retailers sent an average of 3.1 emails last week alone.

And launching Mobile Tuesday has not been without its problems. A “major car manufacturer” and several “well-known luxury brands” have already withdrawn, citing economic hardship. No kidding, a car manufacturer citing economic hardship. Nonetheless, the Mobile Tuesday advertising campaign will include McDonald’s, Finish Line, and RedTag with Mobigosee sending coupons to participants’ mobile phones. When, and if, the coupons are redeemed, Mobigosee gets paid. So far, Mobigosee has 18,000 participants signed up to receive the coupons.

So what’s the Istobe take? Well, mobile marketing is here to stay, of that we have no doubt and have written about it in Mobile Marketing - Five Steps…, Four Numbers that Tell Me Why SMS Marketing Is About to Blow Up, and Surviving the Holidays: 5 Marketing Tips for Retailers. But to try and jumpstart mobile marketing on a day where shoppers are already beleaguered by bargains from the prior four days? Isn’t it like offering the drunken man a drink? The drink might be drunk but won’t be remembered.

Tags: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, mobile, Mobile Tuesday, sms

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 10:28 pm and is filed under SMS Marketing, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.