Ubiquitous Savings

You can't toss a lemon poppy seed muffin or a scone these days without hitting a Starbucks. The company's omnipresence and pop-cultural impact is undeniable, and its efforts to bridge the language barrier between the U.S. and Italy by forcing us to use words like “venti” and “grande” is commendable.

But in the potentially scary future of m-commerce, Starbucks is the bogeyman of unsolicited wireless coupons. Even though the coffee peddler said it has no intention of inundating mobile users with unwanted, location-based wireless pitches, the company's well-known ubiquity makes it a poster child for presenting worst-case scenarios. Think about it: If the handsets of urban customers lit up with a “50% off a venti decaf latte” offer every time they passed a Starbucks, their phones would be beeping more often than an episode of MTV's “The Osbournes.”

But most wireless experts doubt that mobile advertising will ever sink to such depths. All the additional airtime charges that would be heaped on customers for unwanted, uninvited messages — not to mention the potential damage to the reputations of both carriers and the companies that create the spamming campaigns — are enough to keep wireless ads in check.

Ken Hyers, senior wireless carrier analyst for In-Stat/MDR, said wireless advertising will be most successful in an opt-in format that gives customers more control over who solicits them, not to mention how often. Although consumers are interested in receiving wireless ads, spam is unattractive whether it's on the phone, over the Internet or in aisle 4 of the grocery store. Participation has to be on users' terms.

“To be successful and not alienate the user, these have to be very targeted,” Hyers said. “That's really the only long-term successful model for wireless advertising.”

In Japan, where short messaging has enjoyed far better uptake than in the U.S, unsolicited wireless coupons have already turned up. To protect its customers, carriers like NTT DoCoMo have implemented filters to weed out the commercials. Daren Tsui, president and co-founder of SkyGo, said U.S. carriers would likely follow suit.

“They know what kind of backlash they will receive from spam, so you'll see fewer cases here,” he said.

Wireless carriers — and companies looking to reach mobile users with ads — will use a combination of traditional advertising methods and wireless technology, Tsui said. His company's Sky Code service does that by including a number in print advertisements that wireless customers can dial to get more information. Tsui said the service, which is currently up and running in Hong Kong, will launch stateside late this summer.

So whether it's coffee or movies or Sears Activewear, if wireless users want discount alerts via their mobile phones, they'll have to ask for it. (But seriously, who's going to?) Wireless carriers won't stoop so low as to hit its users with ads they don't want.

Incidentally, you can redeem this article for 50% off a venti latte at any participating Starbucks store.