Examining the Acceptance of Mobile Marketing by Customer of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research supervisor, colleagues, peers and family whose immense and constant support has been a source of continuous guidance and inspiration.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names & surname here], declare that the following dissertation/thesis and its entire content has been an individual, unaided effort and has not been submitted or published before. Furthermore, it reflects my opinion and take on the topic and is does not represent the opinion of the University.

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTii

DECLARATIONiii

LITERATURE REVIEW1

Mobile Marketing3

Development of Mobile Marketing5

Advertising Strategies Using the Mobile Phone6

Factors Affecting Mobile marketing Effectiveness9

The Impact of Mobile Marketing on SMEs10

Consumers' Perception or Beliefs11

Attitudes Towards Mobile Marketing12

Driving User Acceptance of Mobile Advertising14

User Acceptance of Advertising15

User-Based Acceptance Drivers16

Advertising Acceptance Drivers18

Mobile Service Acceptance Drivers19

Conceptual Framework21

Entertainment22

Informativeness22

Irritation23

Credibility24

Behavioral Intention24

Modality Effects25

REFERENCES26

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE36

LITERATURE REVIEW

The academic literature regarding mobile marketing has been tremendously increasing in the last decade, various researchers contributed to define and shape the concepts referring to the area of mobile channels from the marketing perspective.

The on-the-go lifestyles of today's consumers make them harder than ever to reach. But new ways to reach target audiences are evolving to stand up to the challenge. In particular, mobile penetration is approaching nearly 100 percent—one mobile phone for every individual in most Western countries (The Economist, 2005, p.3). With such market penetration, "always-on-always-with-you" mobile devices present marketers with new advertising opportunities (DMA, 2005, p.55). Besides their unprecedented reach, mobiles represent an exemplary medium for direct-response advertising (Schofield, 1994, p. 23; Woodside and Motes, 1980, p. 32; Woodside and Soni, 1991, p. 3) by allowing advertisers to elicit an immediate and direct consumer response. Direct marketing is most effective when it is possible to accurately track effectiveness and thereby justify the investment in its services—a benefit that becomes more important in light of recent pressures on marketers to be financially accountable (Gupta, Lehmann, and Stuart, 2004, p. 52; Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml, 2004, p. 23).

Consumers' increasing reliance on the Internet for product and service information has attracted the attention of marketers around the world. At the same time, more consumers are relying on mobile devices not only for communication purposes, but also to engage in commerce. Consequently, industry experts foresee greater use of mobile messages sent to consumers for advertising and promotional purposes (Nasco & Bruner, 2008, p. 23).

Organizations today work in an environment that is characterized by constant change and an increase in competition as a result of globalization. Zyman and Brott (2002, p.31) suggest that the biggest change in the market place is that consumers have a greater selection with regards to products and services and those organizations should become more conscious of their advertising efforts. Organizations now view advertising as an investment and tend to value over-communication with consumers, resulting in greater budgets for advertising departments than in the past ( Zyman and Brott, 2002, p.22). Technological advancements have provided various new mediums for advertising to consumers and have further allowed for organizations ...