THE NEW MEDIA CHANNEL

“I only use my mobile phone for making voice calls.”

If I had been given a fiver every time that comment was made to me by a traditional consumer products licensing manager, I would be able to afford a Vertu handset. Vertu is the Rolls Royce of mobile phones, with prices starting at about £3,000.

Technophobes, generally aged 35 plus, may not contemplate learning how and why to download logos, ringtones, games, video clips, pictures, voice messages and more. But technophiles, generally under 35, regard it as an exciting and entertaining activity.

A marketer’s job is not to consider their personal preferences, but to respond to the wants and needs of their customers.

The younger generation has grown up with technology and the mobile phone is the first media device to be personal to the user. TVs, cinemas, computers and radios have to be shared with other people.

And suddenly, at the 2005 New York Licensing Show in June, it was apparent that the licensing industry has woken up to the potential of mobile content:

- Famous brands from all sources are being licensed in to mobile content, for example movies such as Star Wars and videogames such as Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding.

- Brand creators desperate to build public awareness, to support licensing campaigns, are seeing mobile as an alternative media platform. They reckon it is easier and quicker than trying to get an animated TV series on air.

- For the first time, there are original properties going the other way: emerging from the mobile media platform into mainstream merchandising, most notably The Annoying Thing aka Crazy Frog.

Best of all for Licensors and Licensing Agents, suffering from reducing royalties in traditional categories, mobile content companies are paying far too much for licences currently, because the market is new and very competitive and because they have start-up investor money behind them.

The future of mobile content is very bright, but just like any product category, licensors must pick the best licensees according to their production and distribution capabilities, as well as their sensitivity to the brand’s values.