Our good friend Tomi Ahonen just released his 6th book published by Futuretext. I have read all of his previous books including the recent ones – Communities Dominate Brands and Digital Korea. They are all terrific reads full with case studies, insights, and stats.
We briefly explored the mobile medium as the next advertising mass medium in our Mobile Advertising book released earlier this year. Tomi expands on the subject in much detail (322 pages, in fact) to lay out the case for Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media after print, recordings, cinema, radio, tv, and internet. He deals with the subject in 18 long chapters each including a case study to illustrate the point.
For media, marketing, and advertising folks out there who are struggling to understand the role of mobile in advertising and content consumption, this book is for you.
An excerpt
The cellphone is emerging as a mass media. Twice as many cellphones as TV sets, three times as many cellphone subscribers as internet users, four times as many cellphones as PC sets, five times as many cellphones as automobiles. 31% of all music dollars spent worldwide already go to a wide array of cellphone based music services. 20% of videogaming software revenues. Advertising, news, TV, internet giants, social networking and even Hollywood movies and printed books are now rushing to capture their share of the 7th of the Mass Media.
How addicted is the youth to cellphones? Why is SMS text messaging used by twice as many people as email worldwide? How can banks, libraries, dentists and airlines serve customers better through the 7th of the Mass Media? What are the seven unique benefits that none of the legacy six media, including the internet, can replicate? Why is small screen size and limited keypad only a myth? Cellphones are not the dumb little brothers to the internet; rather mobile is to the internet, like TV is to radio, a far more compelling and complete media platform that will soon dominate.
Packed with up-to-the-minute statistics and bursting with international comparisons, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media includes media concepts, service examples and user statistics covering 40 countries. It features 16 insightful case studies from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands and the USA including such trailblazing
7th Mass Media innovators as Blyk, Cyworld, Virgin Mobile, SeeMeTV, i-Channel and Flirtomatic. The book also provides the latest thinking on how to build successful wireless services using the 6 M’s service creation tool.
Congrats Tomi on another brilliant book.