If the Cell Phone Rings During Sex, Do You Answer It?
No Surprise at Who Doesn’t, But Maybe A Surprise or Two at Who Does.

Philip Stone April 14, 2005

Anyone who has visited Italy knows how much the Italians love their cell phones. If they’re not talking on them they’re sending SMS messages. But when it comes to amore the Italians know their priorities (as we would expect) and only 7% say they would interrupt their lovemaking to answer their cell phone.

But a full 22% of Germans and Spaniards said in a poll conducted by BBDO Worldwide that they would stop and answer their cell phone just in case it was something important. Americans fall in the middle at 15%

Now one may well ask what the world’s third largest advertising agency is doing going around such questions in the first place. And the answer would be that BBDO’s study, “Wireless Works: Exploring New Brand Connections” aimed to discover just how we all feel about our cell phones, because if they are special to us then they are going to be special to advertisers, too.

The basic answer was that we like our cell phones very much and we keep them on for long hours each day. They’re used for many different reasons with

52% of respondents saying, for instance, they found their cell phone the perfect tool for flirting!

Now since we like our phones very much, and an advertising agency is investigating just how much, then you should already be able to figure out what comes next. Yes, BBDO suggests that the cell phone will rival the Internet and television to become THE information and advertising provider.

You could well question whether we really want to watch moving pictures for a long time on such a small cell phone screen, but the purpose of the BBDO survey was to show just how very attached we are to our cell phones, and therefore we defy logic and would be willing to receive just about anything on them.

The cell phone has become part of our social life. The person whose cell phone hardly rings envies the guy who gets loads of calls. In some countries, the cell phone a person uses says a lot about that person in the same way that in the US people are judged by the car they drive.

 

 

"Wireless Works: Exploring New Brand Connections"

So does this mean the cell phone falls victim to the unsolicited advertising phone call.  BBDO warns potential advertisers they shouldn’t do that but rather advertisers need to get smart and ensure their contact with the cell phone user is stimulating and personally relevant.

Obviously, the advertising must be such that it does not interrupt the user who may be doing different things on the cell phone. And its content needs to be such that the user will want to deal with the message.

The beauty of the medium to the advertiser is that you can get to that user no matter where he/she is. Not only that, but with video recorders being used more and more to skip commercials the cell phone opens new opportunities – especially since it seems the user actually wants to see the advertising message.

BBDO said its survey found that 53% of the respondents outside the US had taken positive action when they received advertising on their cell phone, although it was almost the opposite in the US where hardly anyone acted on such an advertisement.

"We are rapidly getting to the point where the single most important medium that people have is their wireless device," said Andrew Robertson, CEO of BBDO. "It's with them every single moment of the day. It's genuinely the convergence box that everyone has been talking about for so many years."

What we really need to know, of course is how that 7% of Italians and 22% of Germans and Spaniards will react when “coitus interruptus” is an advertisement.

And would they, in fact, find that more interesting?