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According to reports on mobilemarketingwatch.com , there are various advantages that mobiles provide over other marketing strategies:   Large and Growing Audience: The number of smart phone mobile users globally is predicted to be 350 million, with the number of iOS and Android users increasing by about a million everyday.   Consumer Demand:   Unlike traditional methods of marketing/advertising such as direct mail, online banners and e-mail, mobile campaigns are based on an opt-in or expressed user actions like browsing or using an application.   Constant Access:   Mobile phones are our constant companions, providing almost unlimited access to the content we crave, regardless of location or time of day.   Superior Response Rates: According to some research reports, mobile marketing/advertising is far superior to that of traditional online campaigns with response rates that are often 2 to 10 times higher. This is a huge number in terms of Return of Investment for any advertising campaign.   Ability to Personalize:   Mobile numbers are tied to a person, where an internet connection is not. The demographic, geographic and device-type information tied to a mobile number gives marketers and advertisers the ability to create highly personalized campaigns and targetted ads.  For these reasons and more, mobile marketing has started taking up a huge share in the marketing and advertising budgets of companies, with US spending increasing by 75% since 2009, while it is predicted to reach $2.3bn by 2013. Also, according to reports , the average time spent on a website is about 1 min whereas the average time spent on a mobile app is about 4.3 minutes, which implies that there is more chance that a mobile ad will be more effective. With this outlook, Indian companies are also trying to capitalize on the smart phone and mobile marketing wave.  Probably the best example to show Indian companies shifting towards mobile is Maruti Suzuki’s very successful Ad campaign during IPL 3 and FIFA world cup 2010. For Maruti Suzuki, capitalizing on the opportunity from these two major events was important, since it was launching a massmarket car (Eeco) and its new K-series engine around the same time as the IPL season. Since chief competitor Hyundai was spending huge amounts as sponsor of both events, Maruti had to try something different. So they tried the mobile marketing route, with great success. They provided a cricket alerts service, along with attractive competitions to keep users hooked. The service lead the users through portals filled with various visual and verbal cues about Maruti Suzuki’s other services, thereby making it a very effective advertising campaign.  They had a similar campaign during the FIFA World Cup, wherein Maruti ensured that its branding was visible across a web portal , which gets a lot of traffic from Maruti’s core target of young, urban males. With almost 20 million impressions from about 7 million unique users, the mobile campaign generated significantly better returns for Maruti than all media formats. In November 2010, this campaign won an award from the Global Mobile Marketing Association , becoming the first Indian company to be chosen for this prestigios award at a global level.  With the introduction of 3G services in India and the ever increasing number of smart phone users in the country, the mobile advertising business is set to boom, with the companies capitalizing on it early making maximum profits. What do you think about this growing trend?