2010 is quickly becoming the year of mobility. With the introduction of the Google Droid late-last year and the continued strength of iPhone and Blackberry devices we are as connected as ever. In the past (recent past) we would have to set up our laptops at the local Wi-Fi hotspot in order to check e-mail, get directions or just surf the web. If you haven’t noticed during your last trip into Starbucks, this phenomenon has shifted. There are still people working on laptops, but for a quick check of information savvy people are using mobile devices.

Last November, my wife and I bought our first home and we are doing a lot of furniture shopping – I mean, a lot. I noticed as we were going in and out of stores that we were reliant on our mobile devices to tell us if a store was worth looking into. It would be extremely inconvenient to stop off at the cafe and open our laptops, even though I require heavy doses of caffeine to get me through day-long furniture shopping expeditions. The store would benefit from our patronage if they were mobile ready (i.e. Crate & Barrel and Target) and those that weren’t wouldn’t get as much attention.

eMarketer had a conversation with with JCPenney‘s Development Director for Emerging Digital Media, Dave Owen, about their approach to digital marketing and their mobile coupon testing. JCPenney launched a 16-store test in the Houston market last September, where people could access JCP coupons on their mobile devices and would redeem them by the sales associate scanning the bar code from the phone with a special, optical scanner. JCP used Cellfire for their mobile coupon initiative because they didn’t want to be limited to just smartphone users.

“The phone is becoming more of a life tool for our customer rather than simply a way to send text messages and make calls.”

- Dave Owen, Development Director for Emerging Digital Media at JCPenney

One kink I find in JCPenney’s plan is that their site, just like a lot of companies, isn’t optimized for mobile use. Having just one piece of the mobile puzzle isn’t the answer and as mobile coupons become the norm people will work with companies that offer easy navigation. Sure they will still get their foot traffic and people that search jcp.com from the comfort of their own homes, but the mobile generation is on the go and that means mobile.

Over this recent holiday season retailers saw record sales online. So far the trend has showed that people are going from in-store to online shopping. The next logical step is the online to mobile shopping. My advice for retailers in 2010, set your site to be mobile friendly because just like the mobile devices the consumers are getting savvier.

In a study released by the Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University’s Lubin School of Business’ IDM Lab they found that Generation-Y likes social networks, but still prefers e-mail and text-messaging to communicate.

The study evaluated time spent and the communication preferences of Gen-Y consumers using e-mail, social networks,  texting, visiting (non-social-net) websites, talking on the phone, reading a magazine and watching television. Most notably, 26% of people surveyed said they wouldn’t give up e-mail or text-messaging if they could only use one of the above tools for one week. And only 9% said they wouldn’t be able to give up social networks for a week.

Chart About Generation Y's Preferences

I don’t think it is any surprise that Gen-Yer’s need their e-mail and texts (an average of 740+ sent each month), but what is interesting is when you go further in the study. The research found that the average Gen-Yer spends 33 hours a month on social networks compared to 31 hours on their e-mail. I think this highlights that social networks aren’t competing so much against communication tools as they are competing with media consumption, which means that brands need the content to compete.

Why should marketers care? Why not just plug your online budget into e-mail campaigns and mobile promos?

The study actually evaluated the interest Gen-Y has with mobile marketing promos and the interest is rather low. 59% of people studied had no interest in receiving mobile promotions.

Generation Y Interest in Mobile Promotions

Marketers get so caught up in the buzzwords of the day: Twitter, E-mail, Facebook, Corporate Blog, etc. And they think we need to be on there; we need to be doing this; but what marketers really need to do is evaluate their consumer. Go where they are and use what they are using.

If your product or service is geared to Generation-Y, then I would propose a broad mix for your online strategy. Each product and service strategy will be different because of what they offer, so I am not going to propose a specific mixture. But, mark my words, marketers that find a balance in online presence and a concrete content strategy will reap the rewards of this generation.

In a recent Adweek article, “Web Ad Spending Set to Surge,” Steve McClellan writes about how web based advertising is anticipated to grow by 11% to $65 billion next year, which is 14.6% of all measured media.

GroupM is the company behind the numbers anticipating the large shift taking even more money from the traditional print medias (sorry newspapers) and allocating those dollars into the wonderful world of online. With more and more people worldwide becoming “over-connected” (i.e. web, mobile, iPod Touch, etc.) this shift was imminent and doesn’t appear to be reaching a plateau any time soon.

As the digital world is evolving so is how people use it, which ultimately dictates how marketers will buy it. And unfortunately not all of online advertising is thriving under this current boom, online display ads and sponsorship have actually been on the decline giving way to more sophisticated forms of online advertising: mobile, video and search.

“Today, search remains a key driver of digital marketing as advertisers compete to capture a disproportionate share of the intention that search behavior represents…Search marketing is becoming intention marketing and is moving beyond results pages to activating and responding to the social graph.” Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM Interaction

Mobile device marketing is getting more attention from advertisers and for good reason. Based on a comScore study from March 2009, people that access news from their mobile devices has more than doubled, but the big winner is accessing social networks which has quadrupled to 9 million in just one year. I have even heard marketing and product experts pontificate that the mobile device will one day replace computers. Even though I think that is a stretch, the numbers don’t lie and it is blatantly apparent that mobile advertising deserves your attention.

For years there has been a paradigm shift in advertising and there is no telling where the growth will stop. This article serves as a great reminder to marketing and advertising executives everywhere that consumer behavior is changing, some would argue it has changed, and it is time to put your money where your clients are, online.