Consumer attitudes towards mobile marketing in the smart phone era

This exploratory study adds to the very limited prior research on consumer attitudes toward mobile marketing in the context of smartphone technologies and applications, and specifically their response to the use of QR codes. An online questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gather data from a convenience sample of mobile phone users in the UK. The study suggests that as consumers move from earlier generation mobile technologies to smartphones the frequency with which they use their phones for all functions increases significantly. Nevertheless, they remain resistant to mobile marketing communications and generally regard text messages as intrusive. Acceptance can be enhanced by permission marketing, trust-building, a sense of being in control, and useful and entertaining website content. Users who had scanned a QR code had accessed a variety of different content on different types of items and in different locations. Ease of use, utility and incentives are drivers to continued use whilst lack of knowledge about on how-to scan or the benefits of QR codes may hinder adoption.