Head in the Clouds– Marketing in a Mobile Society

Illustration by Christopher Ryan

Most people I know own a cell phone, spend a great deal of time on a cell phone, and even become panicked when they don't have a cell phone. Phones and the social communities that exist within them (or above them?) connect us to billions of other individuals in the world, whether they are across the room or across the globe. Mobile phones send our words, ideas, questions, schedules, photographs up. We interact in an invisible space in the clouds thanks to tall towers and satellites floating high above us. 

With our phones we can say what we want and send it up for all to see.

Cell phones have allowed us to share stories, purchase products, be entertained and entertain from just about any location and companies and advertisers are adapting their products and services to satisfy our mobile lives. Advertisers understand that consumers desire excellent products and services and that tailored, “Mom and Pop” customer care without ever stepping foot inside a shop or office. Companies have entire Twitter accounts dedicated to helping customers with product issues. Online orders can be tracked precisely as they fly from one side of the world to your mailbox. Customers can post their feedback and opinions on brands on social media for all to see. Companies and their brands do not solely exist face-to-face. Brands exist online (even when they're offline), in an invisible forum in which customers can interact and respond to their services. 

Different than flying, different than exploring space and our universe, mobile communication and marketing is not so much of a physical, tangible up. It’s an up space that we can access here on the ground, yet it moves quicker than any plane or rocket or bird. In a sense, we can "be" anywhere in the world at any moment thanks to ideas and pieces of data that "exist" high above us. Mobile communication agrees with Lakoff and Johnson’s idea that the foreseeable future events are up and ahead (16). We can look to upcoming events, be notified about what to look forward to, when objects or events arrive. We ask, “What’s up?” and “What’s new?” as we send texts up into cell towers (and even hold our phones up higher when the service is poor). 

In a way, "what's up” is what's new for advertisers as they’ve had to adapt quickly to the growth of the internet, introduction of social media and the desire to recreate real interaction and face-to-face exchange online, up in the clouds.