The power of mobile internet

Since the first lesson of this course I could not avoid thinking that here in US digital marketing is very powerful also because internet penetration is already very high and growing. Looking at small countries in Europe such as Italy, Austria and Portugal, not to talk about the majority of developing countries, we see a very different situation. Even if internet users and their average time online is growing, internet penetration is still low, and in the majority of developing countries the quality of the network is still very bad and the computer penetration is very low. How will digital marketing approach those countries? I guess the answer is mobile internet. Cell phone penetration is incredibly high almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use) and many telecom providers are now heavily investing in this business. This will definitely give digital marketing the possibility to reach millions of people everywhere in the world. How the communication is going to change? Customization is going to become more and more important and highly dependent on the country’s language, culture and type of mobile devices available. Websites mobile optimization, word-limited advertising messages, smartphones applications are all going to be country specific? Mobile internet would probably become the most used marketing vehicle along the entire marketing funnel, more widespread then TV and newspapers. Mobile digital marketing will have to find ways to become more and more effective in creating awareness/building the brand and activating the demand, also considering the fact that the benefits of halo effects will be significantly reduced due to the low penetration of the other media vehicles. Will digital marketing be able to successfully exploit this multi-billion dollars opportunity!?