Contribution of Mobile media communications to consumer attitude/consumer behavior in the clothing retail industry in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper sought to explore the current state, dynamics and opportunities of SMS mobile advertising in Zimbabwe. In doing so, the paper takes keen interest into (1) the content of SMS mobile advertising being used (2) willingness to receive SMS adverts by consumers (3) the frequency to which consumers have received these SMS in the past two years (4) as well as attitudes formed towards receiving messages and the impact these have on inducing consumer action. Using Zimbabwe’s top four retail players in the clothing industry a sample of 322 consumers were used and an instrument for measuring attitudes towards SMS based Advertising was also used. It was interesting to note that given the varied forms of SMS ads the sector only use sales promotion, stock alerts and competition. Attitudes that consumers formed towards SMS advertising were directly linked to the acceptance to receive SMS, were most of the consumers highlighted that they would want clothing retail companies to ask them permission to send their messages as these messages sometimes come unexpectedly. The paper concludes and recommends that SMS advertising is the future of most clothing retailers as it affords a two way communication enabling high interactivity, specific based advertising, and location based communication.

Keywords: SMS advertising, mobile marketing, permission based