Cellphone marketing targeted at teens and 20s

It didn't take long for the marketing industry to develop ways to reach to the youth market. After all, they are never without their cellphones, does everything from shooting photos and video to downloading coupons, reports USA Today

Marketers prefer targeting youths because they are much more open to new "cool" concepts, and the concepts are coming fast and furious.

"They are the early adopters and the influencers," Roman Tsunder says of teens targeted by cellphone marketing campaigns from his company, Access 360 Media. "The youth markets will show adults how it's done."

Some of the new trends seeking a youth-oriented market are (what would Snow White say?) an interactive dressing room mirror that streams high-definition video of shoppers' modeling clothes to their friends' computers or mobile devices. The mirror allows the friends to comment on a shopper's outfits and to select other clothes for her to try.

GPShopper, an Internet-style search engine that lets shoppers search a chain's entire inventory. Large retailers have already started using this feature that lets buyers text-message the service to find out if an item is in stock at a nearby store.

Coupons appearing on a cellphone were on obvious marketing tool. Shoppers text a code found on store signs to get the coupon, then show it displayed on their phone at checkout.

"This generation was brought up on the Internet," says GPShopper CEO Alex Muller. "We're giving them the same capability on another device they feel quite comfortable with - their mobile phone."