VIDEO: TheTMSway founder Frederick Saurat on redefining mobile marketing

This marks a move away from exchanging text messages at a cost to an invitation to visit a personalised mobile site through TMS shortcodes, free of charge. 

Customers can enter a TMS shortcode seen on advertising into shortcode search engine TMSsearch.com on their mobile web browser to access a promotional mobile site, automatically optimised according to the user’s handset, the date, time and location.

Different codes can be linked to the same mobile site to provide brands with valuable information on where consumers saw the promotion.

Speaking of the potential of the mobile market, Saurat said that there are one billion PCs in the world today versus four billion mobile phones, which is forecasted to grow to six billion before the end of the decade. The low cost of acquiring a mobile phone with internet access in comparison to a PC also means the sector is growing very fast in emerging markets.

He goes onto say the mobile apps business or "bubble" is nothing more than the ringtone business for the new generation of internet phones. “It’s a business for music, games, social network tools, but not a brand business.”

He adds 50,000 new apps are added every week and only three per cent of people open an app a second time 11 days after downloading. He adds it’s a waste of money for brands to invest in an app.