Effects of government regulations on spam: Lessons from Singapore in regulating mobile advertising

The advent of 3G networks provides marketing agencies and advertisers with expanded opportunities to explore the mobile phone as a viable advertising medium. However, because mobile advertising is already used indiscriminately, SMS ads are likened to spam on mobile phones. Using survey data collected from 407 mobile phone users in a well-regulated mobile advertising market, Singapore, this study examines consumer responses to mobile phone ads. The results show that even though respondents disliked mobile ads delivered to mobile phone screens, they may not inevitably avoid the ads. Perceived goal impediment, past negative experience and privacy concerns would cause them to avoid mobile phone advertising. Interestingly, perceived irritation was not a significant predictor of mobile ad avoidance in multivariate analyses, suggesting that in a well-regulated telecommunications market like Singapore, mobile phone ads do not necessarily reach a stage of excessiveness and cause massive consumer avoidance as seen in other Asian countries.