Velti Rolls Out Mobile Marketing Platform 4.0 At Mobile World Congress

Mobile Communities, M-Commerce and Personalised Marketing Are Key Enhancements To Class-Leading Mobile Marketing Technology

London, UK, Mar 5th 2008: Velti, (LSE-AIM: VEL), a mobile marketing and advertising technology service provider, launched version 4.0 of its Mobile Marketing Platform (MMP 4.0) at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.This latest version features enhanced advertising and marketing templates enabling Velti’s customers to reach consumers through new interactive mobile mediums including mobile communities, games and applications. Building on more than seven years of experience in mobile advertising technology development, MMP 4.0 allows advertisers and operators to create campaigns that offer consumers a unique mobile marketing experience rather than simply putting adverts in front of eyeballs. Loyalty schemes, mobile coupons, social networks and other interactive templates can now be easily designed, deployed and measured giving marketers new ways to reach customers through their mobile phones and other portable devices. “MMP 4.0 allows companies to bring the mobile phone into the wider marketing mix,” says Alexandros Moukas, CEO, Velti. “Rather than just experiment with mobile advertising and marketing, advertisers now have the technology platform to engage with customers in new ways to create brand awareness, build loyalty, offer new content and interact in ways that traditional advertising can not.” Velti’s founding principal for its technology platform is to offer enhanced interactivity with end users, taking mobile advertising and marketing beyond the banner ad and other Internet advertising staples. MMP 4.0 enables advertisers to develop more sophisticated SMS and MMS campaigns offering integration with online games and social networks that allow mobile communication. MMP 4.0 also includes a new version of the Personalization Engine, capable of retrieving and processing real time data from consumer behaviour resulting in real-time dynamic segmentation and user-targeting. This advanced facility results in phenomenal response rates to campaigns, such as in the campaign developed with mobile operator MTEL on a short code competition led to the country’s most successful mobile campaign with over 12.5m messages from a subscriber base of just 4.5m. Adds Moukas: “Our customer base of global brands, mobile operators and media companies want to reach out to consumers in new and exciting ways. They’re thinking way beyond the banner advert but need a technology and service partner that gives them the platform and the confidence to invest in new mobile campaigns. MMP 4.0 builds on the incredible success story of Velti as a company. As mobile advertising evolves into a crucial part of the marketing mix, Velti will continue to offer customers new and innovative ways to exploit the market to its full potential.” Velti is offering demonstrations of its innovative Mobile Marketing Platform at its booth 7C86 in Hall 7.

Google working on own-brand handset to grab share of $11bn mobile adverts

Google is angling for a huge slice of the potential $11 billion (£5.4 billion) mobile advertising market with the launch of a “Google phone” especially tailored to its services.

The internet search giant is understood to be developing a handset that is customised to showcase its products, such as its search engine, e-mail and Google Maps.

The GPhone, about which the Californian group has already held talks with mobile operators, including Spain’s Telefónica, is aimed at helping it to secure a chunk of the rapidly growing mobile advertising market. It hopes to replicate its runaway success with internet advertising by acting as “broker” for mobile advertisements.

The failure of 3G services on mobile phones and a lack of “web friendly” handsets has held back the market for mobile advertising.

However, with phones becoming ever more sophisticated and mobile network speeds faster – more than 20 per cent of UK mobile subscribers are expected to have access to the mobile internet at broadband speeds by the end of this year – mobile is now seen as the next battleground for advertisers.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, the marketing group, recently highlighted the growing importance of mobile. Figures compiled by WPP suggested that mobile phones will account for a 5 per cent share of all advertising spending in Britain by 2010. Research by Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that the market for advertising on mobile phones is set to be worth more than $11.3 billion annually in 2011.

A Google-branded phone could go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone, which is set to be launched in the UK before Christmas.

Mobile is deemed so valuable in part because of the targeting that the devices allow. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said recently that mobile phone ads are “twice as profitable or more than nonmobile phone ads because they are more personal”.

Google has already brokered deals with mobile phone companies, including Vodafone, the British operator.

Google’s search engine also comes preloaded on handsets made by companies including Samsung and LG.

However, some mobile companies are thought to have been reluctant to hand over too big a share of their revenues to Google.

This year some operators, including France Télécom, which owns Orange, held talks about creating a search engine to challenge the likes of Google and Yahoo!. Google is now hoping to create its own branded and designed handset and to develop more advanced services for phones.

Sources familar with Google said that any notion of a Google phone was “speculative”. A spokesman for Google in the UK said: “We are partnering with almost all the carriers and manufacturers to get Google search and other Google applications on to their devices and networks.”

Source: Times Online

CBS Plans to Sell Ads on Mobile Devices

CBS Corp. plans to announce today a partnership with four mobile-advertising companies to sell ads on mobile devices for its entertainment, news and sports programming. Marketers will be able to buy text and banner ads for mobile Web sites as well as video commercials for mobile devices as part of CBS Mobile's partnership with AdMob, Millennial Media, Rhythm NewMedia and Third Screen Media. The deal is an effort by CBS to find new ad-revenue streams. The pact comes as media companies are offering more programming -- from weather and sports to news and prime-time shows -- through mobile devices. General Electric Co.'s NBC announced yesterday a deal with Verizon Wireless that makes short videos from nine channels available to subscribers of its V Cast service.

Source: WSJ

Cellphone penetration positions it for marketing success

Cellphone penetration into the South African market and the advancement of mobile marketing means the cellphone will soon compete with traditional media head-on. The days of colourless cellphones screens with no graphics and tiny squeaky speakers are but a distant memory to most of us. We now carry devices with full multimedia functionality, stereo sound and high-speed connectivity to the Internet.

Furthermore, these devices have penetrated the market more effectively than any other medium. It's hard to say how many South African's carry a cellphone, but the three cellphone networks together total a combined base of over 36 million active SIM cards in 2007.

Comparing that to radio, TV and Internet stats, cellphones are now the dominant communications device in the market. The South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) says in its AMPS (All Media and Products Survey) 2006 survey that there are around 28.5 million radio listeners and around 24.5 million TV adult viewers*. In addition, the ratio of cellphone users compared to Internet users and landlines is around 5:1.

Similar global trend

The trend globally is similar. Cellphones are in the majority with 2.5 billion active cellphones, compared to an estimated 900 million Internet users and a billion television sets.

And to add even more weight to these figures, most people's cellphones remain within two metres of them for the majority of the day, while TVs, radios and even the Internet are sampled sporadically.

Within this context, add the fact that we live instant lives. When I want to know something, I want to know it now. Not in five minutes time, now when I get to the office. Now.

Let's take a scenario or two: Bob is at his daughter's birthday party and there is no TV in sight, no radio to listen to and he certainly wasn't allowed to bring his laptop along. But the Springboks are playing their opening game against Samoa in the World Cup and he wants to know the score. If he could get the score off a .mobi site throughout the game, that would be great. Better yet, he'd like updates sent to him as the game progressed.

Jenny's sitting at a coffee shop with a friend, Liz, chatting about how she's going to surprise her husband for her anniversary. Liz remembers a great restaurant but can't remember where it is exactly or what the telephone number is. TV or radio won't help; neither will the newspaper at the front of the coffee shop. A cellphone will, particularly since this new restaurant has its own .mobi site with menu and contact details.

Harnessing the power of mobile

As a consumer you're already nervous when hearing words like “harnessing”. What am I going to get next on my phone? Searching for information like Bob or Jenny is one thing, having it sent to you is quite another.

At the same time, the cellphone has the power to deliver really worthwhile information to you, the consumer. For example, a retail store sends you a MMS with its latest specials and an extra 15% off your total bill if you present the MMS at the cashier.

Now who's going to complain about that? Or you're about to be eligible to upgrade your cellphone contract and your service provider sends you an MMS with a barcode saying if you take it in and upgrade your contract, you'll get a free Bluetooth headset.

Therefore communicating to consumers via their cellphones in a way that benefits them not only builds trust between consumers and companies but provides a mutually beneficial interaction.

Put together in days

And while the process of building a campaign to communicate with customers via the TV, radio or Internet can take weeks to months, a well-though- out mobile campaign can be put together in days.

But it's about being creative and capturing the consumers' attention and most importantly adding value.

*Importantly, these figures represent people who watched TV or listened to the radio once in the space of a week

Source: BizCommunity

Mobile Advertising: Easier Than You've Heard

AS GOOGLE HAS SO SUCCESSFULLY shown, if you make media buying intuitive and easy, the advertisers will come. And not just the mom and pop retailers, but nearly every major marketer is now involved in some form of search marketing, if only to protect its own flanks from aggressive competitors. So, how does this translate to mobile advertising? There is still a nagging feeling out there that mobile advertising is hard to do. That it will require yet another agency specialist like search does or a fully mature mobile site, but it doesn't.

Let's start with a few facts and figures: there are three times more mobile handsets in the U.S. than PCs. In fact, 76% of U.S. households own at least one mobile phone. There are twice as many more mobile subscribers than there are Internet users. Data usage is doubling every year.

Simply put, the mobile phone has become an indispensable device giving marketers access to target audiences 24x7. It doesn't take an economist to project that marketers cannot afford to ignore this channel for long.

Mobile advertising campaigns have gone far beyond the voting campaigns we're all familiar with from American Idol. Ads delivered to mobile devices can have direct response mechanisms such as calling a 1-800 number or entering a telephone number or email to receive more information, or drive traffic to an existing mobile site.

Targeting can be set by language, country, category or by search behavior (and in some cases, combinations of various targeting parameters.) And, contrary to popular belief, a mobile site is not necessary to run a campaign. Running a campaign is exceedingly easy. With online self-service features, it takes only three online steps: entering or uploading ad creative, setting a maximum cost per click and determining the call to action required of users.

Rather than thinking of mobile as a "new, unapproachable" channel, think of ways to tie it in to your current online or search campaigns. Most companies whether brand or direct response have found ways to intelligently and easily incorporate the mobile channel into their marketing mix. Some use it as a call to action on TV, print or online to drive mobile brand interactivity while others are simply driving interested audiences who happen to be on their mobile phone to a core sales-driven action such as calling a 1-800 number, driving subscription to an online newsletter, or to a mobile alert.

While seemingly in a nascent stage, the fact is mobile advertising is projected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2006 to $13.9 billion by 2011 (eMarketer, January, 2007). The reasons are simple: mobile advertising that delivers relevant and useful ads gives users immediate answers that are regarded as valuable content; advertisers can influence their audience during the "last mile" at the moment just before a purchase in the real world. The level of targetability and reach that mobile advertising can provide will become points of success for marketers and we're well beyond the early adoption stage.

Don't be the advertiser left behind.

Source: MediaPost

Marketers optimistic on future of mobile ads

The prevalence of cell phones has marketers seriously considering the future of mobile. There is already an 85 percent cell phone penetration in the United States, according to pay-per-call company Ingenio. That surpasses landlines, which have 72 percent penetration.

“There is a lot of hype about mobile marketing and where it is going,” said Neil Strother, an analyst at JupiterResearch, which estimates mobile reach will be at 2.9 billion by 2011. Today, mobile reach is at 171 million.

“The ad model will take off as soon as consumers don’t have to pay fees for the mobile Web,” said Marc Barach, chief marketing officer of Ingenio.

According to Barach, one of the most promising ad models will combine search with mobile.

David McCarthy, vice president of advertising and business at vertical search engine Miva, agrees with Barach.

“The mobile market has the advantage of learning from the online world,” he said. “That market has been dominated by search and I expect the same to be true of mobile.”

Some think the launch of Apple’s iPhone will speed up adoption of mobile marketing as a monetization channel, but not everyone agrees.

“Mobile-marketing adoption will increase but not because of the iPhone,” said Jeff Hassemer, director of product marketing at Responsys Inc., in a DM News blog post. “Even if the iPhone meets its astronomical projections, that is still less than 0.5 percent of the market.”

He also wrote that Blackberrys and other phones already match many iPhone functions.

Advertisers need to optimize their Web sites for small mobile screens. Mobile Ready Entertainment Corp. created a Web site development service to convert sites for use on mobile platforms.

“Our service helps businesses make their Web site accessible to the hundreds of millions of mobile surfers around the world,” said Mike Magolnick, co-CEO of Mobile Ready.

Source: DM News

The U.S. Mobile Search Market

eMarketer estimates that by 2011, mobile search will account for about $715 million, or close to 15 percent of a total mobile advertising market worth $4.7 billion.

In April 2007, iCrossing reported that three-quarters of mobile Internet subscribers access mobile search services.

The U.S. mobile search market is expected to have some growing pains over the next two or three years as the major operators, portals and mobile search start-ups compete to be the mobile search leader.

eMarketer Senior Analyst John du Pre Gauntt said, "Mobile search in the US has all the right parts on the table: a huge online advertising ecosystem, the world's leading content industry, massive portal players, major league mobile operators and a host of VC-backed start-ups."

"In other words, it'll be a bloody mess over the next few years sorting out the center of gravity for mobile search, as each player tries to convince the others to follow its lead. The good news for marketers is that there's enough of a prize for the winner(s) that resolution will come."

Source: WebProNews

Back to School

ONE OF THE REAL PROBLEMS with the major carriers throughout their content and marketing chains is their sheer scale. When multimillion-subscriber companies are going head to head for market share, it is difficult to focus on your own segments. Branding messages for the tier-1 companies have been hopelessly broad for years (more minutes, better network coverage, free phones), with little effort to target specific groups very effectively, even though a range of age and ethnic demos come at their phones very differently. There is a real need here for content and service companies to cultivate the segments. "At the end of the day, they are mass market providers," says Jim Ryan, newly minted president and CEO of MobileCampus, which targets mobile data and marketing services to college environments. "I was seeing an incremental opportunity to serve more niche markets and target segments." For years, Ryan enjoyed a unique vantage point, since he ran the data strategy at Cingular/AT&T and was a fixture in the fledgling mobile content industry. He left AT&T just as the iPhone was about to launch, and according to reports was involved in making that deal with Apple. But in placing his bets with the small startup we covered last year in this column, Ryan is signaling that it is time for mobile to get targeted, and for the nascent ad model to follow.

Ryan says that the early stages of mobile marketing may be a bit misguided in following the carriers' lead into the mass market mentality. "Most of the existing players are large media companies used to the mass market and mass media advertising. They want large volumes of people. So they talk about millions of users and page impressions."

MobileCampus partners with universities to deliver free messaging services to students who opt in. The SMS system can range campuswide -- from the administration to ticklers and scheduling notes from individual sports teams or clubs. The school and its groups get the service free, with ads and offers from local vendors underwriting the cost.

Ryan believes that ad-supported systems like MobileCampus can change the mobile marketing equation. If you have tightly targeted users and you know their needs and habits well enough, then you don't need to carpet-bomb the platform or the user with ads. He expects students to receive one marketing message a day -- but a message that relates to their immediate environment and their likely needs. "It's about the value of the message, not the volume," he says. "Mass media is about volume -- millions of WAP pages -- and it uses the same model as already exists . Our model is very different. Our approach is 180 degree different."

Charging 20 cents a message, a campaign for a tech vendor like Dell might spend less than $1,000 reaching all of the tech enthusiasts on a large campus. "If we can get 30% to 40% to check it out, that translates into a lot of activity" for a small cost relative to papering the local media with ads, Ryan says. He believes that while MobileCampus is focused on the universities right now, the model is portable to a host of different demographics and niches and that this is a more appropriate way to use mobile. "I think there is a huge opportunity to evolve this market. There will be a real revenue opportunity for the company that leads that charge. To do that, you have to start with specific content."

As with all highly targeted marketing ideas, the challenge is less in the effectiveness of the promotion when it hits its target, but in the scalability. Is it worth it in the end for the sponsor/client to segment the creative, the deals, the partners into all of these niches? Yes, there is a lot of waste in mass media, but there are also efficiencies of scale. We are already a decade into the ad model online, and how many of the targeting methods available are really being used? The technologies and their proposed business and marketing models always seem to be well ahead of the ad industry infrastructure.

Ryan is right. Mobile seems to be the medium that is best positioned to lead the charge into a lot of marketing models that have been more on the periphery of digital media for years. If marketing and media are moving from mass to me, from corralling eyeballs to finding the right customer with the right message, then mobile offers a necessary challenge to the entire chain of production. But to make messages that are highly relevant to these segments, the marketers themselves have to segment their efforts and their infrastructures. How do you address so many possible niches -- and what new processes and structures within organizations are necessary to make a post-mass media world work? These are all questions that fragmented media are raising across the board, not just mobile. Everybody is back in kindergarten now.

Source: MediaPost

The State of Mobile Marketing

Our industry is an interesting one; it’s a complex marketplace of intent, monetization, and relative performance. Those in the direct marketing space either have traffic, e.g. via their website or email list or they have the ability to acquire it, e.g. through paid search. Any traffic revolves around users and in what users might have an interest. With search, users generally already express that intent. With email, the users haven’t generally expressed an intent so much as an offer catches their attention. In either event, an offer will capture, match, their intent, and it will focus on finding a way to make money off that expressed or latent intent, i.e. the monetization. Anyone who has traffic, leverages intent and then makes money, understands though that not all ads perform the same. This is where relative performance comes into play. An offer only continues to receive traffic if it can perform equal to or better than the other offers. For example, you don’t see Columbia House DVD among frequently promoted offers, because MP3 players have changed the intent landscape. One of those offers that currently out-competes Columbia, along with a large number of others are ringtones.

We don’t seem to talk about it often, but if you run offers from CPA networks, you know it. Perhaps we don’t talk about it that much because we don’t want to jinx it, as though we know the offers do too well to be true. Maybe we don’t talk about it because we don’t want to admit openly that, yes we run them. Whatever the reason, it does sound a little weird. If you run campaigns for Blockbuster or Netflix, when asked what you run, you can say the brand name or the generic DVD rental services. The same goes for online education or even credit cards. Those who do either of those tend to say so proudly, and perhaps it’s because those listening understand that market and/or implicitly approve of its promotion. The same rules do not really apply for those in the mobile marketing space, especially those in its most well-known incantation, ringtones. When asked what they promote, far too many people seem to say ringtones with a hesitance, as though bracing for some question or rebuke. Whatever the reason and despite the apparent stigma, mobile marketing, even ringtones, will not go away any time soon, not even with more iPhones. Similar to the incentive offers, it not only makes everyone in the chain far too much money, but users have yet to tire as their interest is based on culture not a one-time fad. They will, though struggle, morph, and, similar to incentive offers, adapt. This week, we look at this amazing mobile market and three of its more prominent segments.

Ringtones
The European company Jamster had the first major ringtone hit. Being from Europe, where cell phone usage far outpaced, both in technology and user comfort, Jamster had a natural advantage when it came to promoting to the US market. They had already weathered the learning curve and could apply those learnings here. They came to market with individual ringtones that users could purchase online and send to their phone. They did a great job especially considering that the phones of the time played simplistic tunes (not the true to life sounding ones of today) and that users had little familiarity with adding content to their phones, let alone content that didn’t seem to originate from within the phone. As the market progressed, others saw the potential and began to compete. Instead of offering individual songs, they went down another path, subscription services. In a subscription service, users do not pay a la carte, they pay monthly; as a result, these companies leveraged the same hook, “ringtones,” but could pay more to the marketer as they paid not a percentage of the initial sale but a percentage of the lifetime value. Today’s most prevalent ringtone offers don’t always have names that make sense, among them being Blinko, Thumbplay, Zapsters, Dada Mobile, Ringazaa, Flycell, and Rock Your Tones, but they all run off this basic model. The demographic of today’s online users combined with a) the companies’ paying a large percentage of the users’ lifetime value, along with b) the ease that a monetary transaction can occur, has created a perfect storm for these offers.

Text Services
On first glance, it almost makes sense that ringtones might do well. Users can get a variety of useful content, quicker, easier, and cheaper than they can if they try to do so through the phone menu. Text services, though, you might not expect to do as well, even though every handset can receive them. Yet, if you know the folks at Mobile Messenger, you find out that text can perform as well if not better. In fact, Mobile Messenger doesn’t do ringtones, they do but it’s far from their strength; they don’t really do text either. What they do is transfer the risk and the reward to the marketer. It took me a while to understand their role, but they basically have many of the same components as a Blinko or Dada. They have content and the ability to bill consumers. What they don’t do, though, is necessarily create an offer then take the payment risk by offering a flat CPA. Instead, Mobile Messenger, allows the marketer to come up with an offer (or run an existing concept), create the page, have full control, and act as the silent partner - doing billing and passing the lion’s share of the revenue to the marketer. It has pros and cons. The marketer must front the cash for expenditures, but they receive the full lifetime value of that customer not some percentage. It won’t work for everyone, but in a world where a top ringtone affiliate will do low four-figures per day, a top affiliate in this arena can do triple or more. This market, too, will undergo change, but it shows a different side to mobile marketing, one that has allowed a company to become the largest mobile marketing firm that few know.

Outside the Box
Perhaps the most exciting use of mobile and one that has existed in other countries for years comes in the form of mobile as a billing mechanism. Ringtones and text do use mobile as a billing mechanism, but they do so for content that comes to the phone. Soon, we’ll see billing as means for paying for items that typically require credit cards. Think of all the free trial offers, from dating to software to health programs, that today need a credit card. As mobile progresses, we will see these offers soon allowing users to bill it to their phone, or promoting a secondary, smaller test trial for the phone if the credit card option does not happen. The phone won’t solve everything, as phone companies will not feel good about users adding potentially a hundred or more dollars in non-mobile services to their phone bill, but it still hints at the future. If the subscription ringtone service does decrease, the way CD sales have, at least mobile as a whole will not go away. It will only thrive, and we should all look forward to this and other outside the box / outside the handset applications as it will increase our revenues.

Source: Adotas

Google Opens AdSense for Mobile Beta

Following the roll-out of a revamped mobile search earlier this year, Google has begun testing a version of AdSense for mobile Web sites. In typical Google fashion, it ushered in the beta program not with an announcement, but by sending invites to AdSense users late last week.

Internet entrepreneur Scott Jones posted on his blog, Self Made Minds, that he received an invite to the Google beta. The news garnered attention throughout the blogosphere and SEO community.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the beta. "Google is committed to finding new and better ways to get users the information they need while on the go, and to opening up new revenue opportunities for our partners. We are currently conducting a limited beta to test AdSense for mobile, a monetization product for mobile publishers. We will continue to evaluate the beta and will refine the product based on feedback from our users, publishers, and advertisers."

"At present it just appears in my AdSense in the list of products and has not been tested," Jones told ClickZ News. He went on to say ad units include single and double ads, WAP 1.0 or 2.0 in the normal color palette for integration.

While positive about the move, industry analysts question the size of the market for contextually delivered mobile ads. "How big is mobile advertising at this time, and how much is Google coming into the space going to impact positively or negatively?" asked M:Metrics's vice president consulting and senior analyst Evan Neufeld.

Google's mobile AdSense limited beta may bring mobile one step closer to becoming a line item in advertisers' budgets, rather than an experimental entry.

"Google's AdSense is a very powerful product online, but it fits a particular niche for advertising. I don't think that niche is currently filled in mobile, but I don't know how big that niche is," said Lee Hancock, founder and CEO of go2 Wireless, pointing to Google's offering of standardized ads, contextually-based units, PPC and impression-based models.

"If you look at the way AdSense works online, typically associated with content that is relevant, it's typically displayed in extra areas on the page," Hancock said. "You're not going to have that flexibility and capability on the mobile phone, with its small screen."

Skepticism aside, Hancock said "Google will likely be successful; the question is the magnitude of that success."

The appearance of ads through AdSense has at least one potential benefit to the user experience. "It will probably assist in the discovery of information on a mobile phone," said Hancock. "But what will be really interesting to see is how monetizible mobile traffic is."

AdSense's inventory is one component of the mobile marketing platform, cautions Neufeld. "Is it strictly a banner ad-serving tool?" he said. If it ignores SMS and MMS messaging, he added, Google is "missing a big piece of it."

Source: ClickZ

It adds to add mobile to ads

One of the mobile industry’s greatest power is its consistent ability to take seemingly mundane topics and turn them into exciting industry buzzwords by simply placing the word “mobile” in front of them: “mobile” messaging, “mobile” content and “mobile” commerce have all at one time been bandwagons which operators, software companies, manufacturers, media firms and investors have clamoured aboard. In fact, the word “mobile” is rivalled only by Apple’s letter “i” for achieving hype transformation (place both in front of the word “phone” and see which generates the most hysteria). In the past year, “mobile” advertising has entered the industry vernacular and the bandwagon now has some decent momentum. However, we’re surprised to see both operator and media companies focusing on old-school advertising techniques borrowed from the online world, expecting these to perform just as effectively in a mobile context. Campaigns such as promotional text messages and mini-banner ads on WAP sites mirror the tried and tested banners and email marketing observed online. Just as Google broke the traditional marketing models used by the print and broadcast media and reinvented advertising for the web, a similar level of innovation needs to occur in mobile which will give birth to campaigns capable of delivering response rates that will make the advertising industry sit up and take notice. One such innovation we’ve seen are the idle screen applications which provide intelligent search & discovery functions to handset users. Vendors include Abaxia (Mobile Finder), Zi Corp. (Qix) and Tegic (T9 Discovery Tool). These tools work by indexing handset information like contacts, bookmarks, call logs, documents, messages and appointments, and providing a keystroke search facility on the home screen. For example, typing in the characters M-A-D would produce a shortlist of matching content on the device, such as the contact Madeline Smith, the song Hung Up by Madonna, a text message received from Maddox Williams or a photo saved with the filename “game at Madison gardens”. However, these applications allow operators to add other information to the indexing pool. Working with their content partners, an operator could add promotions which also match the “M-A-D” search string, like offering links for a 50% discount off a Mad Max DVD or a Madonna ringtone. Such ads are non-intrusive and their contextual nature can actually enhance the search and discovery user experience if implemented correctly. The fact that a mobile phone is location aware (in theory) adds a powerful dimension to the advertising experience. The ability for restaurants, shops, cinemas and bars to actively promote their services to mobile subscribers in the immediate vicinity has long been touted and is seen as the natural extension of Google Maps, which now has a mobile version available for a wide range of handset models. Any talk of location awareness is quickly followed by concerns about privacy and such fear is one reason location services are still not widely deployed, despite the technical capability being established. Privacy is often brandished as a major concern by 50 year-old industry executives and not by the millions of 18 year-olds who seem happy to broadcast every minutia of their daily lives on their FaceBook and MySpace accounts. The industry needs to recognise that privacy means different things to the different generations: a college student will react differently to a Vodafone executive, for example, were they both to receive an unsolicited marketing SMS triggered by walking past a McDonalds. Looking at how mobile advertising is set to evolve, we cannot help but think that carriers are in the strongest position above any other stakeholder in the mobile advertising value chain – but they seem oblivious to this. Operators are sitting on a goldmine of consumer information which can be offered to a plethora of third parties; which can be packaged in such a way to mitigate privacy concerns. Operators know who their subscribers are, their age, where they live, how much they spend, how often they travel and where they travel to. With the rise of mobile TV, operators will know which shows their subscribers are watching and which radio stations they listen to. Fundamentally, operators know their subscribers’ geographical location at any given time and know in which locations they are most frequently based (home, office, gym etc.). As carriers continue to see their voice and data revenues suffer and handset makers and content owners re-assert their direct-to-consumer relationships, operators who have effective systems and tools in place allowing them to slice and dice their vast subscriber database into segments and group defined by specific characteristics will have an opportunity at a compelling new revenue stream. Source: Arc Chart

Successful Results for Cellcom and innerActive Ad-Funded Mobile Games Service

Israel's largest mobile operator Cellcom has announced today the completion of its first ad-funded mobile games service powered by innerActive technology. The new innovative service showed results of 44% Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and 19% Acquisition Rate for Mobile Advertising Campaigns, indicating a breakthrough in marketing via mobile phones.

The value-added infotainment service offers the subscribers free game downloads, sponsored by top brands such as: Tnuva, Nokia, McDonalds, Diadora, Samsung, Adidas and Walt Disney. Leading interactive advertising agencies such as McCann Digital, Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO and nextin participated in the month-long pilot.

innerActive's Campaign Management system provided an end-to-end solution for both Cellcom and the advertisers. The solution, which can easily integrate to Cellcom’s system, dynamically inserted ads and marketing content for product placement within the games. With the system, mobile in-game ads were targeted and segmented in real-time according to each user’s profile, behavior and responses. In addition, mobile coupons and other incentives were offered for conversion and cross-over to other media channels like websites and point of sells.

“The new model used in the trial has proved to be effective and feasible to all the players. We succeeded to promote thousands of new users, that are not heavy gamers, to consumed and enjoyed games,” said Adi Cohen, VP Marketing of Cellcom. "The advertising-marketing stimulus trial confirms its effectiveness to all parties that took part in this project. This mobile advertising is working and shows far-reaching consequences for the mobile industry.”

The strong capabilities of innerActive innovative technology produce exceptional results. On average a trend of 10 times higher game downloads per user was observer, compared to pre-pilot download numbers. The Tetris game set a new record for as the number of download jumped by 14 times. The new business model, that this represents, motivated an untapped segment of mobile users to download mobile games as 24% of the participants did not download games in the six month period before the test and 54% did not do it in the three months prior to the pilot.

“The ad-funded model used in the trial has created a new dialog with the consumers while at the same time setting a new level of response and conversion to targeted and relevant marketing content," said Offer Yehudai, innerActive Co-manager. “The usage of in-content deliver within the games has become a great online media experience within various audiences, especial in the youth segment (9-20 year old) – 65% enjoying the benefits.

“These trends reveal the huge potential and highlight innerActive’s solution of in-content ad-funded mobile advertising and business model,” said Ziv Elul, innerActive Co-manager. “Driving from this successful pilot, innerActive is about to launch its new solution for live streaming advertising on both video and music channels.”

Source: OpenPR

Video Begins To Mobilize: Usage Still Small, But Growing Rapidly

WHILE STILL A RELATIVELY SMALL base, the percentage of mobile device users who view video programming and advertising while on the go has increased dramatically. It has more or less doubled for people using hand-held devices (iPods and cell phones), and has jumped by more than 40% among people using laptop computers, according to results of the 2007 edition of "How People Use Mobile Video" from Knowledge Networks/SRI.

The study also found some marked differences emerging among various mobile platforms that suggest mobile video is not as homogenous as some people might think.

"Rather than think of mobile video as one big monolith, people are going to have to think about these as different platforms and [about] how consumers use them," suggests Dave Tice, vice president-managing director of Knowledge Networks/SRI.

For example, while the penetration of video usage is almost the same among iPod users (8%) and video cell phone users (6%), people view video differently on the two devices. On iPods, it's more like video behavior on laptop computers, which is to watch longer-form content, while cell phone users tend to watch shorter videos.

Nearly half (46%) of video cell phone users reported an average video viewing session of five minutes or less, versus 53% of iPod or laptop users who reported an average viewing session of 30 minutes or more.

Tice said the behavioral differences may be due to iPod users generally downloading content by connecting the device to a broadband computer, and thus using the iPod as an extension of the computer. "It might be more of a problem for someone trying to download a 30-minute video on a cell phone," said Tice, adding that the whole orientation of video cell phone users may be different than that of video iPod users--people get iPods to consume entertainment, whereas they get cell phones primarily to make phone calls.

In fact, viewing of feature-length movies has risen dramatically among consumers who utilize the video capabilities of their iPods, jumping from just 1% in last year's study to 54% this year.

Tice said it's too early to determine how new generations of mobile phone technologies--such as Apple's iPhone--might impact those behaviors over time.

One behavior that is becoming clear across all forms of mobile video is how consumers regard advertising. The good news for the ad industry is that four out of five consumers who watch mobile video say they are willing to view mobile advertising in order to get free video content. The bad news is that less than 30% of them feel that mobile ads are relevant to them.

As low as that percentage is, however, Tice doesn't necessarily think it's that bad, saying the percentage is about the same as those who feel TV commercials on regular television are relevant to them. "I think that it's a telling finding, because people don't see ads on mobile video as being any better than television," he said, "but if advertisers are able to use the one-to-one targeting nature of mobile to do a better job of making their marketing messages more relevant to them, then they can probably improve those perceptions over time."

Source: Media Post

How Mobile Are You?

The latest figures by the Mobile Data Association suggest over 15 million people accessed the mobile web in March this year, a rise of nearly 1 million unique users on the previous month. 3, the UK network operator also recorded 118 million instant messages sent via MSN Mobile in May this year – that’s on one network in one month! The increase in mobile internet usage is yet another clear sign that mobile web browsing is here to stay and with the significant role interactive job search plays in our everyday lives, it is perhaps the right time for recruiters to understand how they can capitalise on the mobile opportunity.

The additions the mobile device has acquired over the last few years in MP3 and camera functionality is a testament to the devices importance in the everyday lives of UK consumers. Never before has an electronic device had such an impact on the way people communicate and manage their lives and it is this personalised element that recruiters can really take advantage of.

Peter Holsgrove of asap.mobi, the leading mobile developer of classified advertising and mobile job search functionality suggests "the mobile phone is more important to us than any other device and it has made a huge impact on the way we stay in touch with friends and colleagues, store photographic memories and organise our favourite music and other personal data. With the restrictions now imposed by many employers on internet activity at work and the privacy benefits mobile provides, if integrated correctly, mobile will have a significant impact on the way recruiters and their brands engage with potential candidates. We recommend enabling job seekers with a 'cross media' solution and integrating print, web and mobile to provide the ultimate job seeking experience.”

Source: On Rec

Read article here

Enpocket Powers Mobile Advertising for The N in Promotion of The Best Years, the Network’s First College-Based, One-Hour Drama

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Enpocket, the Intelligent Mobile Marketing^™ company, today announced that it has been chosen by The N, the nighttime network for teens and a programming arm of MTV Networks, to power its mobile advertising and mobile Internet experience for the network’s new series, The Best Years. The Best Years is The N’s first college-based, one-hour drama, which airs every Friday at 8:30 p.m. (ET) on The N.

“Teens communicate with each other and live their lives on a multi-platform level, making mobile the perfect advertising medium for us,” said Jeff Swierk, Vice President of Marketing, The N. “With Enpocket, we are able to offer our teen viewers a multi-faceted mobile Web experience exposing our audience to everything The N has to offer on the heals of our premiere series, The Best Years.”

The campaign features mobile Internet ads promoting awareness; a mobile Internet site offering consumers a range of innovative engagement experiences, like a quiz for viewers to find which character they are most similar to; mobile show alerts; a channel finder mechanic; and character biographies.

“We are pleased to be working with forward-thinking networks like The N to drive tune-in through the mobile channel,” said Mike Baker, Enpocket President and CEO. “The program we have developed for The Best Years speaks to youth and young adults in their own language on the channel that belongs to their generation.”

The mobile advertising program went live Friday, June 15, and will continue to run for 13 weeks coinciding with a premiere episode every Friday at 8:30 p.m. (ET). The show follows orphaned and full-ride scholar, Samantha Best (Charity Shea, “Alpha Dog”) as she starts her freshman year at prestigious Charles University in Massachusetts.

Samantha has been shuffled through the foster care system her entire life and is finally looking forward to a future of new opportunities and friendships. She’ll have to contend with the ins and outs of college and mingle with a new world of ‘frenemies’ as she struggles to find her own identity. Along the way, she will meet new roommate Kathryn Klarner (Jennifer Miller), a rich socialite from one of the most prominent families in the Mid-West, Dawn Vargas (Athena Karkanis), a child actor who trades in Hollywood for college, and Devon Sylver (Brandon Jay McLaren “She’s The Man”), a fellow scholarship recipient and star basketball player who has caught her eye. With her new dysfunctional family and a part-time job at Boston’s hot spot Colony, Samantha will find herself juggling a lot more than just academics.

Source: Business Wire

Read article here

Text ads favored by U.K. users

Women are more inclined to click on text-based mobile ads while men are more likely to be lured by video marketing messages, according to a study of U.K. users from Tickbox, a London-based market research firm.

The survey, which was commissioned by mobile media publisher MoMac, found that text ads are the most effective mobile advertising format, favored by 56% of wireless users. Sixty percent of women preferred text ads, according to the study, while only 47% of men opted for the links.

Picture or banner ads were the second-most popular format, favored by 29% of all users, while nearly one-quarter of males cited video advertising as the favorite method. Only 12% of females preferred video ads. Unsurprisingly, 16- to 24-year-olds preferred video by a nearly two-to-one ration over users older than 55.

Younger users also preferred to view ads in exchange for content, while more than half of users 45 and older opting to buy content a la carte. And 54% of females preferred the pay-per-download mode compared to 41% of men, who were more accepting of mobile ads.

Tickbox surveyed 1,400 U.K. mobile phone users for the study.

“The research shows that brands and media companies must think carefully about who their primary targets are before they decide how to deliver both their content and advertising campaigns,” said MoMac executive Sham Careem. “Different demographics will respond better to different methods of advertising, and the key to a successful campaign will be ensuring that the format matches the target audience.”

Source: RCR Wireless News

Read article here

Virgin Mobile: Time Is Wireless Minutes

The cell-phone operator's Sugar Mama program compensates subscribers with free call time for interacting with ads on their phones

Much has been made of the Web-like marketing dollars to be earned by shooting ads to cell phones. But there's been little agreement so far over how to get mobile subscribers to put up with what many see as a mobile version of spam on a device they already pay plenty to use. One proposed solution for persuading them to embrace this wireless intrusion appears to be gaining traction: pay them.

On July 9, Virgin Mobile USA reported that it signed up roughly 330,000 of its 4.8 million subscribers for its Sugar Mama program, which "pays" them one minute of free call time for every 45 seconds they spend interacting with an ad on their phones or the company's Web site. Since the program was launched about a year ago, Virgin has given away 9 million minutes of mobile talk time.

For marketers, the popularity of the program offers some proof that the mobile phone may not be so different from other types of media. Just as cable TV, newspapers, magazines, and many Web services profit from a combination of subscriptions and ad revenue, the cellular industry is seen as ripe for supplementing its monthly service fees with marketing dollars.

"When we started talking to people, they said, 'Don't sully my wireless experience with your advertising,'" says Howard Handler, Virgin Mobile USA's chief marketing officer. "But when we started talking about it a little further, we heard, 'My time is one of the most valuable commodities that I have, and if you are asking me to spend time looking at a message, I want to be compensated for it.'"

Targeting the Cash-Strapped

Marketers say the key to mobile ads, usually delivered to the phone with a text or picture message, is getting users to agree to receive them by offering a clear reward. It also helps if they're in their late teens and twenties, an age group that dominates Virgin's customer base. The reason this audience is more receptive? Cash, for one. College students and entry-level workers typically don't have much of it. As a result, they're more willing to trade their personal time for free services, says John du Pre Gauntt, a wireless industry analyst for eMarketer. Second, younger people have grown up with ad-supported Web services, making them less averse to sales pitches.

But why would marketers want to bother with people so cash-strapped that they'd be willing to spend nearly a minute of their time just to get free air time? After all, a person who doesn't want to part with the 18¢ Virgin charges for an extra 60 seconds on its pay-by-the-minute plan can't have much spare change to spend shopping. Marketers counter that those who make up the 34-and-under market typically have more disposable income than older individuals with mortgages and dependents. And, says du Pre Gauntt, people in their late teens and twenties are less price-conscious when they do spend their money.

Virgin's data also shows some success in getting this audience to respond to what's being advertised. On average, Sugar Mama participants clicked on offers in the ads they viewed more than 5% of the time. The 5%-plus response rate echoes the results seen in similar studies (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/23/07, "The Sell-Phone Revolution"). Though 5% may not sound like much, it's significantly higher than the average response rate to online ads, which is less than 1%. One especially successful ad campaign in Virgin's program managed to produce a 21% click-through response, says Handler, who declined to identify the advertiser. Response rates like that are one reason the market for mobile advertising is expected to grow from less than $2 billion this year to more than $11 billion in 2011, according to a 2006 study by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Planting Seeds

Another reason to pay attention to younger, less-wealthy consumers is that they eventually become older, wealthier consumers, says du Pre Gauntt. It's better for marketers to reach them now, when they are forming their impressions about brands and the kinds of products they value. "The 2007 college senior could take a job with [consulting firm] Accenture (ACN) next year," says du Pre Gauntt.

But while mobile ads may help seed future tastes, it's unclear whether this audience, as it ages, will continue to respond to mobile ads with the same fervor. Du Pre Gauntt expects they will, particularly as more people get smartphones with speedier Internet access and better Web browsers that can display multimedia ads (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/7/06, "Yahoo's Grand Mobile Ad Experiment"). After all, the mobile phone is the most personal of devices, enabling more precise targeting of ads than a television. It also doesn't hurt that these devices travel with people when they're out and about, primed to make a purchase (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/28/06, "Ads Migrate to Mobile Handsets").

However, advertisers probably shouldn't expect to see 5% response rates forever. Mobile marketing is still a novelty, so it grabs a user's attention more easily. Online ads enjoyed similar response rates when they first started appearing, says du Pre Gauntt. As more ads appear on phones, marketers will have to do more to stand out—more, perhaps, than simply bandying about the word "free."

Source: Business Week

Read article here

Mobile Payments to Generate Almost $22 Billion of Transactions by 2011 and be Adopted by 204 Million Mobile Phone Users

Juniper Research predicts that P2P fund transfers and mobile payments in the developing world, together with the commercialization in 2009 of NFC (Near Field Communications) based mPayments will generate transactions worth approximately $22bn.

(PRWEB) July 9, 2007 -- There is much to be positive about with mPayments; the ecosystem is evolving into one where cooperation between the major stakeholders is creating an atmosphere that is incubating intelligent ways in which we can use the mobile phone for payment.

There is still much to do, resolving the business model and the revenue share issues are a priority; but much of the technology is available and there is a genuine willingness from the major stakeholders to resolve their differences and cooperate.

Greater availability of NFC devices, for physical mobile payments, coupled with secure and easy-to-use applications, backed by the large credit card organisations and financial institutions, will create the foundation for a healthy alternative to cash and other mainstream payment applications.

Report author Alan Goode said: "The technology is available now to enable secure and fast payments to be initiated on the mobile phone. The business model stills needs some work but there are positive signals emanating from the industry that will create considerable revenue for all parts of the ecosystem. I am cautiously optimistic for the future success of mPayments."

Juniper Research illustrates the current and near-future status of mobile payments with interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile payment industry.

Highlights from the report include:

• The value of mobile transactions will grow to nearly $22bn by 2011.
• SMS based Person2Person (P2P) fund transfers and payments will drive the developing world m-payment market.
• Adequate supply of contactless chip enabled devices, NFC and Felica, to enable over 52m mobile phone users to make physical payments 2011.
• Retailers benefit with potentially lower transaction fees and increased basket size
• Forecasts for NFC enabled devices.

Source: eMedia Wire

Read article here

Netpreneur Host Delivers New SMS Marketing Service

July 5, 2007 - (TopHosts News Brief) - Netpreneur Host partnered with Mobile SMS Marketing for an innovative, new service.

Through the new service, users can achieve more intimate marketing relationships with customers, thanks to cell phone text messaging.

The service enables businesses to use the Mobile SMS Marketing phone number, together with a special text string. When end-users send a company’s unique text string to the phone number provided by Mobile SMS Marketing, they are added to that company’s list, and can be sent special offers and updates from the company. For instance, sending the word CLUB to 41513 from a cell phone demonstrates how a night club or disco might use the service.

“This new service allows businesses to quickly build large lists of opt-in cell phone users, which provides a captive audience of people with whom businesses can build deeper, more intimate relationships than with traditional marketing,” Netpreneur Host CEO, Daniel J. Briere, stated in a PRWeb release. “The Mobile SMS Marketing service is a very exciting addition to our existing services that we are very happy to be able to provide to our users, and which will further differentiate us from other Web hosting providers.”

Source: Top Hosts

Read article here

Case Study - House of Blues

Challenge
In response to the emergence of mobile technology as a mass-market medium, in late 2005, House of Blues in partnership with Motorola, became interested in offering new and existing customers novel types of interactive campaigns as a means to incentivize and reward its youth demographic. Soapbox Mobile fulfilled the company's needs with a complete, full-service mobile solution using the Soapbox Anywhere platform to power interactive mobile campaigns including triggered and personalized SMS-based quizzes, contests, and alerts. These mobile campaigns were aimed at drawing attention to upcoming music events specific to each of House of Blues' nationwide locations.

Mobile Solution

• Enhance Image: Cutting edge of new media adoption
• Leverage Mobile: Usage for target demographic
• Build Database: Mobile subscribers for follow-up campaigns
• Promotions of promote bands, mobile ticket sales

House of Blues has built a nationwide presence as a trendy venue for music, food and nightlife. Customers recognize House of Blues as the premier branded entertainment venue, attracting a wide variety of demographic audience segments with locations across America's hippest cities. Its target demographic is young professionals.

House of Blues, presently using the Web for consumer interactivity in addition to other more traditional means of marketing, decided to leverage the mobile channel to deepen ints relationship with its existing and new customers. Recognizing mobile as a personal, one-to-one mass market medium that is 'always on', House of Blues tapped Soapbox Mobile to create it mobile campaigns. The Soapbox Anywhere platform provided personalized mobile interaction in addition to a valuable database of mobile users. The House of Blues mobile trivia campaign placed a 'call-to-action' across in-house TV screens and person-to-person street team interaction by means of unique short codes assigned to House of Blues venues across the U.S. The Soapbox Mobile solution empowered House of Blues to track and report, in real-time, the effectiveness of its mobile campaigns for each of its nationwide locations.

Mobile Campaign: Key Features

• Location-based campaign tracking and reporting
• Interactive, 2-way SMS trivia campaign
• Mobile coupon codes: redeem prizes
• Cross-carrier: House of Blues SMS campaign's work across all carriers and handsets in North America

In addition to building an interactive mobile trivia campaign, Soapbox Mobile also established an managed relationships with network operators in North America and the operator's terms for multiple, unique vanity (custom) short codes for each House of Blues location. As a result House of Blues customers can now engage in opt-in mobile contests regardless of their carrier.

Results

• Build mobile database for future use in promotion and sales
• Unrivaled distribution in leveraging mobile channel and customer reach
• Enhanced image as vanguard of new media and digital entertainment
• Precision ability to track, monitor and report marketing effectiveness in real-time

Soapbox Mobile helped House of Blues enhance its loyal customer base by extending and diversifying its marketing program to include the mobile channel. Owing to the valuable database of mobile users House of Blues has been able collect through the Soapbox Anywhere platform, the company now has an indispensable asset in targeting an audience for its future mobile initiatives. House of Blues has been able to create a stronger relationship with its customers, enhance the visibility of its brand, and has also delivered value to its mobile partner, Motorola.

Source: Mobile Marketing Association

Read study here