Mobile advertising - South Africa remains on top

South Africa is one country which is light years ahead of other countries when it comes to mobile advertising. It is considered the hottest market right now and the numbers speak for themselves. The average response rate for mobile advertising campaigns in South Africa is anywhere from 10% to 25%, which is nothing short of amazing.

The latest success story, MXit, proves it once again. MXit is a mobile social networking site which is as popular as Facebook in South Africa. With a subscriber base of over 7 million, the company is a dream for mobile advertisers. A huge number of mobile advertisers are interested in working with MXit as the response rates are really high.

This is not just a one-off story. Mobile phone is considered the hottest advertising medium in South Africa today and it is predicted that mobile advertising will be worth way over R1.5 billion in the next three years.

In case you’re wondering how it’s possible, let me explain.

1. Mobile advertising is cost effective. It’s way cheaper than traditional advertising methods like TV, magazines, or radio. And it delivers tremendous results.

2. You can create a mobile advertising campaign and launch it within a week’s time. And you can see the results in a day or two. This is simply unimaginable in the case of traditional advertising.

3. Most importantly, South African mobile users are prolific when it comes to mobile web. A majority of mobile users use mobile internet very regularly and this helps mobile advertisers create interactive mobile advertising campaigns to reach out to them.

Already, South African students have mobile advertising as part of their syllabus, in case you don’t know. It can only mean one thing and that is the next generation will be even more receptive to mobile advertising. Interesting, don’t you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Mobile advertising in India - A closer look

With a 270 million mobile user base, India is one of the hottest markets out there for mobile advertisers. And it is evident from the number of mobile advertising companies that have started up in the past few years. Since Indians use the text message (SMS) facility extensively, text message advertising is considered the best option out there by many.

A lot of companies are already into text message marketing and the results of late have been very, very positive. Hindustan Lever and Coca Cola launched mobile advertising campaigns and have had great success so far and very recently, Ford launched a mobile advertising campaign which was also very successful.

Companies like Affle, Webaroo, Netcore Solutions, and Gingersoft Media have come up with their own innovative SMS marketing technologies to help companies reach their customers easily.

1. Affle’s SMS 2.0 technology is considered the next big thing as far as mobile advertising in India is concerned. You can download SMS 2.0 into your mobile phone for free. Once downloaded, the software will replace the existing SMS system with its own sophisticated browser which has a lot of features such as emoticons, rich colors, icons, signature, and many more. Using this, you will be able to spice up your text messages like never before.

2. SMS GupShup from Webaroo lets you build your own mobile communities. You can send text messages to everyone in your community at the click of a button and at the rate of a single text message. You’ll also be able to send micro blogs to your community members.

3. SMS MyToday from Netcore Solutions has a free text messaging service. You’ll be sent updates every day from your areas of interest.

4. Perhaps the most famous of them all, mGinger, pays you to get ads on your mobile phone.

In all these services, you’ll be served with ads in your text messages. Usually, the bottom space of the message box is used to serve ads. But since these services are free, a lot of Indian mobile users are cool with this idea. In a relatively short period of time, Webaroo has a 7 million user base, mGinger has a 1.5 million user base, and Affle has a 500,000 user base which is steadily growing. With numbers like this, the Indian mobile advertising market looks poised for a huge growth in the future.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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MyScreen gets a $10 million investment

MyScreen, a Canadian company which specializes in opt-in mobile advertising, just got richer by $10 million last week. Orascom Telecom, a leading telecom operator in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, has invested $10 million in MyScreen and has also made a deal. According to the deal, MyScreen will create opt-in mobile advertising campaigns for the subscriber base of Orascom. Orascom, being a leading telecom operator, has a subscriber base of around 90 million people, which includes a whopping 70 million subscribers from Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East and around 20 million affiliate subscribers from Italy.

MyScreen, obviously, is excited and thinks it’s a great opportunity to reach such a huge user base through advertising. MyScreen specializes in targeted advertising and has earned the respect of a lot of industry insiders in a short time.

So many big names invest in mobile advertising companies, so many big names acquire mobile advertising companies, and so many mobile advertising startups get funds from VCs. Yet, some so-called experts say mobile advertising’s future is bleak. Guys; wake up and smell the coffee.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Yahoo to send text message ads to mobile users

As the next step in its quest for domination in the mobile advertising industry, Yahoo might soon start sending text message ads to mobile users. It is all set to announce a partnership with a startup in Silicon Valley (where else?) called 4INFO. Yahoo believes that 4INFO’s technology will be very helpful in its text message advertising campaigns.

Yahoo is planning to send mobile content including news, sports updates, horoscopes, weather forecasts, and other things via text messages. The total number of characters allowed in a text message is 160. Out of this, 40 characters will be dedicated to advertisements.

The point, however, is, they seem to have an interesting deal. Yahoo will send mobile content backed up with mobile ads and 4INFO will try to send ads through its own mobile advertising network. The revenue will be split 60-40 between them and whoever managed to make a sale will walk away with 60% of the share. How about that?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Yahoo.

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Innovative mobile advertising campaign from Japan

It’s weekend time and, as usual, I started digging into the RSS feeds I’ve subscribed to. And I came across this news which I thought was very cool.

Tohato, a snacks company in Japan, has done a phenomenal job in interactive mobile advertising. Tohato has come up with a mobile advertising campaign based on its two popular brands of spicy snacks namely Habanero and Satan Jorquia.

The idea is simple. All you need to do is, buy a pack of snack, scan the 2D barcode printed on the pack, and enter the game via your mobile phone. First, you’ll be asked to pick your favorite brand between Habanero and Satan Jorquia. Each brand has its own ‘evil army’ and whoever chooses that brand becomes a part of that army. There will be a ‘World’s Worst War’ in which both these armies will fight against each other.

You can also move up the ranks in the army by recruiting your friends to join your army. In turn, they could recruit their other friends to join the army. As more and more people join through you, you’ll be promoted. There are twenty battlefields in which these armies will fight against each other and after every fight, details like how many died, how many were promoted, which battlefield was captured by whom, and other things will be delivered to you via your mobile phone.

The response for this campaign has been great so far, as the game is highly engaging. The ad agency in Japan which created this mobile advertising campaign has already got several awards worldwide for the best mobile campaign.

Japan once again has proved that it’s miles ahead of other countries when it comes to mobile advertising. If you notice, using QR codes in mobile advertising campaigns has paid off big time and it has made their job every so easy. I for one, as a mobile user, find the idea of scanning the barcode easier than say sending a text message to get more details on a particular product. I really hope that mobile advertisers in the U.S. and Europe take note of this and use QR codes in their mobile advertising campaigns.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Games.

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