Blyk to Sign a Partnership Deal with Orange

Blyk, the popular ad-funded mobile operator from the UK, is about to sign a partnership deal with Orange. The deal, as you can easily guess, offers free talk time and SMS credit for users for getting ads on their mobile phones.

This marks a new direction for Blyk as a company, as it is focusing to get more partnership deals instead of catering to customers directly. A few months back, it was announced that Blyk will no longer accept new customers for its subscription programs.

According to the deal with Orange, customers will be given £15 worth of SMS and voice credit for getting ads on their phones. The target customer segment, as always, comprises teenagers and young adults (aged 16-24 years).

Blyk has about 200,000 subscribers and the company is looking for more partnerships like this to tap into their subscriber base. According to sources, a small team from Blyk has been working very actively to find more partners in the UK and around the world.

I don’t think Blyk will find it too hard to find potential partners to sign such deals with. After all, the company is quite popular and has a reasonably large subscriber base. Most importantly, its subscribers respond to mobile advertising campaigns. It is a fact which has been proved without a shadow of a doubt in the past. So, I think a lot of companies will be interested to join hands with the company. It will be interesting to see how things turn out for Blyk. Watch this space for more details folks.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Blyk.

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Mobile Advertising to Go Mainstream?

A recent report from Limbo-GfK on mobile advertising has some encouraging news. It says that mobile advertising, as an advertising medium, is slowly becoming a mainstream phenomenon around the world. Here are some snippets from the report.

1. According to the report, nearly 35% of the mobile users in the U.S. got ads on their mobile phone during the fourth quarter of 2008. The number was particularly high with iPhone users – 42% of iPhone users in the country got mobile ads.

2. One third of mobile users who got ads responded to them in some way. Women, as expected, are more likely to respond than men.

3. 18-24 year-olds are most likely to respond to mobile ads.

4. In the UK, the mobile advertising market is growing bigger by the month. A lot of analysts have predicted a huge growth for the advertising medium which has made business owners, both small and large, take notice. As a result, a lot of marketers have decided to spend more on mobile advertising. The report claims that more than 50% of marketers in the UK have decided to increase their mobile advertising budgets in the coming months.

5. Already, more than 50% of advertising agencies in the UK have tried their hands on mobile advertising campaigns and have had relatively good success. So, it is likely to become an important part of the mainstream marketing plans both in the UK.

The way I see it, there are two important reasons why most marketers have decided to give mobile advertising a try. One is the huge success of companies like Blyk and AdMob. The other one, as we all know, is the global economic crisis which has made companies turn toward mobile advertising. At this credit-crunched time, it is obviously a wise move to spend on mobile advertising campaigns which are likely to give you better results than traditional advertising campaigns. Don’t you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Mobile Advertising Startups Attract VCs Despite Rough Economy

We already saw how bad economy has managed to make a lot of companies interested in mobile advertising. It does not stop there. It keeps getting better and better. According to the latest reports, a lot of VCs (venture capitalists) are interested to invest in mobile advertising start ups as they show a lot of promise despite the rough economy.

Two examples come to my mind right now.

1. Blyk, one of the most popular companies in the market right now, recently managed to raise more than $50 million in private investments in its third round of funding. Considering the growth it has had so far, I would have to say that the investors have made the right choice.

2. AdMob, yet another famous U.S. based company, managed to raise around $16 million a few months back. Again, considering the numbers we have seen so far, this does not sound surprising at all.

If you notice carefully, you can see that there has been a paradigm shift in the advertising industry lately. The money spent on traditional advertising methods like TV ads, radio ads, and print ads has come down significantly. At the same time, mobile advertising is slowly becoming a lot more affordable than it used to be in the past. And thanks to the state our economy is in right now, businesses cannot afford to spend money on ads that don’t deliver results.

The biggest advantage with mobile phone advertising is that it delivers terrific results. The average CTR (click through rate) of a mobile advertising campaign is in the range of 1.5% to 2%. In some cases, it has been unbelievably high thanks to specific, targeted advertising campaigns. For example, the average response rate of Blyk’s mobile ad campaigns is a whopping 29%. So, even if you spend a little more money than what you usually spend, you are bound to get very good results. This is what makes mobile advertising so good.

Research firm eMarketer says that mobile advertising market will grow significantly in the next few years. It says that the proliferation of high end phones has made things easier for mobile advertisers as these smartphones open a lot of possibilities for ads.

In summary – I just have to say what I always say. Mobile advertising is here to stay. Don’t you guys think so too?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Germany based mobile web portal offers free text message service

If you are one of those people who are still wondering if the whole concept of ‘offering free mobile content supported by ads’ is good or bad, here is some news for you. A German company has recently come up with an idea that is so good that even the harshest critic of mobile advertising will find it hard to argue against.

Mjoy.com, a Germany based mobile web portal, offers free SMS (text message) service for its registered users all around the world. The service is simple – as a registered user, you will be able to send text messages to any phone, any network, anywhere in the world – for free. How does it sound?

This is usually the point at which the question ‘how can they afford to do so?’ comes up. The answer to that question is something you are already familiar with, if you have been following this blog. It is mobile advertising.

This free service is supported by advertising banners in the portal. Mjoy has officially stated that these mobile ads will not be a hindrance for users as they will be placed in such a manner that they do not disturb the user experience by any means. On top of that, the company has also promised that the users will not be sent any sort of commercial text messages at any time in the future.

Even at the risk of making this blog post sound like a sponsored piece, I have to tell you something about the cool features of this service.

1. There are no character limits for the text messages that you send.

2. The text messages you send and receive will be stored in chat mode in your Mjoy inbox.

3. As a registered user, you can sync your mobile phone contacts with the Mjoy network if you want to.

4. You can also access a variety of mobile content like videos, widgets, pictures, sounds, and much more in Mjoy portal.

Already, we have seen a success story in Blyk, which has now become synonymous with ad supported mobile content. Is Mjoy another success story in the making? Only time will tell. What do you think?

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

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Ad funded mobile operator Blyk has 200,000 subscribers now

It’s time for a little celebration in good old Blighty. Blyk, the London based ad funded mobile operator, has reached yet another milestone quietly. The company has increased the number of its subscribers to a whopping 200,000.

To understand the significance of this feat, we need to put things in perspective. Blyk is the first ad funded mobile operator in the world. When it started off, it had just one goal. It was to get 100,000 subscribers within the first year. However, since the company was funded completely by advertisements, no one really thought it was possible. The idea of people getting talk time in return for getting ads on their mobile phone didn’t sound majorly appealing at that point of time. However, the response was so good that it reached its goal in just six months.

Now, just a few months after reaching its goal of 100,000 subscribers, the company has crossed yet another milestone – 200,000 loyal customers – All of them willing to get ads on their mobile phone to get free talk time and free text messages.

The important thing to be noted here is that the response rate for these mobile ads has been nothing short of terrific. 25% of the customers who get ads on their mobile phone respond to them. In other words, it costs only around $0.85 per response, making it highly profitable for the advertisers.

200,000, when compared to the millions of subscribers in the UK, might seem like a small number. But you have to consider an important point here. This is the beginning of a trend. Mobile advertising is still in its infant stage and a lot of mobile users around the world are yet to realize its benefits. So, in a relatively new market, Blyk has been able to get 200,000 loyal subscribers within such a short span of time. And it has managed to achieve the highest response rates at the lowest costs possible. In other words, it has got a highly targeted customer base which is a dream for any advertiser. With the number of mobile users increasing by the day and people becoming aware of mobile advertising, you can only expect these numbers to up. To put it simply – watch out for Blyk.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Blyk.

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