So, what’s your take on cellphone advertising?

Right from tomorrow, you will be charged $100 a month for watching TV at home and $50 a month for listening to radio. Wait; there is a catch. From tomorrow, there will be no advertisements on TV and radio to interrupt you while you’re watching your favorite show. Doesn’t sound that exciting, does it?

What went wrong people? You hate ads; don’t you? You get annoyed whenever you get ads, you don’t like being interrupted while you’re watching your favorite show or your favorite movie for that matter, and you get annoyed big time when you get an ad in the radio when you’re listening to the latest news. So, pay the money and enjoy ad-free television and radio. Wait; did I hear you say “adverts are a part of television and radio broadcasting as they need to keep it free for people”?

Bingo; you’re right on the money. They have advertisers backing them up so that you can enjoy TV and radio without paying a dime. Now, what exactly is wrong in applying the same method in cellphones, could you please tell me?

The moment someone mentions cellphone ads, you jump over the roof shouting, “harassment, intrusion, violation of privacy, annoying” and every other word in your vocabulary; don’t you? What if the operators were to provide you with unlimited internet access if you agreed to get ads on your cellphone? Or what if the advertisers were to bear the costs of your text messages if you agreed to accept text message ads on your phone? Or even better, what if they give you free talk time if you agreed to listen to audio ads instead of a ringback tone? Doesn’t it sound freaking good?

I just want to know. Why the hell would anyone have problems with cellphone ads? If TV and radio can play ads any time they want, without your permission, 24 hours a day, why not cellphones? And that too, when you have the option to choose or reject your ads on your cellphone, why on earth would you have a problem? Beats me.

Remember these golden rules.

1. Cellphone advertisers are not vampires. They only send you relevant ads, in other words, something (read offers, discounts, and freebies) which you could make use of.

2. They do give you a choice to opt in or opt out of any advertising plan. It’s not that they point a gun at your head to make you get ads.

3. Most importantly, cellphone advertising is here to stay – irrespective of the hoopla created by a bunch of privacy advocates who don’t even understand the essence of the issue.

Hope that clears all the misconceptions about cellphone advertising. Now, next time when I hear someone say anything stupid about cellphone advertising, I’m gonna put them under the special plan I mentioned in the first paragraph. Ciao.

Categories: Rant.

5 comments.

Cox to enter the cellphone advertising market

Cox, a name well known in the television media, is preparing to enter the world of cellphone advertising. Cox is usually known for its television advertisements, but has decided to take its advertising program one step further into the cell phones of customers, thanks to the enormous hype that cellphone advertising has created in the market recently.

As you might know, user participation increases exponentially in any TV program if there is an option for the users to take part in the program through their cellphone. The best example for that would be the American Idol. The country saw millions of text messages being sent to choose their favorite as the American Idol and the program sponsors were simply amazed at the response. Similarly, Cox ran an advertising program for gourmet pizza chain Vocelli on TV last September, where users were asked to send text messages to get discount coupons. When users sent text messages, Cox replied them back with an offer in which customers can opt in to the Vocelli mobile club in order to be able to additional discounts and other offers. The user participation, needless to say, was higher than usual and more than half of the subscribers who sent text messages went on to opt in to the mobile club. This has given enormous confidence to Cox and it’s soon planning to venture into the world of cellphone advertising on a much larger scale.

The interesting thing to be noted here is, Cox partnered with Ping Mobile to run this advertising campaign. As more and more companies are interested in cellphone advertising, small cellphone advertising companies have a great chance to tie up with them and deliver their advertising solutions on a much larger scale.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

0 comments.

Will you let someone listen to your calls? Pudding Media thinks so.

Trust me; I never thought this could happen. But then. As much as I like the concept of cellphone advertising (of course with the consent of consumers), I don’t think this is a good idea. Pudding Media has come up with a new form of cellphone advertising which will make other cellphone advertisers in the industry think “damn; how on earth did they come up with that??”

Listen up folks; the idea is this. You make a call to someone, either through Pudding Media website or through your cellphone, your call will be monitored by an automated machine, software, program, or whatever you call it, and you’ll be presented with “contextual” adverts (that’s how they call it).

Take for example – you call up your friend and talk about going for a movie. You get a display ad on your cellphone screen with the latest movies and their show times in movie halls. You send a text message to your friend regarding your hang-out plan for the weekend. An ad carrying some info on the favorite hang-out places in your area will be appended to your text message. You ring up your friend to discuss something about your classes – you might hear an ad on the latest crash courses in the university in your area instead of the dial back tone. Uhmm; how does it sound to you?

Whoever came up with this idea needs to be applauded for having come up with the most intrusive cellphone advertising plan ever. Already, we have an internet giant reading our mails and displaying “relevant” ads. Now, we have a cellphone advertising program, which listens to our phone calls and comes up with “contextual” ads. I mean, aren’t you guys pushing the customers too far?

Let me make my stand clear – I’m all for a decent, opt-in cellphone advertising program which lessens the burden of the users’ cellphone bills. But, if you want to do so by listening to their calls, even via an automated program, I’m sorry to say – I don’t think you’ll find too many takers.

It’s time for me to ask you people – what do you think of this advertising plan? Do you think it’s okay to have someone/something listen to your calls? Would you allow that? Or will this program find its takers just like Gmail has got all of us suck up to it? I’d love to listen to your opinions. Bring it on.

Categories: Rant.

1 comment.

FCC auction for wireless spectrum

I know a lot has been said about the FCC auction for wireless spectrum. I know some of you might be wondering why make such a big fuss about an auction. Government auctions are a dime a dozen, after all; so why so much of importance is being given to this particular auction? That’s your question; right? Well; here comes the answer.

First of all, it’s not an ordinary auction, to say the least. FCC auction for wireless spectrum is perhaps one of the biggest in terms revenue and the outcome of the auction could change the entire landscape (or should I say airscape?) of the wireless industry. The auction is likely to fetch a whopping $15 billion for the Federal Government and this alone has made so much of news in the market.

What’s up with the wireless spectrum anyway? You ask me? Well; imagine wireless spectrum as a congregation of roads. The FCC will decide who gets to use which road for transportation. Now imagine, you’d obviously love to get the biggest and the most accessible road of them all; wouldn’t you? Similarly; in the wireless spectrum, specific frequencies are allocated for specific purposes like TV, radio, cellphone, and other wireless services. In the FCC auction that we’re talking about, the frequency for cellphone operation will be auctioned. As you probably know, cellphone advertising and marketing is considered a huge industry and has the potential to rake in revenue like anything. So, if you are a carrier or a handset market, you’d love to have that huge pie of the wireless spectrum which will put you in an enviable position in the market; right? This is why the auction is being given so much of importance.

The auction is scheduled on January 24 and expectations are sky high right now. Some of the names which will take part in the auction include Google, Verizon, Vermont Telephone Company, AT&T, Guam Cellular & Paging, and hell; even an oil company, Chevron is taking part in the auction. Now can you imagine this auction’s importance? Also, FCC has strictly mentioned that it’s going to be an open access system, whereas the customer gets to choose the network and the handset he wants to use. Earlier, it was not the case - if you wanted to switch to another network, you had to change your mobile too, as different carriers supported different mobiles. With the open access system, it will no more be the case, as the customer will be able to choose the service provider and the handset he wants at his own discretion.

So, for all these reasons, the FCC auction for wireless spectrum is considered huge. It’s less than a month away and already the speculations are running wild. I have my wager on Google; what about you?

Categories: Google.

2 comments.

Will Hollywood go mobile?

While the world is going gaga over cellphone advertising and marketing and the experts are predicting a helluva competition for the tiny little space of the cell phone, a certain industry which can exploit the world of cell phone advertising and marketing better than anyone else is yet to wake up.

No points for guessing it - the answer is Hollywood. It really surprises me how Hollywood has still not stepped into the world of cellphone marketing. Hollywood is, without a doubt, the most sophisticated film industry in the world and we all know how well they market their movies not just in the U.S.A., but all over the world. In fact, the reason behind the unbelievable craze for Hollywood movies all over the world is primarily good marketing, content comes only next. With marketing playing such a big role in Hollywood and a lot of corporate players entering the market, it’s only normal to assume that they would have tried out the hottest trend of ‘em all – cellphone advertising and marketing. But surprisingly, that’s not the answer. Barring 20th Century Fox, no other major film company has tried out cellphone marketing on a large scale yet.

It’s not that the idea has never been tested. 20th Century Fox tried its hands on cellphone marketing with Borat and The Simpsons Movie and released short video clips, wallpapers, and ringtones and had a good response. In fact, you’ll be surprised to know that Hollywood is quite late to catch up with international players when it comes to cellphone advertising. Or, make that very late.

India, as many of you might know, is the fastest growing mobile phone market today and it is also one of the biggest markets in terms of volume. What you don’t know is that it is also one of the hottest markets for cellphone advertising and marketing. Bollywood, as Indian film industry is popularly referred to, is certainly the pioneer in cellphone advertising and marketing. Over the past couple years, Indian film makers have promoted their movies through the cellphone and have succeeded big time. In fact, the film makers of Om Shanti Om and Saawariya, two of the biggest films in India this year, had tie ups with Nokia and Sony Ericsson respectively and promoted their movies unbelievably well. In fact, mobile marketing companies in India have also gone one step further and have introduced games based on Indian film stars, which has also got tremendous response from cellphone users.

If Bollywood, with a limited global presence can be so successful with cellphone advertising and marketing, what makes Hollywood think twice to take the plunge? Wake up guys – the people are ready. It’s you guys who need to kick yourselves for not waking up in time.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

0 comments.

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