Indian company to introduce audio ads in mobile phones

How many times have you called your friend on his mobile phone and heard a song instead of the usual ringback tone? It’s quite common these days, right? Well; we’re about to get to the next stage of it. How about getting some audio ads instead of ringback tones?

OnMobile, an interactive advertising company in India, has come up with this idea. Suitably named AdRBT (Ad Ringback Tones), the program allows mobile users to opt in to the program which will replace the usual ringback tone with a variety of audio ads. In exchange, the user will get special discounts and offers.

OnMobile is confident that these audio ads will have high response rates and excellent recall rates and the impact might be huge. However, I think it’s only a 50/50 chance. Not many will be excited at the prospect of replacing their ringback tones with arbitrary ads and it might not be a smooth sail for the company initially. The way I see it, even people who are fine with text message ads and banner ads might find these audio ads a tad intrusive. But then, it’s just my opinion. And the Indians in general are not as finicky about mobile ads as their US counter parts. So, I might as well be proved wrong. Either way, it will be interesting to see the progress this company makes.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.

YuuZoo enters mobile advertising with a bang

YuuZoo, a popular name in the world of mobile content and mobile advertising, has moved from its beta phase and will soon start rendering its services to a number of countries including China, India, US, UK, Germany, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

In case you don’t know YuuZoo, here’s a small piece of info. YuuZoo is backed and financed by a number of high profile executives from Nokia, Ogilvy & Mather, and Ericsson and is famous world over.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of YuuZoo is the extensive range of mobile content it has on offer. It has partnered with some of the best mobile technology companies in the world and offers a wide range of mobile content, most of which are exclusive.

With the current set up, YuuZoo can easily reach around 1 billion consumers around the world. What this means to mobile advertisers around the world is that they can now easily target a huge number of consumers with the help of YuuZoo. With its technology, YuuZoo can help mobile advertisers send highly targeted ads to consumers – both local and international.

It will be interesting to see the growth of YuuZoo in the coming months. With such a strong set up, I think it is certainly a force to be reckoned with in the mobile advertising industry.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.

Coca Cola and Hindustan Unilever launch mobile advertising campaigns

Two of the major FMCG brands, Hindustan Unilever and Coca Cola, have recently launched mobile advertising campaigns in India.

Mobile advertising in India is becoming popular of late and we’ve already seen some evidences of clever mobile advertising campaigns from film personalities in India. Now, it’s the turn of big brands to get into mobile marketing seriously.

While Coca Cola has launched a mobile advertising campaign for its fizzy drink Sprite, Hindustan Unilever has launched one for its ice-cream brand Cornetto. Among other things, you need to understand the ‘timing’ of these campaigns. This is the summer season in India and believe me, it’s h-o-t. In fact, it’s so hot that more than 50% of annual soft drink sales happen during this season. So, what better way to boost it further than by launching a mobile advertising campaign? Clever stuff, I should say.

Coincidentally, both these companies have sought the services of Oxigen, a value-added service provider for mobile phones. If this turns out to be a success, we can see more and more companies getting into mobile advertising in the coming days.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

1 comment.

Airtel to pay its subscribers to listen to mobile ads

Few days back, I had blogged about Airvoice Infocomm, an Indian company, which pays you to listen to ads in your mobile phone. Now, the company has found a taker. A big one. Bharti Airtel Limited, one of the biggest operators in India, has decided to use HapAd, the patented software from Airvoice Infocomm which helps users listen to ads in their mobile phone and also get paid for doing so.

Airtel has announced that it will be launching this service in its network in a couple of months. Airvoice Infocomm has stated that based on the response that Airtel gets, it will think about deploying the technology in other networks.

There are three parties involved in this process. Airvoice Infocomm will use its software and also procure the required ads, the telephone companies will offer their network, and the mobile user will listen to the ads by subscribing to them. The ad revenue generated will be split among these three parties. Sounds like a fair deal, doesn’t it?

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

0 comments.

Indian company to pay users to listen to ads in mobile phone

Trust me; this could well be the best deal ever for a mobile user. Airvoice Infocomm, a private company in India, has come up with a plan which could truly change the mobile advertising market in India. You get paid for getting ads in your mobile phone. Interested? Read on.

The plan is simple gentlemen. When you make a call from your mobile phone, you’ll hear a 10 second ad before connecting to the number you call. Okay; so, what’s so special about this? Well; you get paid every time you listen to an ad.

Now, in order to stay clear of privacy intrusion issues and all that jazz, the company has three options for mobile users.

1. The mobile ad campaign is subscription based. So, you get ads only if you want.

2. You can choose the type of ads you want to hear and you can also choose at what time you want to hear those ads.

3. You also have the option to skip an ad, if you are not in the mood to listen to it.

4. You can opt out of this program any time you want.

I mean, honestly, could it get any better? You get paid for the ad, you get to choose the type of ad, you can listen to those ads whenever you choose to, you can skip them if you want, and you can say no any time you want.

This campaign will be launched in a few months and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a lot of takers, including yours truly.

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

0 comments.

Older »