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.

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Cell phone advertisers target teens

What to wear for the prom? What’s hot and what’s not this season? How to say no to alcohol on the prom night? Well; teens can get all this info and more right on their cell phone.

Since teenagers are the ones who spend a lot of time on their cell phone, cell phone advertisers have started target them by offering lots of cool stuff through text messages, WAP links, and more. Now, they can subscribe to ad campaigns and have lots of cool tips, offers, and other things delivered right on their cell phone. They could get fashion tips, news about the latest model jewelry, WAP links to cool mobile sites, discount coupons on famous beauty products, and more. Cell phone advertisers say that teenagers don’t mind getting relevant ads that they find useful and respond to them pretty regularly.

Advertisers find it easier to create a following for their products through cell phone advertising. As these text alerts and ads are delivered only to people who are interested, they are most likely to respond to them. So, the response rate is pretty high in this kind of interactive advertising.

I think it’s a nice arrangement. Teens get what they want and the advertisers get what they want. However, I think advertisers should not send a gazillion ads to their teenage subscribers just because they’re open to it. They could easily get fed up. Also, a lot of teenagers don’t have a regular disposable income and depend on their parents for their cell phone bill. As an advertiser, you sure don’t want to make these parents see red when they come to know how much their son or daughter is spending on text messages. So, a small number of relevant, useful ads at regular intervals could be the perfect recipe to attract a lot of teens.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Mobicom and Qkey Holdings to launch a unique interactive advertising platform

Mobicom Corp. has joined hands with Qkey Holdings, a digital marketing platform developer. Qkey Holdings has a unique platform which has generated a lot of buzz in the market. In fact, this particular platform is probably the reason why Mobicom signed a joint venture agreement with Qkey Holdings.

So, what’s so special about this platform? It changes an outdoor advertisement like billboard into a mobile based one. Qkey platform has an interactive advertising technology which enables the user to access the outdoor billboard ad through his mobile phone and get the information he wants downloaded in his mobile phone or in his email.

This process takes the revolutionary step of connecting two different forms of advertising – outdoor advertising and mobile phone advertising. Mobicom Corp. is pretty upbeat about this joint venture and thinks this will get a good response from people.

Mobicom is planning to launch this platform first in Asia and has plans to launch it in other markets depending on the response they get from the Asian market. South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, China, and Malaysia are the countries they’ve decided to launch this platform in.

The reason behind Mobicom’s decision to launch the platform first in Asia is very simple. In China, 17% of the total amount spent on advertising goes to outdoor advertising like billboards whereas in the U.S., only around 4% goes to outdoor advertising. So, the response for the platform will be obviously better in the Asian markets.

I think the platform will be a success in the Asian market. The real test though would be in the American and European markets where this kind of advertising is not as popular as it is in Asia.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Men’s Health to incorporate fully interactive advertising

Perhaps the most popular men’s lifestyle magazine in the world today, Men’s Health, is all set to become the first magazine to incorporate fully interactive advertising in the U.S.A. Men’s Health has joined hands with SnapTell, a mobile marketing solutions company, to incorporate image recognition based technology in its magazine.

What this means to you, the magazine reader, is this. From now on, you can simply take a snap of the advertisements in the magazines with your cell phone camera and send a short code to SnapTell. In return, you’ll get a promotional bounce-back. It might be a discount coupon, a sweepstake offer, product sample, or free wallpapers and videos.

This makes responding to ads so easy for the users and this might increase user response big time. We’ve seen ads in magazines and newspapers which ask us to call a number or visit a store to get more information. But this is really, really simple. You just need to take a snap and send a short code. I think the response rate for this kind of interactive advertising will be way better than traditional ads, for obvious reasons.

Also, there are two things that make this technology extremely useful. First, it’s compatible with all cell phone providers across the country. Second, you don’t need to download any software to make use of this technology.

Men’s Health’s July/August issue will be the first issue to come out with this technology and it hits the news stands on June 24. Make sure you check it out.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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