Mobile Advertisers Eyeing the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa

A recent report from JBB research, a U.S. based research group, says that the 2010 soccer world cup could give the mobile advertising industry in South Africa a huge boost.

The soccer world cup starts on June 11 and ends on July 11. This month long event is supposed to generate a huge amount of interest among fans all over the country and advertisers are planning to reach out to these fans using the mobile phone as a medium.

The report says that advertisers are planning to come up with a lot of ad funded UGC (user generated content) applications to make fans actively participate in various contests. The soccer world cup is the world’s most watched sporting event and the amount of money spent on advertising will be huge. A significant amount of this money will be spent on mobile advertising since the country has a very active mobile user base.

This news should not come as a surprise for anyone who has been a regular reader of this blog, since we have already discussed the staggering growth of mobile advertising in South Africa here, here, here, and here. If you are an advertiser in a country which has 30 million mobile users, most of whom are into mobile social networking and mobile web, it is only natural that you use the mobile phone as a medium to reach out to your target customer base. In fact, the report says that most South Africans keep in touch with each other through mobile social networking sites like MXit, Meep, MTN’s noknok, and Facebook instead of calling each other or texting each other.

The report also says that the number of high end phone users in the country could increase significantly by the end of this year, when video broadcasting enabled mobile phones are introduced to the market. This could open a plethora of opportunities for advertisers to reach out to their target customer base – video streaming, video based mobile blogging, and more. So, mobile advertisers are very optimistic and are expecting very good response rates for their mobile marketing campaigns.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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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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