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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Mobile phones in India to come preloaded with ads?

With a mobile user base of around 250 million and growing, India continues to be the hottest market for mobile phone manufacturers. However, the rates of mobile phones have gone down sharply over the years. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the target customer segment of mobile phone manufacturers as far as India is concerned is the middle class people. According to surveys, the number of middle class people in India is estimated close to 300 million. In order to target this segment, mobile phone manufacturers have introduced new models which cost very little. And since the middle class also happens to be the most active customer segment in India, the low-priced models usually sell well, leaving the mobile manufacturers with no option but to continue with them.

Second, there is hellacious competition in the market. Both CDMA and GSM phone manufacturers are hell bent on capturing the biggest market share and as a result, they’ve cut down their prices sharply.

As a result, you can now get a mobile phone for just over $20 in India. Due to this reason, mobile phone manufacturers are looking for different ways to make money. One such way is mobile phone advertising.

Already, Nokia is planning to generate revenue through its mobile internet platform Ovi. Also, some of the mobile phone manufacturers in India are in talks with UK based mobile media firm Affle.

Especially, Affle’s SMS2.0, a mobile application, seems to have caught a lot of attention. This application adds a lot of new features like color, graphics, signature, and emoticons to an otherwise ordinary text messaging service. When the customer sends a text message using this application, there will be an ad at the bottom of the message and a full-screen ad while the message is being sent. Affle is also planning to add features like social networking and mobile search to this application.

Some of the big names in India including Airtel are interested in this technology and might soon incorporate it in their handsets. There are plans of releasing handsets which will have this application preinstalled. However, mobile manufactures might want to test the waters and see the user response for such handsets before taking any major decision.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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