Indian Mobile Advertising Market on a Roll

We have seen a lot of reports about India being a very dominant player in the mobile advertising market, right? Here is one more report to add to that long list. Limbo, a California based mobile social networking company, and GfK Technology, a Germany based market research company, have come up with a joint report which brings up some important points about mobile advertising in India.

The report says that eight in ten mobile phone users in India get ads on their mobile phone which is unprecedented to say the least. The numbers we are talking are huge – there are 300 million mobile users in India now and, on an average, there are 100 million new mobile connections added every year. In this scenario, mobile ads could have a tremendous reach in both urban and rural areas.

The report also says that text messaging or SMS (short messaging service) is the most sought after format of mobile advertising. Around 75% of the ads delivered in India are text based.

Mobile internet or mobile web is not as popular as one would imagine in India as data plans are quite costly. But the report predicts that the rates will come down significantly due to three reasons.

1. A lot of youngsters are interested in mobile web. Considering the fact that more than 500 million people in India are yet to celebrate their 20th birthday, this is a huge market.

2. The quality of mobile web browsing has increased tremendously thanks to high end phones like Apple iPhone. So, the number of people who use the feature will go up steadily.

3. Most importantly, mobile web, as predicted by experts around the world, is the future of mobile advertising. So, mobile advertisers will find a way to reach their target customers through mobile web. What this means to the end user is that he could get a lot of free, ad sponsored multimedia content.

At the end of the day, all this data leaves us with a question – is the future of mobile phone advertising heading east?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Pepsi and MyClick launch digital campaign

Pepsi has launched a mobile marketing campaign in connection with the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Pepsi has joined hands with MyClick, a famous snap-and-click marketer, to launch this campaign which targets 12-24-year-olds.

In this campaign, customers are invited to upload their birth date, phone number, nickname, and their photo on any one of the six web portals available in China. Three lucky winners, who will be chosen at random, will have a chance to be featured on special edition Pepsi cans during the summer Olympics.

The winners of this contest will be chosen by fans who can vote for their favorites. They need to download MyClick application on the web portal in order to be able to access everything from voting to status updates.

Pepsi Cola is planning to promote this campaign called ‘Creative Challenge’ big time via TV advertising, internet advertising, MMS, text messaging, point-of-sale promotions in retail outlets, and mobile WAP sites. A huge majority of people in China use their mobile phone as the primary device for interaction and this has given Pepsi tremendous confidence to go ahead and launch this campaign.

These kinds of mobile based contests have become huge successes in the past (read American Idol and other such shows) and I have no doubt that this will become hugely popular too, given the kind of promotion Pepsi is planning to do.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Blyk to offer free mobile browsing?

Blyk is one of the few well known names in the world of mobile advertising. Especially, the way it has targeted the 16-24 age group for mobile ads is considered very good by a lot of people. In a recent insight discussion group with members, Blyk discussed a lot of issues. The most talked about issue, as you would have guessed from the title of this post, was free mobile browsing.

Blyk does this insight discussion group thing often enough to understand the needs of their core market and to adapt themselves to the evolving mobile advertising market.

In this recent discussion, one of the major gripes was the youth’s need for a shortcut to information. As of now, text messaging (SMS) and MMS are the most sought-after ways to reach out to teenagers. Young people are swift in responding to such ads and the success rate has been pretty good so far. But the catch is mobile internet / mobile browsing. If they click on a link which takes them to a mobile site, they have problems viewing it because of two reasons.

1) Mobile browsing costs are way too high and young people, at least most of them, don’t have a regular income, which makes them reluctant to click on the links sent by advertisers.

2) A lot of them don’t have high-end mobile phones which offer rich browsing experience. So, browsing in general becomes a little tougher.

Now, the second reason can somehow be overlooked. The reason being – if I got a link in a mobile ad which could take me to a site where I can download latest ringtones for free, I wouldn’t complain a lot about my poor browsing experience, as long as it is good enough to get the job done.

But the first point is very important. So, in the discussion group, one point which was often raised was about offering free browsing to customers. This, no doubt, would encourage a lot of people to click on the links and check out what the advertisers have on offer, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. The data charges for browsing are quite high and Blyk should think of a strategy to cover its costs if it were to provide its customers with free browsing. What could be the solution? We don’t know as of now. But, as I always say, stay tuned.

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

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University grads come up with a text message based mobile advertising idea

Two graduates from Carnegie Mellon University are working to make text messaging (SMS) facility in your mobile phone more useful than ever. They believe that text message is the ideal and the easiest way for marketers to reach their customers effectively.

The idea is simple. The advertiser will have text codes in his ads and when a customer wants to know more details about the product/service advertised, all he needs to do is take his mobile phone and send a text message and get the information he wants right in his mobile phone. This technology will be launched this summer by the famous Smash Technologies.

This will be a great opportunity for retailers and small business owners to advertise their products/service more effectively. Also, it’s the customer who makes the first move in this campaign by responding to the ad with a text message. So, he can always choose to only respond to those ads which he finds useful. As a result, what you have is – no privacy concerns for the consumer and an effective advertising method for the advertiser.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Mobile World Congress in Barcelona - Few thoughts

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is undoubtedly one of the most talked-about events in recent times, especially in the mobile advertising and marketing industry. A lot of big names in the industry were present at the event and they discussed a lot about mobile phone industry, particularly the future of mobile messaging – both text messaging (SMS) and multimedia messaging (MMS). Some interesting points were raised.

As expected, Asia continues to be the dominant player in the mobile phone market. The growth opportunity in countries like India is tremendous and it can easily be termed the most happening market as of now.

In China, mobile spam has increased significantly. Operators are trying hard to prevent mobile spam and working on it. Same is the case with mobile virus.

As far as services like mobile email, mobile instant messenger, and mobile videoconferencing are concerned, the Middle East is considered the biggest market and experts see a lot of scope for growth there.

Compared to the US, Europe is ahead in terms of services like mobile email, mobile music, and MMS and operators consider these services to be a regular source of revenue, apart from calling charges.

The experts stated that while text messaging is the major form of mobile advertising today, MMS and other services will also join the list soon as more and more mobile advertisers are looking to advertise via MMS and mobile internet in high-end phones.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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