68100 - Ad-funded Mobile Directory Enquiry Service in the U.K.

One of the complaints of people who live in the U.K. is that the directory enquiries service in the country is pretty expensive. Popular companies like Yell, Maureen, and BT charge about £1 per minute which is not cheap by any stretch of imagination. Now, there is a cheaper alternative available in the form of 68100.

The directory enquiry service offered by 68100 covers both business and residential landline numbers in the country and costs only 35p per minute. Now, some of you might be thinking ‘there has to be a catch somewhere’. It is true. There is a catch. You need to listen to an ad when you call this number. It is a concept that you are all familiar with – mobile advertising. Let me tell you how it works.

1. You call 68100.

2. Your call is attended by an operator who searches for the number you request.

3. You listen to a small 20-second ad.

4. An automatic voice reads out the number you requested.

5. Once you hang up the phone, you get a text message which contains the requested number and an offer from an advertiser.

6. If you want the service to connect you to the number you requested, you can press 1.

7. If you are interested in the offer from the advertiser, you can press 2.

It is like any other directory enquiry service. The only difference is that it is available at an affordable price since a significant portion of the cost is covered by mobile advertisers.

The question now is whether people will be willing to listen to ads or not. It is difficult to answer this question. Some might avoid using this service because of their rabid aversion for ads. Some might use this service since it is cheap. I, for one, wouldn’t mind using such a service if I can save a pound or two. So, it all depends on people’s preferences.

The only problem with this service, in my opinion, is that it primarily caters to people who have low end mobile phones without internet connectivity option. If a person has a high end mobile phone, like I do, he can easily get the information he wants by visiting the website of Yell or Maureen. He does not need to use this service at all. Apart from this, I do not see any other problem with this service. This, I think, is yet another example as to how useful mobile advertising can be if presented the right way. What do you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.

Expert from MMA Discusses the Future of Mobile Marketing

Chasing The Storm has a good interview of Rohit Dadwal from MMA (Mobile Marketing Association). To my surprise, most of the things Rohit mentioned in the interview are things that I am already familiar with. In fact, anyone who has been following the mobile marketing industry closely could easily relate to what Rohit says in his interview. Some of the most important points he made include

1. SMS (short messaging service) marketing or text message marketing will continue to grow steadily in 2009.

2. Bad economy will make businesses and brands think twice before spending their money on traditional advertising. So, they are more likely to spend their advertising dollars only in mediums like mobile phone marketing that guarantee quantifiable returns and successes.

3. Mobile social networking will continue to grow steadily.

4. Mobile search marketing will become big.

5. Location based services will be a huge success and it will continue to play a major role in mobile marketing.

6. Mobile coupons and mobile alerts will become a lot more popular with people.

7. In the next five years, a lot of brands around the world will have a strong mobile presence. In fact, it will become so common that it will be unusual for a big brand to not have a strong mobile presence.

8. Mobile marketing is meant for businesses of all sizes. No matter how small or how big a business empire you have, all you need is the ability to reach the end users. So, businesses can benefit from mobile marketing irrespective of their size and popularity.

As you can see, none of the points made above is new. If you have been following the industry closely, you can see that it is growing steadily and moving in a direction exactly as predicted by experts a few years back. If it continues to grow the same way, it will be a multibillion dollar industry just as predicted. Don’t you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Marketing Association.

6 comments.

Verizon Wireless to charge companies for text messages

Verizon Wireless has announced that it will charge its partners 3 cents per text message sent to its subscribers, a move that has surprised a lot of people. For nearly five years, Verizon has not charged its partner companies that regularly send plenty of text messages, most of which are promotional in manner, to its millions of subscribers. Come November 1st, it will all change.

From now on, companies that have partnered with Verizon have to pay 3 cents for each text message they send through Verizon’s network. Companies offering text message alerts, interactive SMS polls, and SMS search will have to pay this amount from the first of November. However, Verizon has made it clear that this charge applies only to standard and premium programs and not to the free-to-end-user kind of programs.

While 3 cents per text message might not look that big an amount now, it could form a significant source of income for Verizon in the long run. This is the first time the company has reassessed its charges ever since it started partnering with other companies in 2003.

Now the important question is – will other carriers follow suit? After all, if a network carrier wants to charge for the text messages sent through its network, there is not much its partners can do. Especially, with SMS advertising becoming more popular than ever, they cannot afford to lose a highly targeted advertising medium. So, the companies will most probably try to come to terms with these changes in the industry. It will be interesting to see the reaction of other carriers in the coming days.

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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On why some people should not be allowed to blog

I’ve written quite a few rant pieces in this blog. In all those posts, I usually picked on a blog post which was either annoying or ill-informed in nature. But trust me. None of those posts can hold a candle to what you’re about to see now.

There was a story in the Daily Mail. I’ve summarized it below.

A young man in UK was killed in a car accident. Apparently, he was looking at his mobile phone when he tried to cross the road and didn’t see the car coming toward him. So, naturally, he was hit by the car and suffered very bad injuries. He was taken to the hospital, but he died anyway.

The interesting twist to this story is that the text message was apparently a ‘spam’ message sent by a debt management company. So, this blogger decided to spice up things a little and came up with this horrendous headline.

“Deadly Cell Phone Text Ad”

And then, he goes on to say that the text advert led to the man’s death.

Can someone freakin’ tell me what this guy’s problem is? The victim died because of his carelessness and not because of the driver’s fault. And most certainly, it was not the text message’s fault. Now, if you notice the article in the Daily Mail carefully, nobody, including the family members of the deceased, has blamed either the driver or the text message. Our man simply gave a dramatic twist to the story to get a few more hits.

Now, had it been a text message from a relative, could he have come up with a headline like this?

“Young Man Killed by Relative through Deadly Text Message”

Seriously folks; if you hate spam, I have no problems. At all. But please don’t try to come up with such sinfully stupid posts. It only reflects on your intelligence.

Categories: Rant.

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Mobile TV to become a $15 billion market in 2012

It seems mobile TV has caught the attention of market analysts big time. A lot of experts are touting mobile TV as the next big thing and here’s yet another report which has come up with quite an optimistic prediction, I should say.

A new research report from Multimedia Intelligence predicts that mobile TV market will be worth a whopping $15 billion in 2012. The report says that customers now demand personalized entertainment from their mobile phones more than ever before, as there is a huge influx of high-end mobile phones in the market these days. This has led to the belief that mobile TV will play a huge role in the future of mobile entertainment.

Also, mobile TV is considered the perfect medium for advertising by many as it has a huge advantage over other forms of mobile ads such as text message ads, banner ads, and WAP links. Ads in TV are something we’ve all got used to. So, when you’re watching your favorite show on mobile TV, an ad break won’t look too strange to you. On the other hand, a mobile banner ad can easily be considered intrusive by many. Also, the recall rates for mobile TV ads will be extremely high, as the ads are highly engaging. This is something I’ve already discussed in detail here.

However, there is one missing link here. While mobile TV could provide some good on-the-go entertainment for users and some good ad revenue for advertisers and operators, it will happen only if it’s offered free of cost. A paid mobile TV service, no matter how good it is, will not find a lot of takers in this era of freebies. We already have an example for this in the form of AT&T and Verizon’s mobile TV service - both got a lukewarm response from users. So, like I already said, ad-funded mobile TV could be the future. What do you think folks?

Categories: Mobile TV.

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