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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AT&T’s mobile TV - Deal or no deal?

Mobile TV has gained a lot of attraction in the recent times. Mobile advertisers are looking to go beyond the traditional means of advertising on mobile phones like text messaging (SMS), MMS, and banner ads and mobile TV could be the ideal choice for them. There are two reasons for this. First, people are used to ads on TV. So, watching ads during a TV show, even if it’s on their mobile phone, won’t sound too odd to them. Second, you can offer a huge variety of content via mobile TV which can attract plenty of people, making it more lucrative than SMS ads or banner ads.

However, not everyone is painting a rosy picture about mobile TV. For example, the latest offer from AT&T – AT&T Mobile TV – has raised a debate among experts.

AT&T has launched its mobile TV service in 58 markets and uses the same Qualcomm MediaFlo service used by its counterpart Verizon. If you remember, Verizon launched its V Cast Mobile TV a few weeks back. AT&T offers 10 channels at a rate of $15 per month. However, experts say this might not go down too well with everyone.

They seem to come up with two reasons. First, not everyone will be enthusiastic about paying $15 a month for mobile TV. Second, only two handsets can support this mobile TV service - LG Vu which costs $300 and Samsung Access which costs $200.

My take on this issue is simple. Both Verizon and AT&T offer mobile TV services from MediaFlo which are far superior in quality than watching a downloaded video clip on your mobile phone. Market research shows that there is a considerable audience, if not large, for mobile video and this could work in favor of mobile TV. However, the downside, as I already mentioned in my article earlier, is that only two or three handsets can support this service. You cannot expect everyone to buy a $300 mobile phone. So, if they could make it available on more handsets, handsets that are affordable, I think they could attract a good number of users.

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

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Pittsburgh Penguins’ innovative text alerts program

The thing about mobile advertising is that it’s an inclusive market. While big brands fight over the coveted market leader position, small players can quietly carve a niche for themselves. If you’ve got something valuable to offer, you will certainly find takers. Take for example, a National Hockey League team which has struck the right chord with its fans big time via its text messaging program.

Pittsburgh Penguins, the famous NFL team, has been sending text message alerts to college students about its ticket sales, available tickets, discount offers, and other things for the past two years successfully. It all started when the team wanted to reach out to college kids, who form a considerable fan base. The team started sending text messages to college kids about the number of tickets available and the discounts offered and the response was pretty good. Encouraged by this good response, the team hired the services of Vibes Media, a mobile marketing agency, and came up with the idea of mobile based contests and giveaways. The response was brilliant as more than 80% of the fans responded by taking part in the contests. Now, Pittsburgh Penguins regularly sends team news, game recaps, and plenty of other alerts to more than 20,000 fans.

Already, popular brands like Pizza Hut have sponsored some of the text alerts and thanks to the positive response from the fans, the team is thinking of an idea to tap this market and earn some revenue through sponsored text alerts. Now, is that smart or what?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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