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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Nokia to open Ad Labs to teach mobile marketing techniques

Nokia is planning to open a series of training labs called ‘Ad Labs’ which will teach traditional advertising agencies the art of mobile marketing. Nokia revealed its plans at the Cannes International Advertising Festival 2008. Mike Baker, the VP and the head of mobile advertising in Nokia, said that Nokia’s traditional advertising staff will benefit tremendously from this training and the long time goal is to make them competent enough to create highly targeted mobile marketing campaigns for their clients. To begin with, Nokia will start Ad Labs in Boston and London.

This is a very important move as far as Nokia is concerned. Of late, Nokia has been trying hard for an image makeover – from just a mobile manufacturer to a mobile marketing conglomerate. If you take a look at Nokia’s actions in the recent past, there is a definite pattern. It acquired Enpocket, developed its own mobile internet platform Ovi, it joined hands with France Telecom, and now it’s planning to open Ad Labs for mobile marketing training. Could it get any more obvious? Surprisingly, yours truly predicted a Nokia vs. Google scenario some time back and it seems it might come true after all. What do you say?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Nokia.

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South Africa - Mobile advertisers’ dream market

While experts all over the world are arguing whether or not mobile advertising will grow at the rate it’s been predicted to grow, there is one market which has sent a loud and clear message to all of ‘em. It’s South Africa.

Mobile advertising in South Africa has been very successful and as a result lots and lots of brands are coming up with innovative mobile marketing campaigns to reach out to their target customers. Just check out the facts below.

1. MMS (multimedia messaging service) has been the most successful form of mobile advertising in SA. Most MMS campaigns get a tremendous response within just 48 hours.

2. The response rate for mobile advertising in general has been very good. It’s usually in the range of 10% to 25%, which is way better than the response rates for traditional advertising methods.

3. Amazingly, only less than 1% of people unsubscribe from mobile advertising campaigns on an average.

4. The viral impact of mobile ads has been phenomenal, with mobile users sharing mobile ads with their friends, family, and other people.

5. A lot of companies in South Africa have started their own mobile websites to bring customized mobile content to their customers and the response has been pretty good.

So, South African market has debunked the fact that people in general are averse to mobile ads and all that. Needless to mention, South Africa is said to have the most proactive mobile user base in the world and their data rates are perhaps the cheapest in the world.

This has just reaffirmed my faith that providing useful, relevant mobile content at affordable rates is the key to successful mobile advertising.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Basics of mobile marketing

The New Media Institute recently released a report on mobile marketing which had some interesting facts and very good points.

The report says that a lot of major brands in the US are into mobile marketing and their success rate has been very good so far. It also says that when done the right way, mobile marketing can get you very good results which will be way better than the results that you get from traditional advertising methods. One of the main reasons why all these big brands choose mobile marketing is the ability to connect to people. Mobile marketing can help you target your customer segment accurately – something that traditional advertising methods often fail at.

The report also states three important things about mobile marketing.

First, you need to offer something to people in order to make them join your mobile community. You need to convince them that there is a benefit in joining your community. You can do this by offering free products, discount coupons, special access to exclusive content, and so on.

Second, you need to make sure you respect their privacy. You need to contact them only when they want you to, not whenever you want to.

Third, relevancy of your campaign. You should get to know about people’s preferences and target your mobile marketing campaign accordingly. You cannot send an ad on KFC to a PETA activist. So, you need to make sure you send relevant ads in order to get response from the other end.

Well; I think that pretty much sums up everything. Mobile marketing campaign, when done the right way, can be the magic bullet big brands are looking for.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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On why mobile web is the next big thing

Sometimes, people ask me why I get excited about the future of mobile web. Well; what do I tell them? Just check this out.

There are 3.3 billion mobile users in the world today as opposed to 1.5 billion TV users and 1.1 billion PC users.

In Japan, only 30% of use their PC to access the internet. The rest, a whopping 70%, use their mobile phones to access the internet. In other words, mobile browsing is the thing in Japan now.

In South Africa, mobile data plans are very cheap and this encourages people to use their mobile phone to access the internet. In fact, South Africa is one of the biggest markets for mobile web in the world.

Click through rates in mobile advertising are roughly 10 times more than the click through rates of traditional advertising. This will encourage mobile advertisers tremendously to join hands with carriers and offer ad funded mobile content via mobile web to people.

Any other doubts?

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

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