Mobile Advertising Experimentation
2007-06-08 17:17:08

Europe : As advertisers and operators seek out the best business model, 2006 will be a year of experimentation for the emerging mobile advertising market. The next five years will see a shift by major brands from simple SMS mobile marketing to more sophisticated multimedia advertising.



By 2007, brands will know what works, and mobile advertising will become mainstream by 2008. These are some of the key findings from visiongain's new report, entitled "Mobile advertising and marketing: Market analysis and forecasts 2006-2011".

From 2005, when the nascent market garnered $255 million in Europe and the United States, mobile marketing and advertising in these two geographical areas will grow to exceed $1 billion in 2009, according to visiongain.

The increasing availability of multimedia content is opening a large opportunity for sophisticated forms of mobile advertising. As content that already incorporates advertising - like live TV programming - makes its way to mobile handsets, brands and entertainment content providers are beginning to see the value of presenting full multimedia ads with programs.

Players across the value chain are developing their strategies and positioning themselves in this space. Operators in the U.S. and Western Europe are currently either testing various forms of advertising with 3G services or are allowing ads to be served on their portals. A number of multimedia companies will launch advertising in 2006 within their multimedia offering. Furthermore, the entry of large online search engines into the mobile world opens up new advertising opportunities in the shape of context-based mobile search.

"The mobile phone is a very personal device that most people carry with them 24 hours a day. It affords advertisers an opportunity to present very targeted and time-sensitive information that is of interest to the user. That is a key advantage. With customer permission, advertisers can collect valuable demographic and behavioural information to hone the marketing message," says visiongain analyst and the report's lead author Marcia Kaplan.

"3G technology enables the delivery of richer content to mobile phone users, but there is a limit to how many additional charges and subscriptions mobile phone users will accept. At some point, content will have to be sponsored or partially subsidised by advertising. We are also seeing the emergence of ad-subsidised MVNOs, which plan to offer free airtime in exchange for targeted advertising to subscribers," adds Kaplan.

The report notes that certain elements need to fall into place before mobile advertising can establish itself as a viable medium. Issues to be resolved include business models and revenue share, the type, length and frequency of ads, consumer attitudes and many others. Operators will have to walk a fine line between maximising the revenue potential of advertising, while at the same time not risk alienating subscribers and increasing churn by doing so.

Based on interviews with key market participants, including operators, vendors, media agencies, software application providers, access providers, marketing specialists, and trade association representatives, this 170+ page report analyses the market drivers and barriers affecting mobile advertising and marketing. It discusses the main market trends and charts the market evolution in the US and Europe. The report examines mobile advertising opportunities presented by MMS, video, TV, LBS, as well as contextual advertising. Regional forecasts are provided up to the year 2011.

Advertising: Mobile's next big thing
2007-04-27 11:35:54

The era of mobile advertising is upon us - according to new research, revenues from ads on phones will skyrocket by the end of the decade.

ABI Research predicts that by the end of this year advertising on mobiles will generate global revenues of $1.9bn. The analysts reckon that it will also achieve double-digit growth over the next five years.

ABI Research believes that the click-through rates that mobile advertising promises - two to three per cent, compared to 0.2 per cent for internet ads - will generate enthusiasm for the model among advertising buyers, although it predicts that such rates won't last as the novelty wears off for consumers.

The advent of phone ads will present advertisers with both challenges - how to make sure consumer don't get annoyed with ads arriving on a very personal device - and opportunities to reach consumers in a more individual way.

Among the operators already planning to trial advertising to handsets in the UK are Vodafone and O2.

A separate report by industry watchers Informa Telecoms and Media predicts that by 2011, mobile advertising will be worth $11.5bn, with mobile TV being the most lucrative vehicle.

Mobile Marketing Prospects
2007-04-27 11:13:14

Mobile AdvertisingLittle screen, big opportunity.

Although advertising on mobile phones is currently minuscule — in budgets as well as size dimensions — if marketers heed the recommendations of a new report from Magna Global, they will begin investigating this emerging channel now. In fact, in a survey among ad:tech attendees, conducted in December 2005 by, Marketing Sherpa found that experimenting in mobile advertising tied for the top spot with video in a list of tactics advertisers would like to experiment with.

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"With 2 billion mobile subscribers around the world, 20% annual subscriber growth, new networks capable of distributing video, improving handset capabilities, and rapid turnover of the handsets themselves, mobile phones may become the most pervasive devices able to access video content on a global basis," wrote David Wiser in the introduction to the Magna Global report. "With this footprint, we expect that advertising will ultimately play an important role in the mobile video world. The best opportunities to market to consumers in mobile environments will be through integrated mobile communications devices, and the industry will likely require ad-support to reach the widest possible audience." The full potential of mobile advertising is still a little way off, primarily because the restricted audience size. However, this will change quickly and eMarketer projects that the number of 3G phone users who watch video worldwide will exceed 500 million by 2009. Even the more specialized audience within this group, those who watch broadcast TV on their phones, will grow to more than 100 million by 2009.