Mobile voice advertising company Apptera today announced a new “Mobile Generation” Advertising Channel for it’s MobileAd Xchange platform. The channel focuses on mobile companies that provide services for the 18-34 year-old mobile device user, and who also want ad-funding to monetise their service.
What kind of companies are they looking at?
Given that Apptera specialises in audio-ad placement, the types of company in the “Mobile Generation” channel are pretty specialised. They want companies who enable communication via voice and text, and who target a young demographic. The two examples given in the release are HeyCosmo and Tatango:
HeyCosmo is a free Voice SMS polling company. Sounds a bit odd, but the service is quite imaginative. It allows users to create quick text-to-voice mass-SMS polls, with options included at the end. The people you send the text to can choose an option, and you receive the poll results immediately.
Example poll: “Where should we meet for dinner tonight? Press 1 for Chili’s, 2 for Bennigan’s and 3 for Ming’s Chinese.”
Tatango enables mass voice or SMS mobile communication, organised by groups.
Example message: “Team – because of the storm, today’s soccer game has been rained out. Practice will be on Tuesday at 6pm as usual.”
From the release:
“Apptera’s new Mobile Generation Channel provides marketers the powerful ability to deliver relevant voice & visual ads to millions of young consumers, on one of their most personal possessions – their mobile phone,” stated Henry Vogel, president and CEO of Apptera. “Reaching this audience at the exact time they are making plans for an evening or planning their next social gathering is a golden moment for advertisers. These moments offer powerful branding opportunities as well as compelling direct response catalysts for advertisers to drive specific calls-to-action.”
“HeyCosmo applies the same philosophy to social planning with friends, co-workers, and family – finally delivering what has been promised to us for years from the phone companies!” said James Im, CEO of Arsenal Interactive, Inc. “With HeyCosmo, organizers know, in real-time who answered the call, listened to the message, and responded. Additionally, with our exclusive relationship with Apptera, we will be able to leverage Apptera’s robust technology and growing network of leading brand and direct response advertisers to monetize our service and deliver valuable messages to our consumers. For instance, a group planning an overnight trip to Las Vegas can be given the option to hear specials on airfare, shows, restaurants, or clubs at the end of the call depending on the context of the message being delivered to the recipient.”
“As more and more consumers rely on their mobile phone to manage their daily lives, Tatango gives them the ability to efficiently reach many people at once,” stated Derek Johnson, CEO and founder of Tatango. “By partnering with Apptera to dynamically insert a relevant ad into those calls, we can offer this service for free. We’re excited to be part of this new mobile generation channel which will help us grow the usage of our service and help make a generation of mobile consumers more productive in their daily lives.”
What we think?
This gives Tatango and HeyCosmo a new channel for monetising their products. The biggest problem with it is also it’s biggest advantage. It targets consumers at a point where it’s advantageous for advertisers, but highly aggravating for consumers. If you’ve just gotten a voice text from a friend checking where you want to meet for dinner tonight, the last thing you want is to be interrupted before or after by a voice ad for somewhere you have no interest in. Tatango and HeyCosmo might find that the very service that helps them to monetise, also drives away customers. Apptera has had huge success placing voice ads and promotions elsewhere, I just don’t think that dropping into friend-to-friend interactions is a good idea.
