We recently had a catch-up briefing with Kerstin Trikalitis, Co-CEO of Out There Media. The mobile advertising agency recently had big successes in Eastern and Central Europe. We wanted to know what Out There has been up to, and what it has planned next. And Kerstin had some very tasty little tidbits about where Out There is planning on expanding to…
What has happened since we last spoke? You recently announced a contract with Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar
That’s the most recent good news we’ve had. We’re really seeing big campaigns coming in, and seeing great results in all our countries. While it’s impotant to sign with operators, it’s also important to run really valuable, high response rate campaigns. As you know we launched in Bulgaria in March, with M-Tel. Most recently we launched in the Ukraine with Kyivstar, which has 23 million customers. We have an exclusive contract for advertising on both its main portal, StarPort, and its youth portal, DJUICE. We’re also going after the other operators in the Ukraine, because our philosophy is to “bundle” operators and their subscribers for advertisers. If you can only offer an advertiser one operator in one country, it’s a hassle for them to go after all the others. So our Ukraine campaign has gone fantastically well. We have about 15 campaigns lined up for the next two months.
GoMo doesn’t usually cover awards, but we won an award recently at the Mediamixx conference in Bulgaria…
I don’t know Mediamixx!
It’s the biggest media festival in Central and Eastern Europe. It has been around for ten years, but has become very big in the last three years. We won the “Best Mobile Advertising award there for our Amita Motion Energy Bars campaign. We’re particularly proud of this because this is the first year they’ve included Mobile as a separate category! That was a cross-operator campaign, including Vodafone and other operators. That campaign ran at the same time as an Internet version – and we got response rates up to 10%, three times as strong as the Web campaign. Vodafone was happy with that as well, because they’ve only just gotten in to mobile advertising.
Now, just to finish our update so you know exactly where we are – and this is VERY big news. We’re in the course of establishing our Asian subsidiary, based out of Singapore. We’ve been overwhelmed with opportunities after speaking at an Asian conference. The response from operators, media agencies and investors was so good that we decided to take action on it. We’re now working on specific deals, and formulating set-ups with local partners. That’s all we can say right now, but this will be huge in Autumn!
I was going to ask if you planned on moving out! Moving to Singapore is a big deal. Any plans to head West?
Yes. I can’t say much about this! We are in progressed negotiations with a BIG operator in Western Europe. That’s it!
Our philosophy has always been the ad-funded model, and to do it in co-operation with operators. A year ago, we thought the proposition would work better in the East. Which has worked, but now we’re seeing increased demand and opportunities in the West.
A lot of people think off-portal will be the future. You obviously have a lot of faith in the on-portal model?
We have proven our model. Now is the time to make money on this. Analysts would agree, the hype is settled and the dust is settling. Now it’s time to show the money. We believe we have cracked the mobile advertising. We are making money. We have successful campaigns and repeat advertisers. That’s what it boils down to. You can have as many operator deals as you want, but if you can’t sell inventory you are nothing. We know the recipe, and that’s why I can sit here and say that we are exporting our model both East and West.
What we think?
Kerstin was full of confidence and cocky as hell during our interview, and I can’t blame her. I don’t share her absolute belief in the future of on-portal advertising. With the growth of mobile browsers that owe no allegiance to any operator, there are very strong cases to be made for the dominance of off-portal in the future. The recent glut of app stores has also spurred fears that operators may simply turn into dumb pipes. However it turns out, though, Out There has made its point very strongly. By getting exclusive contracts with operators, and offering massive subscriber packages to advertisers, it has created a stong mobile advertising model. It is appealing because it simplifies mobile advertising for both operators and advertisers. But future success does depend on the strength of on-portal.
