JumpTap’s Mike Kent on Telefonica emocion white label mobile search and Yahoo!

Rating: banners vs search?

Last week we saw two similar announcements. Telefonica Spain, signs up JumpTap for its white label search and advertising provider in Spain. Then… Yahoo! to deploy search to Telefonica across Europe (including UK).

I pinned down JumpTap’s GM of Europe Mike Kent, a interesting guy who I have previously described as very ambitious. I wanted to probe him for his thoughts on the dual search deployment and whether to not it was JumpTap or Yahoo! that was the winner.

Well.

He said that JumpTap is supplying a “very successful service to Telefonica” in Spain. The JumpTap solution is able to deliver both the highest CPM in Europe for banners and high click through for paid search”.

He continues, “Yahoo is financially motivated to get traffic to go to Yahoo! JumpTap is motivated to promote the success of the mobile operator. More over, with JumpTap the operator owns the customer data and the results and the vital behavioural targeting information. This is crucial to the success of mobile operators in the future”.

Time will not only tell but show the value of JumpTap.

What we think?
We will also ask Yahoo! but thanks Mike for your contribution. Operator control is indeed vital, but in the past Yahoo! has claimed to be a white label branded search provider.

I feel Yahoo vs JumpTap and Google vs Medio in the pipeline.