Mobile advertising supergroup forms for Haiti charity

Some of the biggest names in the mobile advertising industry have today announced a group effort to help relief fund-raising in Haiti. AdMob, Eyeblaster, Jumptap, Microsoft Advertising, Millennial Media, Ringleader Digital and more have grouped together – thanks to efforts from mobile agency Mobile Accord.

Who is Mobile Accord?

Mobile Accord maintains a service called mGive – one of several mobile services that allows people to donate money to charities through SMS. The potential of mobile charity has really been explored during the Haiti disaster, as more and more people use text messages to send money to relief agencies (see our report).

In particular, Mobile Accord does a lot of work with the American Red Cross – and they have obviously decided not to mess around when it comes to promoting this new way to get donations. The idea behind getting all of these big mobile players on board is to massively promote SMS as a way to get funds to the Red Cross.

It has been said before that the best way to advertise mobile services is through mobile. And so these companies will be co-operating to place as much advertising through their respective mobile channels. Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner, said that because the service can be both advertised and activated through mobile, it greatly increases the chances people will donate. “Consumers are able to immediately act upon their will to donate via the same device they are using to keep up-to-date on the events in Haiti,” he said. “By providing consumers with a convenient avenue to donate to this cause, this campaign is aiding in the relief effort via a medium that continues to grow as the dominant avenue when accessing the Web.”

What we think?

As mobile becomes a more integral of digital advertising, pureplay mobile advertisers are getting bigger and more well-known. And most of the best known names in the industry are on board this plan with Mobile Accord. There’s a bandwagon effect going on here – and that’s not a bad thing. As more publicity is gained for mobile as a charity tool, more and more people involved in the mobile industry are getting involved – alongside mobile companies who have been providing disaster relief for years. And whether or not that’s for the right reasons, it only works out better for people in Haiti.