Mobile Marketing Forum: Vodafone Mobile Advertising hit with Please Call Me

by: Bena Roberts Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Mobile Marketing Forum this morning is so far like walking into a room where you know everyone. It’s nice! The frist people I smiled hello to were Laura Marriott President MMA, Richard Saggers Vodafone and Anil Malhotra SVP Bango. They were all talking to one another so I just said hello and then found Mobile Acuity’s Anthony Ashbrook who, before he said hello - said, “I have a HUGE deal coming in one month”.

Then I found David from Mobile Marketing Magazine before I tried to get a Wifi connection. There isn’t one so I got a spot at the front of the desk after smiling at Russell Buckley(AdMob) and Ariela Freed(JumpTap) - yes I am name dropping but I can’t help it!

I know so many people it such a nice change from living in a village in Germany where you don’t see anyone for days. Oh. I also found a new company after a famous GoMo News lipstick toilet chat (more to come).

Anyway - to the point. Karim Khalifi Head of Mobile and Online Advertising Vodafone Egypt and Adhish Kulkarni Managing Director of Buongiorno gave an interesting overview of the Egyptian mobile advertising market.

The higlights were very interesting and it shows how Vodafone transformed the calling culture of Egyptians with free SMS Please Call Me messages (ad supported). Basically. There is a lot of difference in the economy in Egypt and 96% of the market is prepaid. Everyone started making rules for calling one another.

For example - ring one - pick me up. Ring twice - pick me up in 30 minutes; ring 3 times I am busy etc. So this was blocking call capacity and the network with out getting any revenue for Vodafone.

Please call me is a free message that has advertising including. Advertisers sponsor the messages and in one example with BMW 3 million please call me messages were sent. I have to check the figures again, but I think that with the BMW mobile advertising campaign achieved a 12% click through rate.

On top of that the mobile market in Egypt is growing at an amazing rate with 1 million new subscribers a month - yikes.

Because everyone is prepaid - mobile advertising is the best way to learn about the consumer and get them to engage.

OK, back to the conference more coming and hopefully flixwagoning too.