Some thoughts on Mobile advertising buisiness models

by: Bena Roberts Friday, June 27th, 2008

Banner ads, pay per call, pay per click, organic links or sponsored links are only the tip of the iceberg. Vendors need to shift their focus away from copying Internet business models to creating new ones for mobile and, in particular, to cash in on the apparently insatiable appetite for and the viral spread of user generated content (UGC).

Advertising needs to reflect its target market.

A younger, funkier approach to mobile advertising is needed, with the promise of competitions and reduced or discounted service charges in return for engagement. This means that interaction and UGC activity are as much part of the mobile advertising experience as the advertising itself.
Business model for mobile advertising

Possibilities

Mobile advertising wallpaper
Instead of banners that consumers click to see content, screen backgrounds should change to reflect advertising or sponsorship. This is an easy and effective way to push a service without waiting for the consumer’s response.
Basically all advertisers are winners because their message is always visible and the content accessible.

The blogs can be used virally as promotional material, that is, exploiting existing communities and social networks.
Once a blog video has been created payments and revenue share are no longer based on pay per click, but on the reach of the advert, an important component of which is users sending the ad to one another.

Pay per referral (consumer)
This is a tried and tested advertising model that needs to be refreshed for mobile. The introduction of mobile coupons and vouchers will mean friends and family can send or refer someone to content, services, ringtones, music and so on at the click of a button.

Audio advertising
Podcasting is set to be huge on mobile, which after all, is made for audio. Instead of using data streaming as a way of podcasting, vendors should look at ways of taking advantage of the voicemail mechanism.

A good example would be providing free access to voicemail when overseas in return for listening to an ad for a few seconds. This is simple to do and could revolutionise mobile

Competition advertising for the enterprise
This is something new that is being experimented with in Asia. Basically, enterprises push adverts via existing business channels.

In Japan confectionary manufacturer Lotte has teamed up with marketing company Index to create a fortunetelling service to promote its chocolate-filled, koala-shaped biscuits. Each biscuit is decorated with a cartoon koala. There are 217 different designs.

To have their fortune told, consumers choose a koala biscuit, take a picture of the design on it with their camera phone and send it as an attachment from their phone’s email address. An image recognition server recognises the design and sends a return email telling the fortune of that particular koala.
The email also invites the consumer to join the official koala biscuit community on Gocco, Japan’s biggest mobile-only, social networking site.

Elsewhere, chocolate companies could, for example, run a competition for the best SMS that describes, in 160 characters, the sensation of eating chocolate. Voting for the best SMS could be free, in return for receiving advertising push via voice, SMS, WAP or email.

2 Responses to “Some thoughts on Mobile advertising buisiness models”

Mark Curtis Said:

Recently we’ve run a campaign with Strongbow Cider in the UK on Flirtomatic: I cannot yet talk about results as we need client approval, but I can tell you what we did: we introduced a pint of Strongbow as a digital gift that users could send to each other for free (most gifts on Flirto are paid for)….the recipient could click through to a Strongbow site where they could claim a voucher for a real pint to redeem in a pub. The numbers way exceeded our expectations…(and we hope Strongbow’s)…it’s exciting enough to make us believe that this at least is one way to go which does not rely on banners (tho we like these too:)

Comment made on June 27th, 2008 at 10:43 am

Kedar Thakar Said:

Hi Bena

Completely agree with you. As with Blyk, there has to be interaction on mobile advertising with consumers and these interactions should be tracked to create consumer profiles and update them. Use these preferences to target further relevant promotions to them.

Question for you

GSMA is producing standardised metrics for advertisers through their study group. What I am not clear is how ad revenue will be shared among operators as these stats are sanitised and anonymised. No operator is going to reveal details of its customers or their CTRs.

What do you think? Also, how can Telefonica make money from mobile advertising? Is it only for its own portal or other portals as well?

Comment made on June 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am