FEATURE MOBILE ADVERTISING
“It’s one thing to go into an operator
and say to the IT department, ‘I need this
resource to change this facility’ in a system
if that change brings a five per cent uplift
in revenue. It’s very different when you’re
saying ‘here’s a strategic initiative that we
believe is incredibly important. There isn’t
an immediate revenue uptake, we’re doing
this because it’s important for the broader
industry, we’ll see benefit in other ways further
down the line’. It is changing the way in
which a lot of them work,” he says.
The GSMA’s deadline is fast looming;
the group pledged to complete its proof of
concept by the end of 2008. It is still mulling
over the timelines in terms of commercial
launch. And even commercial launch does not
signal a conclusion. Just as well as advertisers
want to reach consumers irrespective of
their choice of carrier, so too do they want
to contact end users in multiple countries.
A reliable system of metrics is no good if it’s
restricted to just one market. Which is why
the UK—home to the biggest international
players of the West—was chosen as the
guinea pig market.
If the GSMA is working on similar projects
in other markets, then it’s keeping tightlipped
on the subject. “Meaningful conversations”
are ongoing, but that’s as far as Henry
Jenkins is willing to go. “Regional would be
an achievement,” he says. “Global would be
even better. We could characterise our ambition
by saying we need to create a global
level of consistency in terms of methodology,
what we measure, what are the definitions
and how we do it.” You only need to stop
and think about that for a minute before
you realise just how significant a challenge
it represents.
For Russell Buckley, wearing both his
Admob and MMA hats, the measurement
initiative is a winner. “Any more clarification
we can give in terms of measuring people or
unique users, is great. One of the issues that
we have as a company like Admob is that very
often our advertisers want to target unique
users. Very often we don’t have that data, and
that’s held by the operator.”
The collaboration between operators on
measurement raises an interesting question
of whether they should unite to sell their own
inventory; after all advertisers don’t measure
their target markets by carrier selection. In
all likelihood this remains some way off, but
it may turn out to be necessary for operators
to maximise their own revenues.
The uniquely personal
nature of the mobile
phone—which is exactly
what excites potential
advertisers—is also one of
the biggest obstacles they
must overcome
Jeff Herrmann suggests that the greatest innovation
in the mobile advertising supply-side
sector is being done in the area of customer
profiling. And for all the hard graft around
measurement and consumer identification that
is being undertaken, it must be remembered
that mobile advertising as a concept is itself
a tricky sell where end users are concerned.
The uniquely personal nature of the mobile
phone—which is exactly what excites potential
advertisers—is also one of the biggest obstacles
they must overcome. One man’s advert,
after all, is another man’s spam.
So is there a concern that operators might
be persuaded into offering up information
to advertisers that would make end users
uncomfortable? Henry Jenkins doesn’t think
so. “Operators’ core business is to provide
communications services to their customers
and they’re not going to do anything that
provides a threat to that customer relationship,”
he says.
He even goes so far as to predict that operators
will provide services to end users around
managing their privacy. “I do believe that you
will increasingly see operators developing
capabilities around managing permission.
Creating that as a service, so they become the
trusted guardian of the end user’s personal
information, enabling them to manage their
preferences.”
In any case, Smaato’s Harald Neidhardt
offers up some optimism as regards users’
willingness to engage with mobile advertising.
Smaato did a trial with Swisscom that
placed audio adverts before and after voice
calls. He explains: “We asked consumers if
they would install the mobile advertising
application on their handset if they were
given 100 free minutes in return.” According
to Neidhardt, more than half, 52 per cent,
said they would take the application for
100 minutes. But, he says, “astonishingly,
46 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
30 per cent said they would install it just
because it was fun. They didn’t even want
the free minutes.”
It makes for a warming anecdote, perhaps,
but the reality is that consumers’ feelings
about mobile advertising will only really
become clear when mobile advertising takes
off. So it is the large consumer brands whose
view of the whole sector is most crucially
important in the immediate term. If they can
be convinced by collaborative initiatives like
that being run by the GSMA, then perhaps
the sector will hit the blue sky figures that
some of its more upbeat proponents are wont
to proclaim. �
Adverts and the iPhone
Apple’s iPhone has had a tremendous impact
on the mobile industry, in terms of hype alone.
But speak to those involved daily in the mobile
advertising space and you’ll hear that—in this
sector at least—the iconic handset is much more
than just talk.
“The iPhone shows us that the future has
arrived,” says Admob’s Russell Buckley. “For the
first time we’re seeing clear, blue water between
what the PC world does with advertising and what
the mobile does. It enables us to play to the great
strengths of the mobile itself, particularly on the
usability side of things.”
The iPhone enjoys a particularly high penetration
among staff at advertising agencies, Buckley
says, enabling the people that make decisions
about where large firms advertise to gain first
hand experience of the kind of interface that could
be key to the success of mobile advertising going
forward. “It’s put the mobile right at the centre of
people’s attention,” he says, “so in terms of influence,
it’s hugely disproportionate.”
Smaato’s Harald Neidhardt describes the handset
as a “catalyst”. He says: “Because the iPhone
was from Apple, all of the creative directors and
agency folks are running around with it right now.
There is a wake up call that you can do something
with it; people are more open to it now.”
And if you want to see just the sort of thing that’s
exciting people about the iPhone and its potential
role in the world of advertising, go to You Tube and
search Carling iPhone. It’s pretty clever stuff.
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