Peggy Anne Salz-moderated session: mobile advertising

April 8, 2008 at 1:57 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Advertising, CTIA Wireless, CTIA 2008, CTIA Roundtable 2008

Peggy Anne Salz, the founder and publisher of MSearchgroove, which provides analysis and commentary on mobile search, mobile advertising and social media, led a discussion that addressed, among other things, the following questions: “What will be the role of operators in mobile advertising two years from now? What are the key factors for increasing or losing their seat at the table?” Here, she offers the conclusions and remaining questions of their discussion.

Among those who participated at her table: Keith Mallinson of WiseHarbor, James Whatley of SpinVox, Andy Miller of Quattro Wireless, Jeff Arbor of The Hyperfactory, Jonathan Steuer of Iconoculture, Dominick Tolli of Virgin Mobile USA, Jason DeWitt of Skydeck, Jay Seaton of Airwide, and Mickey Opacic of M3Mobile.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Comments

Ringleader Offers New Mobile Advertising Technology

February 5, 2008 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Advertising, Venture Capital

Ringleader Digital (formerly MoPhap) has announced its new ad serving platform with new technologies such as Click to Call and device specific targeting. The company was relaunched yesterday with a new brand and new website.

According to sources, Ringleader is making mobile advertising as easy as the typical online media buy and anyone interested in taking their campaign to the next level, the mobile platform, can benefit from their offering.

Ringleader Digital resurfaces under the $6 million Series A Round of venture funding led by W2 Group, a next-generation marketing services company.

As of today, Ringleader falls under the W2 umbrella of next generation companies offering a range of advertising, communications and marketing services to a long list of technology and healthcare clients.

“Ringleader is the first mobile advertising network that finally fulfills the promise and potential of the Mobile Web,” said Larry Weber, CEO of W2 Group. “Right now, other mobile advertising networks are complicated, segmented and filled with guess work and administrative headaches. Ringleader takes online advertising and puts it on mobile devices. It doesn’t get less complicated than that.”

Common mobile advertising practices typically require the use of server-side software that inherently brings exclusivity to inventory access. Also, mobile ads are often limited by different device requirements. The result is a complex and costly mobile advertising experience that requires multiple relationships between publishers, ad servers, ad networks and sometimes carriers for one single campaign. With delivery of third-party ad serving, Ringleader eliminates all of these complications.

via: Press Release

Comments (1)

Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Seen As Driven In Part by Mobile Ad Rev

February 1, 2008 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Mobile Advertising, Microsoft, Yahoo

There are some opinions bouncing around the analyst community that identify mobile messaging and advertising as trends that may have driven Microsoft to try and acquire Yahoo.

Set against the looming spectre of Google as a competitor in this space, MultiMedia Intelligence chief research officer Frank Dickson has some thought-leader thoughts on this issue.

Frank’s thoughts, which he emailed me today, largely relate to the wishes of cell carriers to add additional revenue not tied in to subscription cash flows, and the demonstrated ability of Yahoo! and Microsoft to facilitate mobile advertising and its promise of related income to the carriers.

Frank sent a research brief to me earlier today that lays out the issues and opportunities:

Mobile operators are driving toward an increasingly rich array of data services to sustain growth. Mobile handsets are becoming increasingly powerful media devices, capable of providing a rich media (and advertising) experience. Finally, the Internet is emerging on mobile devices and mobile networks.

The result is advertisers putting their cross-hairs on the world’s 3 billion cellular subscribers. New cellular based advertising techniques will not only deliver display ads but also integrates community, participation and interactivity into the media experience.

“Microsoft and Yahoo! have both identified the promise of mobile advertising and have been frantically attacking the space,” according to Frank Dickson, Chief Research Officer for MultiMedia Intelligence. “In the early 90s, Microsoft scoffed at the promise of the Internet and gave Google a massive jump-start in the market. It will not make that mistake with mobile.”

It will be both fun and fascinating to see how this monumental acquisition process plays out. Even more interesting will be what revenue-enhancing mobile apps a Yahoo-enhanced Microsoft will bring to carriers and end-users.

Comments

My Ten Mobile Messaging Predictions for 2008

January 17, 2008 at 2:17 pm · Filed under SMS, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Payments, Acquisitions/Mergers, predictions

Now that I’ve finally gotten used to writing “2008″ on my checks (I still pay a few bills offline), I guess it is time to act like some of my co-inhabitants on these screens and post my own Mobile Messaging Predictions for 2008.

Ready? (o’course you are or you wouldn’t be here.

In no particular order of probability, they are:

The trend toward “free” texting will continue. Carriers, at least in North America, will bundle texting into overall pricing plans. Not that they wouldn’t raise the price of the overall plan to incorporate texting fees that used to be billed separately.

Twitter will be sold. Question is, to who? Google bought a competing app. Facebook might be a natural fit. I am thinking maybe AOL?

With 3G networks closer to reality MMS will really be multimedia-enabled. You can count on that.

iPhone will lose its AT&T Mobility exclusivity in the U.S. Not due so much to the hackers unlocking the iPhone to be used by other carriers, but Apple will realize the five-year exclusivity window is too long to forego potential revenue from non-AT&T customers stuck in the middle of their service contracts. A substantial payment from Apple to AT&T and things will loosen up.

Cricket Wireless will ally with another type of service provider to produce a triple-play. On my VoIP blog I’ve long been suggesting an alliance between energetic upstart Cricket and VoIP stand-alone Vonage to battle the triple-play offerings of the big service providers. K then, how’s a Cricket-Vonage-Boingo alliance sound?

Five more to go. (Blogger scratches head, a bit of ew-w-w- gross dandruff flakes descend to keyboard).

We’ll see the growth of dedicated Spanish-language dedicated mobile services. I envision an existing cell carrier teaming up with a Univision for a branded MVNO service. That’s service, not just a “press two” Spanish language channel.

More rich media adverts on mobiles. Not on record at especially wanting to see this, but faster mobile speeds, manic advertisers wanting to reach you everywhere- flippin’ inevitable.

Mobile payments will grow. There’s a bit of creative tension here between the mobile Web security experts at banks and merchants that want to “SSL” everything, and the mobile operators who need to facilitate their Web browsers to accept SSL seamlessly. There’s a movement toward reconciling those two imperatives.

More touch screen on mobiles. Apple, of course, is doing it with iPhone, and users tend to think it is cool. So why not in newer models of competiting handsets?

And finally:

Mobile search will still suck. Even Google hasn’t gotten it right. When I perform searches for these sites on my BlackBerry, too many non-optimized-for-mobile sites still seem to come up. That’s not even to mention some search results where you can just sniff the stink of jive mobile SEO jiggering that got some listed search results sites up there.

Comments (7)

Retro SMS

November 30, 2007 at 5:02 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Advertising

There has been a lot of good postings on the future of Messaging in the last couple of weeks. I want to thank my fellow bloggers on their insightful views and for sharing their opinions. As well as those readers that posted their comments onto this blog.

I believe it is in our nature to always look beyond what we have today; next year’s model is always better than last year’s; to never stand still, to look to the next big thing, to explore space and dimensions outside of our current understanding and our current reach. We feel the need to excel beyond our parents’ achievements, and a competitive need to excel with each other. Similarly we look to our services, which we use daily, and expect our services to evolve from their current capability and provide us with bells and whistles that would improve their usage and thereby improving our lifestyle.

Analysts, for years, have attempted to forecast the day of peak messaging revenue. To date that day has not come and but we see evidence of double and triple digit growth. The latest number from the Mobile Data Association in UK have reported another defining moment of 1 Billion text messages in week. Across the pond in my backyard the CTIA, have reported a growth rate of 127% from last year to this year in text messaging. North America is currently delivering 1 Billion text messages a day! So what is the defining day of max revenue? When should operators begin to worry? And as my kids ask me on those long car trips: Are we there yet?

Operators have provided MIM as a service offering for more than three years now. And in my previous post I stated my position on MIM. Ovum is imploring operators to look at a new type of service offering that can inject new messaging revenues into SMS. The article may lead you to believe that MIM will make up the shortage of falling messaging revenue. Again, as early evidence indicates MIM is providing an enhanced user experience, and not at the expense of SMS. Is MIM too far too fast for most subscribers to grasp? Answering my own question, the answer in my honest belief is it’s not too far. However handset capability and ubiquity on all handsets does limit MIM as a pervasive messaging utility.

One would not have to extend their network infrastructure too far to augment the SMS revenue stream, but to look at Mobile Messaging 2.0 architecture to provide the relief. By taking the Open Standards and Open Interface approach, adding and inserting additional capabilities and features into the network allows for an easy augmentation of the service and therefore more importantly providing for a needed bump in revenue. The Mobile Messaging 2.0 architecture as it is defined allows for simple features to be added such as Personal Services whereby subscribers are provided a feature set similar to email; such as messaging forwarding and archiving. The MM2.0 architecture allows for operators to entertain alternative business models such as enabling mobile advertising into the person-to-person text and picture message flows (similarly to how MSN, Yahoo, and Google advertise with free email and more importantly generate revenue). The Mobile Marketing Association is one of many driving thrusts helping to drive a definition for advertising in the mobile services arena.

Evolving may mean going back to a previously visited version of what you may have had. At times a good idea from the past, in the form of a design, surprising had an appeal that did not capture the audience of today. The fashion and automotive industry are a couple of industries that are recycling thru old ideas and designs of the past. In fashion we have seen the 1970 bell bottoms recycled / refreshed into this generations “flares. In the automotive industry Ford and BMW have restyled their much sought after Mustang and Mini of the 60’s and has reinvigorated interest in youth rodding and nostalgic cruising. My favourite model being the 69 Mustang Mach1 of which I am a proud owner. The market calls this “retro”. Maybe SMS, with the addition of Personal and with Ad-Inserted capabilities is the bell-bottom from 15 years ago, but with a twist, and we have just defined “retro-SMS”! I like to think of this augmentation as Retro Revenue!

Please tell me how you would like to retro your SMS!

Comments

Airwide Solutions

Twadvertising

November 2, 2007 at 4:52 pm · Filed under Mobile Advertising, Twitter, Advertising, OS X

A few weeks ago, Twitter began to sneak ‘tips’ into the footers of mobile notifications, widely thought to be early experiments with advertising and possible revenue models. The tips themselves are kinda cute and unobtrusive, though it remains to be see whether this is indeed an experiment in micro-ads or just a method to drive retention and growth. Indeed, Evan Williams has stated that he sees brands paying to be ‘followed’, opening a new channel to advertising audiences.

More interestingly, IconFactory recently released a new version of Twitterific, its popular OS X Twitter desktop client. Previously free, the new edition is comes in paid, ad-free and ad-supported editions. As can be seen from the screenshot, ads are dropped into the UI as just another Twitter notification. This works surprisingly well and with ads supplied by The Deck, generally targetted well to the Twitter demographic.

With third parties such as Iconfactory now disintermediating Twitter from advertising, this raises important questions as to who owns the user experience and hence the routes to monetisation. Perhaps, if Twitter pursues its branded channels strategy, they can co-exist peacefully with the likes of Twitterific; however there’s nothing to really stop third parties entering the same space.

Is Twitter heading for a showdown with its developer community?

Comments

Mobilizing Marketing

October 29, 2007 at 2:14 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, Mobile Advertising, Sponsored Post

It was just over twenty years ago this month that the deal was signed to build mobile networks based on GSM technology. Since then the success of the mobile phone has been phenomenal. It has transformed from being a simple communications device to an apparatus for gaming, photography and downloading music, a payments tool for content and services and more recently a distribution and advertising channel for brands wishing to interact with their customers.

Big brands face exciting opportunities to increase revenue and market share by deploying innovative mobile marketing techniques to demographically predetermined groups of potential customers. And more and more big brands are already taking advantage of this emerging opportunity and gaining early brand reinforcement and customer relationship advantages. To shed some light on the market and how it’s evolving, Airwide recently commissioned an independent survey of 50 global brand-name companies which revealed that 1 in 3 big brands have already launched live mobile marketing campaigns.

Among the other findings: brand experience with mobile marketing is increasingly positive as more brands are getting higher response rates from their campaigns. Brands surveyed confirmed that many recipients of mobile marketing campaigns requested more information as a result of receiving a mobile marketing message. Three quarters (73%) of brands answered that up to 10% of recipients subsequently undertook a financial action as a result of the campaign. Every responding brand agreed that their most recent mobile marketing campaign was successful in increasing customer familiarity of their brand.

However, according to the survey, despite enthusiasm for mobile marketing, barriers continue to hold back even higher growth rates; almost half of big brands (46%) are concerned that mobile marketing is too intrusive, with many feeling that customers will perceive messages as spam. Of these, 41% are unsure how to rectify the problem by targeting specific audiences. Over a third of brands (36%) would require detailed information on how the user responded to the message, and one in five want proof that the message has been received by the user’s handset (concerns mirrored by recent high profile issues with TV text voting).

The ongoing development of mobile messaging systems has paved the way for a range of valuable new marketing opportunities for brands, but mobile marketing will only reach its true potential when brands and operators recognize the need to confront the present lack of supporting information to manage and optimize marketing programs, and enhance the targeting and tracking characteristics of mobile marketing. It is essential that marketers target their campaigns specifically to gain the desired response rates, and enable opt-in mechanisms to avoid being perceived as ‘spammers’.

The good news is that there is help at hand: with reliable infrastructure in place and a means to control and measure campaigns, more and more big brands will be competing to create and deliver the most effective mobile marketing initiatives to subscribers. And consumers are set to benefit too; almost 60% of brands intend to send special offers via the mobile phone, and over a third (36%) will send discount vouchers. Other incentives will include digital loyalty cards, free gifts and preferential terms.

We hope you find the findings above of interest - we certainly did and hope you stay tuned for more info in subsequent posts. Also worth checking out: a mobile marketing roundtable Airwide recently convened to discuss the findings of the survey and further identify and investigate some of the dynamics that impact mobile marketing.

We’ll be releasing audio recordings of the discussion held earlier this month as well as video interviews with the attendees in the next week or two and invite you to listen in and add your own perspectives. Among those who participated: Nick Lane, analyst; Jonathan Bass, the chair of the UK Mobile Marketing Association (MMA); Anthony Reilly, head of mobile for Universal McCann; David Murphy from Mobile Marketing Magazine; Ian Williams of Vnunet.com; and Helen Keegan, a blogger on mobile marketing.

Jay Seaton is the CMO of Airwide Solutions

Comments (11)

Airwide Solutions

Facebook, Microsoft and the new Messaging: CTIA Podcast

October 25, 2007 at 12:30 am · Filed under Devices, MMS, Events + Conferences, Podcasts, iPhone, Mobile Advertising, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Convergence, CTIA

The second day at CTIA IT and Entertainment 2007 in San Francisco, and Debi, Paul and I meet up at the end of the day to discuss the major issues as we see them. In this podcast, we’re talking about the resurgence of voice, but in applications; the new forms that mobile messaging could take; monetisation and making mobile payments; why aren’t we talking about MMS as the new message?; Microsoft’s $240 million dollar deal with Facebook; what that deal means for Google and their opening up of mobile; and a few points about hype.

 

 MM20 at CTIA pt 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Comments (1)

Convergence and the ‘One True Device’

September 30, 2007 at 7:40 pm · Filed under Usage + Usability, News, Mobile Advertising, Ethnography, Radio, Convergence

Mobile operators, handset manufacturers and operating systems vendors have a tendency to become breathlessly excited by the possibility of all-in-one super phones such as the N95 and iPhone.

Yet, few take the time to critically understand the ethnographic reality of convergence. I spent many years pointing out to my former employers  that convergence and digital TV was less about crude interactive and more about understanding what people were googling on their wifi laptops as they watched TV!

By the same token, a recent piece by Reuters on the use of text-messaging promotions by radio broadcasters is a indictment of the blinkered nature of convergence discourse in the industry.

Rather than pursuing the mirage of the One-True-Device, operators and handset builders need to sharpen their ethnographic understanding and open their innovation processes to a wider community of developers. There is more than one model of convergence chaps!

Interestingly,  Reuters’ Radio stations keying in to text-message promotions, doesn’t mention anything about support from operators and vendors…

Comments

Surprise! People Feel Advertising and Voice Improve Mobile Search

August 22, 2007 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, Mobile Advertising, voice search

Scott Weiss’ Usable Products Company today released the results of their independent user experience benchmark on mobile search. Four mobile search solutions - 3 text-based and 1 voice-based - were tested with 80 participants: InfoSpace WAP, JumpTap Java (Alltel Axcess Search), Nuance Voice Control and Yahoo! Go. The results surprised Weiss and his researchers, no doubt because advertising is generally perceived as an unavoidable evil in a Web-based experience and voice-based search offerings have had mixed results in the marketplace up to date:

Researchers were surprised that 79% of participants favored advertising-supported mobile search, and 37% felt that banner ads actually enhanced the mobile search experience…

Also unexpected was that participants initially predicted voice search would be the most difficult to use but after an hour of usage gave it higher ratings than text search. [Weiss remarked], ‘Users predicted voice search would be the worst of the four search products, but in final usability, it performed much better than expected. We were surprised that participants enjoyed voice search, and how much more they liked it than search via phone keypad.’”

Despite these findings, the overall success rate in finding relevant results was a mere 53% and none of the search solutions tested proved the clear winner.

Unlike Weiss, I am not surprised by the results of his study. Voice is the logical solution for mobile search, given how clumsy most of us are on the keypad of our handsets. There are many players entering the market but Nuance’s technology has taken the lead, underpinning many mobile voice-based startups. Since it is best-of-breed in the field, it is not surprising that Weiss’ participants enjoyed using it to perform mobile searches.

As for advertising, the results do appear to fly in the face of common sense. Given the focused, task-oriented nature of mobile phone usage one would expect the presence of advertising to be more of an annoyance than in a Web-based context. But the mobile context allows for more precise targeting since much more data is available about the individual, including their location which is usually the most pertinent piece of information when on the go. Advertising becomes relevant, and when it’s relevant it isn’t a annoyance - it’s an improvement.

Weiss’ findings bode well for voice- and advertising-based offerings coming to market, such as the advertising-funded mobile virtual network operator Blyk, whose business proposition I wrote about back in May.

Comments