Alternative mobile advertising opportunities: Relevancy and fun

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks look for columns from Tom Huseby of SeaPoint Ventures, Mark Desautels of CTIA, Mark Donovan of M:Metrics, and more.
When the MMA first started publicly speaking about mobile advertising more than two years ago, some of the backlash I immediately received from consumers was extreme: “I don’t want that on MY device, my highly personal device, my mobile phone.” Today, two years later, reactions are still mixed. At times, consumers are upset that an advertiser can be allowed to interrupt them whenever and wherever they are. But mobile is a channel of engagement. The mobile channel allows consumers to engage the brand and elect to engage in mobile advertising, or not.
Today, a lot of the excitement in mobile advertising has been around the mobile Web. Even within the MMA, we have focused our format, guidelines and best practice work around defining the guidelines for mobile Web advertising. Let’s face it: Consumers love image-rich experiences! The colors, the graphics and the overall experience are stimulating! But there are lots of alternative mobile advertising models that are emerging, and this column will focus on a few of them.
A couple of months ago I spoke to a company that was launching a service that offered mobile advertising on ringback tones (or answer tones as some operators call them). Awesome idea and why not?! It really started me thinking about the other opportunities, beyond mobile Web, for mobile advertising-and there are lots of them. This column will focus on only three but there are lots more.
–Advertising opportunity No. 1: Text messaging
In mobile, text messaging is still the sweet spot for reaching consumers due to its ubiquity, price point and ease of use. Text messaging is pervasive and everywhere! And companies are beginning to exploit the text channel for mobile advertising. The CEO of 4INFO, Zaw Thet, tells me that “most people have overlooked text as an advertising medium.” Text allows companies to reach their consumer in an uncluttered manner, and deliver pure branding with measurable results.
But what does this mean exactly?
The 4INFO advertising experience means that consumers will receive advertisements on the back end of the company’s text service. For example, if you subscribe to the 4INFO Sports channel, when you receive your sports alert you may also receive an ad from Chevy or Citibank or 1-800-FLOWERS that includes an offer to participate in their services. Thus, if I am a marketer, I can buy advertising on a particular channel on the 4INFO network which will not only allow me to target based on that specific demographic, it will also allow me to report back on the success in terms of clicks, conversion, location, age, gender, etc. Text can deliver a targeted advertising experience. In text, 4INFO also knows who their consumer is, every step of the way, which allows them to also do frequency distribution on ads.
What types of advertisers are using the text-based advertising approach? Credit-card companies, travel agents, florists, automotive manufacturers-the brands that want to be in front of the consumer all of the time. So, given the opportunity, what are Thet and his team’s biggest challenge? “To raise the awareness that text is a viable form of advertising,” he said. However, it sounds like publishers are already waking up to this fact.
–Advertising opportunity No. 2: Social media
I spoke to Bob Morgan, VP and GM in North America for ShoZu, a mobile social media service that enables the experience between mobile consumers and their favorite online destinations (e.g., Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and so on).
According to Morgan, “couple content of value, like social networking photos, videos and commentary, with targeted, relevant advertising and it changes the game.”
I really enjoy the ShoZu service: Take a photo and immediately upload it to your favorite sites or even a digital picture frame (in fact, we are even talking about getting one within the MMA to fully leverage this service). Or users can download personalized content feeds from those sites.
Now add advertising: ShoZu’s platform is able to deliver targeted ads in a variety of formats and calls to action. For example, Linkin Park is using ShoZu this summer to promote their latest album and tour with behind-the-scenes footage linking to their fan site. Rich media associated with the consumer interaction is key.
–Advertising opportunity No. 3: Voice
I was recently introduced to SayNow, which has a service that allows celebrities to pass out a unique, exclusive phone number to promote interaction. Yes, real celebrities interacting with Joe Consumer through their mobile device. Fans can send voicemails and receive responses back from the celebrity; or the celebrity can call and leave exclusive information about upcoming shows or releases or their news. The most compelling feature is that the service can broker a conversation between the celebrity and the fan.
The advertising opportunity? Text-message followups, voice-based advertisements before or after the message from the celebrity, the opportunities are endless. The goal is to facilitate action or click-based ads through the voice channel. For example, imagine that after you hear your favorite rapper, you are then able to connect to TicketMaster to immediately buy tickets, CDs or concert shirts for an upcoming show. The experience becomes HIGHLY RELEVANT for the consumer.
Nikhyl Singhal, CEO of SayNow, says, “The consumer is only delivered relevant offers to their experience.” Remember they have access to an exclusive number to reach their celebrity and hear exclusive messages. Fun!
Hopefully I’ve provided a flavor of some of the other mobile advertising opportunities available, but this is only a start. Let’s not forget about Bluetooth and location services and MMS and loading-page ads and, well, the list is almost endless.
We must work together to build a sustainable channel, but let’s not forget about the consumer. 4INFO’s Thet tells me “our first and primary focus is on the consumer and putting the consumer experience first. Consumers are not opting in to have ads pushed to them.” Let’s collectively keep that in mind.
You may contact Laura directly at laura.marriott@mmaglobal.com. You may contact RCR Wireless News at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.