Last week was punctuated by a steady stream of mobile marketing-related announcements, studies, partnerships and launches – some interesting, some not so much… and none of which truly worthy of a dedicated post.
Nevertheless, taken in aggregate these moves represent an ever-advancing industry, charging forward on the backs of the innovators, the followers, and the “never say hype” over-enthusiastic forecasters.
We give you then, the first of mobilestance.com’s “This Week in Mobile Marketing”
TWIMM: We read the domestic Mobile Marketing trades, studies, announcements and insane market forecasts… so you don’t have to!
Mobile Search. Nielsen Mobile (formerly Telephia) announced that “46 Million [US] Mobile Data Users Used Mobile Search Functions in Q3 2007.” But before you get all excited, keep in mind that “The most popular form of mobile search among data users in Q3 2007 was 411 (18.1 million users), followed closely by SMS (text-message) -based searching, which was used by 14.1 million data users during the same period.” Yep… the “big news” is that folks are mostly using mobile search to look up local phone numbers – not exactly a headline generating statistic. Still, “while local listings were the leading search objective in terms of users, (27.1 million data users searched for local listings in Q3 2007), 14.8 million said they searched for information such as sports scores, news or weather, while nearly a quarter (11.3 million) said they searched for mobile content.” Good news for SMS Ad Networks such as 4INFO . Notably absent from the announcement was any mention of WAP-based search offerings such as those by Google, Yahoo, Jumptap and the like – other than a brief mention that “61% of 411 search users are female, while 60% of WAP (or mobile web) search users are male.”
Meanwhile in related news, Nokia’s head of search Jussi Pekka Partanen simultaneously hyped local search while taking shots at Google, as reported moconews.net. At the the Visiongain mobile search conference in London last week the handset giant contended that mobile search will be more context-focused than the existing page rank-driven engines currently dominating the desktop search market. Nokia’s current “Nokia Search” product seems more evolutionary than revolutionary, combining web search with local (meaning: on the device) content search.
The Mobile Web. 40% of web publishers have launched mobile sites, with another 25% planing to do so in the next year, this according to Jupiter Research in a report entitled “Mobile web sites: Designing for mobility.” The number is somewhat misleading, insomuch as “this number… likely reflects mobile versions that consist of frames and offer a kludgy user interface,” or so says Mediapost. The report states that only 3% of the above mobile sites are “mobile advertising enabled” – in that they have the ability to optimize ad delivery based on whether the user is viewing the page via a mobile device (versus a PC). Mediapost also notes that up to 1/3 of these pages enable mobile commerce of some sort, such as “instant transactions and the ability to drive shoppers into nearby stores” – a fairly vague definition of mobile commerce to be sure.
Notable Mobile Website launches included a dedicated mobile version of FIM’s Photobucket (m.photobucket.com), Discovery Mobile’s new mobile portal (discoverymobile.com, which houses the all of Discovery Communications’ mobile sites, such as Discovery Channel Mobile, Animal Planet Mobile, and TLC Mobile), and USA.gov Mobile (http://mobile.usa.gov – which seems to be a fairly straightforward RSS fed Gov’t info formatted for mobile).
Mobile Content. The NBA announced that they are partnering with Turner to handle all of its mobile-related content offerings, this according to Fierce Mobile Content. Fierce reported that “the cable network will assume operational control of the league’s digital efforts, including its mobile and broadband businesses. The partnership, effective for the 2008-09 NBA season and continuing through the 2015-16 campaign, also calls for TBS to take over programming, marketing and technical operations of NBA TV, the league’s 24-hour digital television network, and host and operate the NBA.com Network, which includes the NBA.com, WNBA.com and NBADLeague.com websites. In addition, TBS will operate NBA League Pass, the league’s out-of-market game package. TBS, Inc. and the NBA will jointly sell advertising for all of the league’s digital assets.”
QR Codes. In a rare break from our “US Bias,” mobilestance.com continues to cover The Sun’s “Babe-Infused” QR Code efforts (UK). This week the Sun announced the results of its experiment with the promising mobile marketing technology. According to the Sun, the “new mobile content service has achieved early success with around 11,000 users registered so far.” Buoyed by these numbers, the tabloid plans on publishing “another pull-out (supplement in The Sun) to further inform people on how to use QR codes.”
Research-Driven Market Hype. The results of two “hypefull” Mobile Marketing studies were announced last week. The first was on Monday from ABI Research, who announced that “mobile marketing is expected to grow to over $24 billion worldwide in 2013, jumping from just $1.8 billion in 2007,” this according to the research firm’s study/product entitled “Mobile Marketing and Advertising” (retail price: $4500). The second came from Advertiser Perceptions, who reported on Wednesday that “26% [of advertisers] said they were currently using mobile, 20% said they planned to use it in the next six months, and 54% said they are not currently using mobile,” as reported by Ad Age. These numbers were based on surveys of “2,000 brand marketers and agencies” as part of their “Wave Eight” study that seems to cover both “hot” hand held media channels, such mobile video and search -as well as “not so hot” channels such as podcasting.
Miscellaneous News. The FCC launched a probe to “determine whether mobile phone text messages and short codes are covered by non-discrimination provisions of the telecom act,” this according to RCR Wireless News. The FCC move comes in wake of Verizon’s recent high-profile decision to block text messages from NARAL Pro-Choice America – a decision it quickly reversed under pressure from from a successful grass-roots campaign the organization launched against the carrier. Finally, Steve Jobs announced an underwhelming firmware update to the iPhone at last week’s Macworld 2008. Among the updates included features that now allowing users to send group SMS messages (something I can do on my two year old RAZR) and the non-GPS-based “Blue Location BEacon” feature in Google Maps (something I’ve been able to do on my Blackberry since Google launched the service late last year). Baby steps, to be sure. Forget a 3G version… I’m still waiting for such standard “features” as Cut and Paste!
In a stunning announcement that is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows, ESPN reported that for three days during the 2007/8 NFL season traffic to its mobile portal exceeded that of its (PC-based) web counterpart, this according to AdAge.
ESPN is reporting that for one 24-hour period, traffic to its wireless NFL section exceeded visits to the PC NFL section, 4.9 million to 4.5 million visits. The network states that multitasking, fantasy-driven viewers frequently visit both sites on game days, and no doubt mobile’s rise to prominence is a boon for out-of-home fantasy-leaguers nationwide.
M:Metrics claims ESPN’s reach for its mobile properties is roughly 9MM, about 28% of the total US mobile web universe. Additionally, M:Metrics reports that 43.8% of those browsing sports content on their mobile devices visit ESPN, while Fox Sports draws 19.2%, followed by the NFL’s mobile website with 18.6% and CBS Sportsline at 11.4%.
Analysis: This type of headline really raises the profile of the mobile channel (with specific emphasis on mobile advertising on the mobile web) to all those media planners and buyers out there… A great day for us all!
UpSNAP, a provider of SMS / VoIP-based mobile search and streaming mobile audio products, has announced a deal with mobile advertising firm Millennial Media. Under the terms of the deal Millennial Media (along with nine other partners) will have access to UpSNAP’s mobile search and streaming audio inventory for resale to advertisers and/or their media buying agencies.
The back half of 2007 was a busy one for UpSNAP, merging with animated greeting card provider Mobile Greetings in September and announcing a partnership with mobile search pioneer Go2 in November. With all this activity it’s difficult to get a sense of where UpSNAP is headed, but it appears the firm is rapidly moving towards an ad-supported content aggregation play (with the advertising sales function outsourced to third parties). By providing Go2 with time-sensitive mobile audio content (think audio news clips, like what you’d get from a syndicated news radio program), UpSNAP is essentially acting as a content provider to Go2’s local-focused, mobile search engine. Similarly, providing tying up with Ad Networks such as Millennial reinforces this position, as UpSNAP attempts to outsource the ad sales function of their search and streaming audio products so that they can focus more clearly on content aggregation (in this case, the content is mobile search queries and audio streams). The Mobile Greetings merger only further reinforces this position, as the deal wraps up UpSnap with a high-quality, ad/sponsorship-based mobile content provider.
Analysis: It remains to be seen what (if anything) will ultimately become of such agreements. As stated in reactions to similar announcements, the real challenge in the mobile advertising value chain isn’t in the aggregation of mobile inventory, it’s the actual sales of said inventory… and it would appear if UpSNAP’s inventory were truly valuable they would be able to achieve sell out with their existing nine mobile advertising partners (and therefore wouldn’t be looking to additional mobile ad firms – such as Millennial – to partner up with). That said, in all fairness to UpSNAP… their need for (yet another) mobile ad sales partner likely speaks more to the nascent state of the mobile advertising market than does to the quality of UpSNAP’s inventory.
The slow news week after Christmas is notorious for the oft-derided “year in X” reports, but rather than take time exploring the value of such “Remembrance(s) of Things (less than a year) Past,” mobilestance.com would like to take the time to indulge in our own year end recap of the most notable US Mobile Marketing developments in 2007 (and yes, the illustration on the left depicts “Old Man 2007″ knowingly handing an iPhone to “Baby New Year 2008″).
And what a year 2007 has been. Between the flurry of VC and M&A activity, the reality of a declining global ringtone market and the re-orgs that followed, the explosion of ad supported business models, growth in consumer use of key mobile data services, notable marketplace exits, divestitures and bankruptcies, new entrants in the wireless space (yes, I’m talking about Apple here), and the aggressive moves on the part of the internet portals (most notably Google, but also Yahoo and even AOL and IAC), 2007 may yet be remembered as the year mobile finally “happened” -much to the delight of the Business 2.0 crowd.
After reviewing the list please take a second and weigh in on what you feel was the most important Mobile Marketing event of ’07 by participating in the poll at the end of the piece. Also, since 2007 was such a busy year no doubt there’s plenty more that could be added to this list… that said feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to add some additional insight or if you feel something crucial has been overlooked.
Thanks much… and now without further delay, mobilestance.com proudly presents “The 2007 US Mobile Marketing Game Changers.”
Google Steps it up.Not content to merely sit on the sidelines and play by the rules set forth by the US carriers, the search giant spent much of 2007 re-writing the rules of the US wireless industry.With their conspicuous “open access” lobbying effort, leadership in the Open Handset Alliance, the launch of their open Android platform, and their plans to enter the upcoming 700 MHz US wireless spectrum auction has a legitimate player, Google has stirred the 2007 US wireless pot like no other single corporate entity. While it remains to be seen as what will ultimately come of its aggressive moves in the space (although it seems Google has single-handily forced the biggest hole to date in Verizon’s vaunted walled garden) , it is clear that Google is determined to usher in a far more flexible (read: marketer-friendly) US wireless marketplace… a market that will likely be a boon to innovative third party mobile application developers, hybridized business models, and – most importantly – accelerate consumer adoption of “beyond voice” mobile services.
The Rise of MMS. 2007 was the year that US consumers finally got behind MMS in large numbers, exiting news for marketers not satisfied with the simple Joys of Text. In November of 2007 the MMA reported 33% of all US mobile phone users reporting monthly use of “Picture and/or Video Messaging” – that’s up dramatically from a paltry 16% in 2006. In the younger demographic segments the numbers are even more attractive, with monthly usage peaking in the 18-24 year old group at an astounding 55%. So what does this mean? Bottom line, now that MMS has reached critical mass in the US marketers are free to (finally) capitalize on the expanded interactive and multimedia prowess of the enhanced messaging channel. The possibilities are endless… everything from moblogging, MMS-based couponing, photo contests, video alerts, pattern recognition, html email-type CRM communications and so much more. Sure, there’s nothing actually new with all of these tactics… but now we’re talking about the difference between MMS-based marketing campaigns with real ROI back to the brands, versus the eternally frustrating”test campaigns” of earlier years.
Enter the iPhone. So much has has already been written on the sleek Apple device that it’s become extremely difficult to assess its actual impact. Never mind the recent eye-popping stats released on the iPhone’s disproportionate share of the overall browsing universe, or recent efforts (while fascinating and seemingly quite worthwhile) by marketers to leverage the device to deliver hypertargeted messaging to the forward-leaning, early-adopting, free-with-the-dollars demographic. No, the real impact of the device lies in it serving as a “showroom model” for the full potential of the mobile marketing channel. An independently sold (from the carriers, mind you) Wi-Fi/GSM hybrid with a beautiful touch screen, snappy web browser (snail-like AT&T EDGE network speeds notwithstanding), usable video, music and photo management options… and coming in February, a public SDK for the development of third party applications and a (rumored) flash plug-in for the device’s browser – a first for the “mobile” web (and hey just because it’s the holidays let’s not get into a debate on what is or is not actually the “mobile” web – for now let’s just go with it). It’s amazing how quickly the standard for what is “possible” in mobile has been raised since the release of the iPhone less than six months ago – and how what once passed for cutting edge has so rapidly become not simply dated, but altogether irrelevant. More than any other event in the mobile marketing industry’s short history, the entrance of the iPhone has fueled a frenzy of interest in the space – both from brands and agencies alike. The motivational equivalent of the ‘69 moon landing… with all the junior rocket scientists that followed.
Mobile Advertising Comes of Age. After a few years of luring in the shadows of the mobile marketing industry, the mobile advertising market became incredibly hot in 2007, punctuated by major acquisitions by leading interactive and mobile firms, as well as a dizzying array of venture-fueled deals in the space. The two leaders in the nascent mobile advertising industry, Third Screen Media and Enpocket were promptly acquired by AOL and Nokia, respectively – while Microsoft, once again outmaneuvered in the interactive ad firm acquisitions game, was forced to settle on European Mobile Ad Firm Screen Tonic. The remaining independent mobile ad firms were also firing on all cylinders, with Amobee, Millennial Media, AdMob, Greystripe, and Quattro Wireless all expanding on the heels of fresh investment capital raised in ‘07. Newspaper giant Gannett made a major investment in SMS-based ad firm 4INFO, while Google and Yahoo played a bit of small ball (we can gut Google a little slack here… they’ve been busy rewriting the rulebook for much of the rest of the mobile industry after all). The former taking the much anticipated step of expanding AdSense into the “mobile web,” while Yahoo! announced mobile publisher services and plans to integrate mobile inventory into their Panama ad platform. As for the internet display advertising giants, DoubleClick (soon to be Google) launched their publisher platform, while aQuantitative’s Accipiter Unit (now owned by Microsoft) tied up with NYC-based MoPhap to bring mobile capabilities to their publisher-side interactive ad serving platform. Add daily press releases by major web publishers bringing mobile inventory online, and I think you get this picture: 2007 was the year that nearly everybody in the space simply had to have a mobile adverting play. Sure, there was a bit of herd mentality going on, and no doubt we’re in for… shall we say, a bit of a “correction” in the coming years (this kind of activity surely cannot be sustained indefinitely) – but regardless, the business and technological systems are now in place for brands to reach out and communicate directly with consumers via the mobile handset. Keep in mind this is very different than previous (primarily SMS-based) mobile marketing activity that simply leveraged mobile as a direct response channel activating other forms of media such as television, print and radio (as so eloquently described by Jeff Minsky of OMD in a then accurate but increasingly outdated assessment of the channel – sorry Jeff, but I couldn’t take that one lying down!). Using mobile as a broadcast-type media may be a bit controversial to some, but as long as there remains checks and balances with regard to consumer privacy (yes, the carriers seem to be pulling their weight here, although some needed to be prodded a bit on the subject) an effective system of reaching consumers via their mobile devices should flourish in the months, years and decades to come.
Zumobi’s (formerly Zenzui) much anticipated launch of their widget-based mobile content application was announced yesterday (beta version). The then Zenzui was spun off of from Microsoft in March of this year, and has been busy attracting third party content developers, such as Flickr and MTVN to provide content to its application ever since.
The application features a unique user interface, with content widgets are arranged in “tiles” so that users can “zoom” in and out of content areas by using the familiar “9 up” arrangement. Reviews of the application have been mixed, in that the interface has been viewed by many as slick, but ultimately overly complex. The company anticipates a hybrid pay-for-distribution (a la cable television) / ad supported business model, although I have my doubts that the application will reach the critical mass needed to attract major advertising dollars.
A few months ago I was asked to draft a POV on the business prospects on the application. Below are some excerpts from this report that (should be) OK to share publicly:
While on its face the ZenZui application seems to offer an elegant mobile browsing-like experience, it is faces many severe challenges from both a product and business-model perspective that would seriously put into question the firm’s prospects for success (both in the short and long term).
ZenZui’s decision to target “Heavy (mobile) Users” is likely born out of necessity, and one should not assume that the ZenZui product will follow the usual technology-adoption curves. Several key factors render ZenZui exclusively a “Heavy User”-only product in both the short and mid term. Optimistically, one would need to look out beyond 2010 before the product’s scale would appeal to even the least risk-averse national brands.
As of today the application is only available on Windows Mobile devices (<2% of current handset market). Unspecified plans to expand to J2ME devices (roughly 60% of handset market) and BREW (roughly 25% of handset market) would do much to alleviate this, but lack of any (even approximated) release dates in either of theses two environments leads one to assume they are very far from even an alpha launch (update: the J2ME version has been slated for release in “2Q 2008.” Not exactly a hard release date).
Also somewhat surprising was that fact that Palm was specifically identified as an unsupported format (with no development plans), despite the popularity of the platform among Zenzui’s identified “heavy (mobile)-using” consumer target.
Without regard to specific memory requirements, the main challenge from a handset resource allocation perspective is that in order to function properly the ZenZui application would need to be “always on” (running in the background) on the end user’s device. It is well-known among mobile developers that multithreading on a mobile device is fraught with challenges, and that other than the most expensive Windows Mobile, Apple and Blackberry handsets, other (more common) handsets would likely suffer severe performance issues if the ZenZui application were “always on.” In the short term this issue would seem to reinforce ZenZui’s decision to target “heavy (mobile) users,” as they would likely be the only ones with handsets that could support the application, regardless of development environment (Windows mobile, J2ME or BREW). This limitation could be overcome over the long term once handsets “caught up” to this requirement (an unlikely scenario in the next few years due to the 18-24 month handset replacement cycle).
ZenZui’s non-standard coding environment assumes that developers will be willing to learn a new programming language in both a new / untested medium (mobile) and an application space that has yet to reach any legitimate level of consumer acceptance (ZenZui). As it is, brands and digital publishers are just beginning to embrace the need for “mobile-dedicated” sites in general, and when they do so are overwhelmingly choosing to code in resource-saving standard XML, or parse their standard web pages through a web-to-mobile “auto rendering engines,” which essentially remove page images and parse the (online) page into a standard mobile style sheets on the fly.
Numerous high-profile research studies relating to consumer adoption of mobile data products and services identify price sensitivity as the top barrier to adoption. Other than the severe handset requirements detailed above, Zenzui’s other major price-related barrier to consumer adoption is the requirement that, due to the Zenzui application’s need to refresh its (local) content over-the-air via the carrier data networks, the user must subscribe to an unlimited (“all you can eat”) mobile data plan. As of 3Q 2007 the majority of wireless subscribers have balked at unlimited data plans, which (notable AT&T iPhone bundled voice/data rate aside) can cost consumers a hefty $15 to $30 per month.
By pursuing a pay-for-distribution / advertising revenue-share hybrid business model, ZenZui seems to be following a model highly similar to that employed by the Cable Television Industry (Cable System Operator model). While clearly brands are comfortable “paying for placement” (even in the advertainment space), most digital content providers are not. High profile digital publishers will likely balk at paying a CPM and/or CPC on use of their content (on the contrary, many content brands would insist on payment for allowing Zenzui to gain distribution on the back of their content and brand equity). In the short term ZenZui has circumvented this issue by giving their product away to their content providers, but over the long term this will likely become a barrier for many premium content brands.
You can watch the Zumobi youtube promo video here:
The IAB (UK), in conjunction with the MMA, has published a fairly informative guide to mobile advertising in the British Isles, inclusive of a background information, marketplace learnings, case studies, and a survey of 41 agencies, advertisers and publishers on the subject of “if the internet advertising industry is ready to step into mobile.”
The section on background and marketplace learnings covers most of the basics but overall is fairly standard fare. The report points out the similarities and differences between traditional internet advertising and its mobile cousin, noting that the differences are mainly tactical (less screen real estate for advertising and smaller file sizes for mobile) before dropping a few choice nuggets of info on the reader:
Pricing. “The majority of on-portal ads sell for a £10 – £20 [CPM, ROS]… or 5p – 25p [CPC].”
Campaign Performance. “Click through rates range from 0.5% (off-portal site) up to 4% (on portal), considerably higher (sometimes 15 times) than the equivalent for traditional internet sites.”
Inventory. “The total UK inventory of page impressions is estimated at one billion page impressions per month (October 2007) but is growing at 9% month-on-month and is expected to reach over five billion by the end of 2008.”
The industry survey positioned near the end of the report reveals little of note, other than (as expected) opinions range wildly depending on one’s occupation (i.e. agency, publisher or advertiser, etc).
Myspace launched a free, ad-supported mobile website today (mobile.myspace.com), this according to both moconews and MobiAd. From what I understand the site soft-launched a few months ago, so this new announcement must be the official “hard” launch, although the site still says “beta” in masthead (the Google affect, no doubt). The move comes after the launch of the subscription-based myspace mobile J2ME client on AT&T and Helio about a year ago.
From a user experience perspective, the site works well and is quite snappy in my testing on a Verizon Blackberry 8830. That said, the Ford Focus ad displayed was not optimized for my handset. It could be that the 8830 was not recognized by the ad server and therefore defaulted to the 215 x 34 ad size (instead of the 305 x 64 that should have been served), although it’s far more likely that myspace’s mobile ad server is simply not optimizing ad delivery based on the device, as the 8830 is a highly popular handset and would therefore be included in any decent device library, including WURFL. Additionally, after many page refreshes the Ford ad is the only unit shown, indicating that either the site doesn’t permit advertiser session / frequency capping, or that this campaign simply isn’t using it (perhaps Ford is the only advertiser on myspace mobile at this time?).
Fox Interactive Media’s mobile partner on the advertising-side is Boston Baltimore-based Millennial Media, who is handling both the ad serving for myspace mobile (as well as most other FIM mobile sites) via their MYDAS server, as well as repping the inventory directly to advertisers and agencies. Currently they are serving banners basically an ROS basis, although I am told plans are in the works to bring advanced demographic, geographic and psychographic targeting online “in the coming year” – all based on user registration data. While advanced targeting is attractive from a planning / efficiency standpoint, in my view ad targeting becomes less relevant that overall reach (at least until the mobile web’s scale reaches critical mass)… and in myspace’s case, what I’d really like to see from them is a targeting option that can restrict an ad rotation to pages that do not contain user generated content, for obvious reasons.
Microsoft has opened up advertising inventory in the US on its MSN Mobile homepage (mobile.msn.com), Reuters reported today. This follows similar moves by Microsoft in Belgium, France, Spain, Japan and the United Kingdom. Currently the MSN’s homepage is rotating banners from Bank of America, Paramount Pictures and Jaguar in an above-the-fold position, just below the search window.
In my testing of the new, ad-enabled MSN Mobile home page, I found that Microsoft seemed to be serving ads from an internal ad server, and is clearly not optimizing the ad size for all handsets, as MSN served the same 215 X 34 ad unit for both my Blackberry 8830 (Verizon), Samsung A717 (AT&T) and Samsung A900 (Sprint)… while a broken image was served to a Motorola V3T operating on T-Mobile (perhaps due to the fact that the handset screen width is smaller than 215 pixels!). Also, it seems that MSN is unfortunately not supporting “Text Under” links below the banner, which have been shown to significantly increase click-thru by adding an additional “clickable” call-to-action.
In addition to serving the mobile ads internally, MSN appears to also be (in some cases) hosting the post-click advertiser mobile microsites. In the case of the Jaguar ad shown, clicking on the link takes you to a Jaguar mobile microsite hosted (and possibly even created) by Microsoft. I’ll leave the site criticism for another day, but if you visit the site you can see for yourself that the most critical image asset – the advertiser logo – doesn’t even render correctly.
According to Mobile Marketer, a daily mobile marketing industry newsletter that started appearing in my inbox yesterday and that claims to be “the news leader in mobile marketing, media and commerce,” there was a 22 percent increase “in the number of consumers who received SMS text ads in the United States”, (3Q Year of Year) garnering “an 11 percent response rate.”Mobile Marketer cites M:Metrics as a source, although I found no mention of the third quarter data among its public releases.
Giving Mobile Marketer the benefit of the doubt (which may be a bit of a stretch considering the publication’s first issue featured a self-serving column written by an email services firm that felt more like a sales pitch than an “opinion” piece), I have some difficulty with the overall concept of “SMS Advertising.”SMS is by definition a “pull” marketing channel, meaning that all SMS engagements are user-initiated. If, after the initial engagement, the user receives a marketing message contained within a response message, I would hardly classify that as “advertising.” By most accounts an “Advertising” message would involve some sort of “public broadcast” to a large group of people. If I had to classify this type of marketing, it would probably fall somewhere between Direct Response, Sponsorship or even CRM (if there’s ongoing messaging activity to a list of mobile “opt-ins”).
Why split hairs? Well, for one thing, its important for the Mobile Marketing industry as a whole to get behind a set of standards and terms that are easily understood by the overall marketing community at large. By incorrectly calling this type of activity “advertising,” clients are getting misaligned perceptions about the medium and its uses, incorrectly thinking that they can “blast out a SMS message to the public,” advertising-style.
Interestingly enough, there are some genuine SMS Advertising campaigns going on in the US market. Who, you ask, would have the nerve to ignore MMA best practices and blast out SMS messages without first getting permission to do so? That would be the only group with no fear of the carriers coming in and shutting them down… The carriers themselves! That’s right, “operators are the main source of SMS ads,” states Mark Burk of M:Metrics.
I think we can all agree that unsolicited SMS ads are not the future of mobile marketing. That said, if we are to speak of “Mobile Advertising,” lets be careful of what exactly we are talking about. There are many legimate forms of mobile advertising, from mobile web banners, to mobile video spots, and even in-game ad units. All are legitimate advertising channels because the user has accepted these mediums as ad-supported, and while consumers certainly don’t welcome (most) ads with open arms, they put up with them so long as they don’t dominate the experience.
The same cannot truly be said for mobile messaging.
Amobee Media Systems has selected Winstar, known primarily as a niche online advertising and production firm, to rep their mobile advertising inventory (release). You may recall that that Vodaphone and Telefonica both made strategic minority investments in Amobee a few weeks ago, announcing that Amobee would be rolling out ad services for the carriers’ inventory in Greece, Czech Republic and Spain markets.
Amobee’s play has always been to go after carrier deals, as that’s where the bulk of the mobile ad inventory is at present, and it also allows the company to offer integrated ad packages across most mobile touch points (MMS, SMS, WEB) – a level of integration that’s rare in today’s marketplace. The challenge Winstar (and therefore Amobee) will face is that (so far) the most difficult part in the mobile advertising value chain has not been procuring the inventory… it’s been selling it. Both EnPocket (now Nokia) and Third Screen Media (now AOL) enjoyed early successes in securing large swaths of carrier inventory, only to run into problems on the sell-side. Tales of <20% sell thru on any given month were not uncommon.
Of course neither of these two scenarios involved the type of “integrated mobile ad packages” that Amobee brings to the table with their “carrier-grade technology.” That being said, my hunch is that Winstar has bitten off far more than it can chew, and that Amobee took an unnecessary risk in going with a small player… a larger online ad network could obviously do a better job repping the mobile inventory, but would give Amobee a smaller cut of the revenue.
Amobee seems to be following the same business model as their carrier partners: tie up smaller players and take a bigger piece of the pie… forgoing (short and mid term) gross revenues for larger (long term) revenue shares.
Of course if Winstar really under performs I’m sure Amobee will be free to find additional partners to help sell the inventory.
Last week was punctuated by a steady stream of mobile marketing-related announcements, studies, partnerships and launches – some interesting, some not so much… and none of which truly worthy of a dedicated post.
In a stunning announcement that is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows, 
The slow news week after Christmas is notorious for the oft-derided “year in X” reports, but rather than take time exploring the value of such “Remembrance(s) of Things (less than a year) Past,” mobilestance.com would like to take the time to indulge in our own year end recap of the most notable US Mobile Marketing developments in 2007 (and yes, the illustration on the left depicts “Old Man 2007″ knowingly handing an iPhone to “Baby New Year 2008″).
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