I think this is completely brilliant. MMCast, who specialise in delivering rich mobile content and targeted ads, have come up with a way to insert ads in the time between when a user clicks on mobile content, and the time which that content actually shows up. Also known as the ‘buffering’ time, this is the few seconds (depending on the speed of the network) in which a consumer is completely focused on their handset, waiting on something to happen. What better time to show an ad?

The next place they need to take this is to Cable Operators, to allow them to insert ads during the loading time of OnDemand video content.

Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange and 3 - anyone who’s anyone, then - have announced they’ve formed a working group to define common metrics and measurement processes for advertising on mobiles.
The group will have a UK focus, producing a feasibility study to work out the best way to audit the performance of mobile ads across operators, including measuring audience and advertising effectiveness. The scheme is backed by the GSMA and if all goes well, the fivesome will have a proof of concept for a cross-operator media planning system this year.

It’s a testament to how important operators believe mobile advertising will be that all five are getting together to work on this project, in an effort to please the advertisers - or is it an effort to sideline the likes of Google?

AOL announced the AOL Open Mobile Platform at MWC, supposedly making it simple for developers to create cross-platform applications for mobile phones. Rather than developing a java version, BREW version, Symbian, and Windows Mobile version, you could just use AOL’s tools to get it done. Oh, and they’ll also ‘help’ you use their APIs for AIM, MapQuest, Winamp, and other AOL properties.

Sounds pretty good, actually. I for one would LOVE to see Winamp on my N95, with some way to easily allow it to talk to Winamp on my desktop over WiFi, 3G, or USB. The rest? Meh.

Developers can also monetize their creations using AOL’s Platform-A advertising. Nice how that works out, eh? Honestly, though, other than AIM and Winamp, I often wonder how AOL is still around. I don’t know ANYONE who uses anything other than those.

Several years ago, when Nokia bought GPS navigation company Gate5, most people were confused. When they announced Nokia Maps, it was slightly more obvious, but I think they’ve only shown off the tip of the iceberg for the Nokia Geo-Location services. Here’s why:

1. Nokia said last year that GPS would soon be a standard feature on their handsets. Today at the Mobile World Congress, they announced 4 handsets, of all range, and they all had GPS, as well as photo geotagging built-in.

2. Nokia, last year, bought Navteq. Navteq is the company that most of the GPS navigation softwares and devices on the market gets their map data from. Cha-ching, for Nokia, even if you’re not using THEIR maps, they’re still getting paid. Nice.

3. Navteq is now taking a stake in Acuity Mobile. What do they do? location-based advertising. There’s mixed feelings on location-based ads, but personally, I think it’s killer. If it will subsidize the cost of GPS software to me, and provide me with relevant ads, I’m definitely OK with it.

The thing about advertising is that people always say they hate it. They hate junk mail, they hate ads on the internet (which are often completely annoying), and they hate the notion of ads on their mobile phones. However, if you’d ask *why*, most of the time, somewhere in the response you’d hear something along the lines of “something I have no use for, or isn’t relevant to me.” I.e. if I, a twenty-something white male, started getting ads for Old Spice deodorant. Of course that’s annoying, there’s no chance I’m going to find that appealing.

But what if you’re in a new city, you fire up your GPS, and you search for pizza places. You get results for 4 places within 5 miles, one of which paid to be on top, and offers you a $2 off coupon. Perfect. You know they’re good, because 1. they can afford to advertise aside from their store sign and 2. they’re smart enough to know how to use technology to bring in customers.

Nokia also owns Enpocket, which is another mobile marketing-focused company. Last but not least was today’s announcement that Nokia has launched a premier advertising network, with the likes of BMW and Accuweather on board.

So Nokia wants to serve up ads on your phone, but do it contextually and based on your location, and with high-end names. Anyone still wondering what Ovi is about?

Jamster recently conducted an experiment with Israel-based InnerActive where consumers were offered free mobile games that had ads dynamically inserted inside. The trial included 6 of Jamster’s currently offered games and attracted advertisers such as Adidas, Domino’s Pizza, eBay, and Paramount Pictures. InnerActive’s system was able to respond to players’ behaviour and dynamically insert ads in the games and change them during gameplay. The trial saw click-through-rates of 39%.

Jamster’s COO Lee Fenton said, “In an industry where only one in nine people who play a mobile game actually buy one, an ad-funded offering will spur consumer adoption and fuel consumption…”

I have to agree. Nokia just launched its N-gage platform (kinda) and they own Empocket, which used to do similar ad projects. How cool would it be to see ad-funded games inside N-gage?

I got the wrong URL for the Bango Mobile Analytics service for some reason. I’m not sure how. Anyway, if you’re up for trying it out, head over to http://bango.com/products/analytics/default.aspx — and select ‘try it for free’.

Also: Do check out Mobilytics too.

Mozes, a California-based promotions company that focuses on mobile campaigns for bands, has recently acquired Hurricane Interactive Promotions (H.I.P., if you weren’t paying attention), which focuses on mobile concert promotions. Hurricane is based in Nashville, TN, and as such has quite a few ties in the country music scene.

Together the two offer a powerful package for bands looking to reach the mobile-oriented youngsters. Hurricane offers artists a range of promotional tools, including text-to-screen capabilities, contests, and music content offers. Mozes has managed campaigns for big names such as Tim McGraw, Nelly, and Colbie Caillat. The service is permission-based, so as to avoid spam, and is free for consumers. Online widgets are also used to integrate with social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Navteq, now comprehensively wrapped in the loving embrace of Nokia, has revealed its investing in location-based advertising company Acuity, but didn’t say how big its funding injection would be.

According to Navteq, the investment will help it fine tune its ad delivery for “interactive devices” with “real-time and geographic precision” and help the pairing get more insight into location-based advertising.

As Nokia puts GPS into more and more of its devices, I’m looking forward to seeing some clever uses of location-aware ads. Viva whatever comes after ‘find my nearest Pizza Hut’!

Bluepod Media are flying. On the back of their wickedly successful LG Viewty Phone campaign, which saw 432,000 media downloads in just three weeks, Bluepod have announced exclusive bluetooth marketing rights deals with:

- Blackburn Rovers
- Birmingham City
- West Ham
- Portsmouth
- Wigan Athletic
- Wolves
- Celtic
- Derby
- Tottenham Hotspur

It’s working well. At a recent Bluepod Media trial at Portsmouth Football Club, Bluepod report that 6,245 Premiership fans opted in to download a movie trailer to their phones via their phone’s Bluetooth connection from a total crowd of 20,200.

Bluepod MD, John Scorah, is understandably bullish:

“Brands waste millions of pounds targeting football fans on match days via traditional media which is both uninspiring and not measurable. We now offer brands the opportunity to create a one to one relationship with fans that adds value to their matchday experience.”

I can tell you, I’d definitely be opting in if I was standing bored on the terraces waiting for the match to start.

More from Bluepod:

The total attendance at premiership football clubs last season was 12.9 million people and Bluetooth content provides an enjoyable experience that can fill periods of ‘downtime’ in the immediate build up to games and during half time periods when fans are seeking entertainment. Fans can opt-in to receiving free ads and club profiles, fixtures, news and manager notes via their Bluetooth, with ads paid for by advertisers at a pay-per-download rate of between GBP 40p and 70p.

You can talk to John and the team at Bluepod via www.bluepodmedia.com.

Ringleader Digital, formerly MoPhap, recently got an extra load of $6 million in capital funding led by W2 Group. Ringleader Digital is building out a premium mobile advertising solution that focuses on maximizing the types of ads sent to mobile devices, to ensure compability and flexibility for advertisers.

By creating an ad network that delivers based on the type of handset and what that device is capable of, Ringleader makes it easy and simple to get the right ads to the right device, without needing to segment a campaign or work with multiple providers and carriers. Previous clients include Best Western, Absolut, and Blu-Ray.

Out with the paper coupons and in with the real-time text alerts!

Myer, the Australian retail giant, is considering using text message marketing on the back of customer spending habit analysis. Good to see news about this kind of thing. I’m sure, targeted correctly, it could be a very effective medium.

I say targeted correctly — because there’s only so many times I want to get a text message telling me I can save 10% on pet food before I’m liable to get a bit annoyed. There’s a little more information at The Australian site.

I see far too few stories about mobile marketing.

This came into the SMS Text News inbox today…

Kinetic Mobile, a one-stop solution for mobile marketing solutions, today announces its launch into the UK and US markets. Kinetic Mobile will offer its clients a full range of mobile marketing services and will have the capability to execute across all mobile channels, including SMS, MMS, mobile Internet, on-device applications, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Kinetic Mobile will also offer mobile media planning and buying services.

With an increasing number of consumers spending more and more time out of their homes and using their mobile phones to stay connected, the global mobile marketing sector is set to exceed $13.9 billion in billings by 2011 1 . In young and dynamic sector where new technologies are constantly emerging and practices are evolving, Kinetic Mobile will offer its clients trusted and best of breed mobile marketing solutions. Kinetic Mobile is being established out of Kinetic Worldwide, the world’s foremost agency at reaching people on the move. Kinetic’s move into mobile builds on its rich heritage of location-based advertising, global presence and relationships with big name brands

Good luck Kinetic! We’ll keep our eyes on what they’re up to…

A little over a year ago, the three co-founders of Jamdat, known for mobile content such as games and ringtones, left parent company EA and were somewhat in hiding. MocoNews.net is reporting now that they have garnered a little over $5 million in first-round funding for a new company called Gogii. In stealth still, Gogii is described in the paperwork as ‘marketing solutions related to mobile phones’.

We’ll be keeping an ear/eye out for new developments with this, but the trio has a solid background in mobile content, and definitely have a good grasp on what consumers want, so it should be interesting to see what this new ‘marketing solution’ looks like when it’s public.

A quick Google search revealed a Gogii Games, which apparently offers PC-based games. I was unable to see if there was a relation to the new company.

Superbowl is, obviously, a complete non-event for most Brits and, I’m sure, most Europeans. However it’s a big thing, big big big, here in the States. Interestingly, everyone I meet tells me that they enjoy watching the Superbowl for the ads. Not the football? Well, I can understand that. I went to a college ‘football’ game — the Emerald Bowl — a few weeks ago, and I was astonished to see what looked like nearly 100 players from each team make their way on to the field prior to the beginning of the match. It was stop, start, stop, first down, second down, stop, start, arse about… hardly what I’m used to with soccer. Still I can see the merits of the game.

But, like everyone else, I’ll check out the ads. I’ll also be voting. Anheuser-Busch, the chaps behind Bud, are running a text vote during Superbowl, according to today’s USA Today. After a successful trial run earlier this year, you’ll be able to vote for your favourite Bud ad by text, from the comfort of your armchair. Why? Apart from something to do, if you vote, you’ll get a text message sent to you after the game containing a secret code to let you view a bonus commercial. Smart marketing and an innovative use of the medium for a country with a growing affection for texting.

More info over at www.budbowl.com.

Ian Richardson heads up mobile in the United Kingdom for publishing giant, Emap. He’s started a blog, Mobile Answers, that went straight into my feeds the moment I came across it. He’s kindly given permission for me to reproduce this post he made a week or so ago about Mobile Content. He makes some excellent points in this article which, in the context of his experience in publishing, are particularly interesting to read.

Over to Ian.

- - -

I have observed the usability of mobile handsets for some time and have come to the conclusion that an industry standard of consumer behaviour does not exist and it probably never will…

My schedule of mobile usage on my N95 centres around, in this order 1. Voice. 2 sms. 3 internet browsing . 4 camera. If i added other functions to my daily usage such as playing music or mobile games and watching videos- my battery would pack up halfway through the day.. most days.

That forces me and many others to make choices.

Handset Manufacturer’s understand this with specific models majoring on a point of difference. The N95 offers a big screen + great camera. The Sony Walkman… well it’s a music player with great brand heritage… isn’t it? Of course the i-phone, does everything… well i can browse the internet… using wi-fi, but not 3g.

So does the handset ownership give us an insight into consumer behaviour? Err no, not really. With the prediction that more people will own a phone that has internet access and actually use it vs. their PC by the end of 2009, this is an important issue.

There are many variables with the consumer such as, pay as you go tariffs, owning a second phone, the use of a PDA, restricted company mobile etc… So when it comes to consumer behaviour on content consumption, I become very concerned.

Does the industry know what the consumer need for content really is?
Does the industry monitor what content is available vs. than what sells?
Do consumers only want to view news, sport music and babes on their phones?
And is anyone remotely surprised or concerned that Tetris is still the best selling mobile game in such a dynamic, fast paced innovative industry?

Even the national press have Sudoku as an alternative to the Crossword!Things change, products evolve, consumers make choices… assuming they are giving the opportunity.

So what is driving the traffic within operator portals?
Sky Sports? yes.
Mobile TV? not really.
Downloads, yes but in decline.
User generated content? possibly but not really through MMS - as you don’t get MMS in bundles unlike SMS!

It’s great that I can update Facebook, it’s not innovative though. It’s a bit yesterday.
eBay on mobile, is poor. Really poor. Can I really snipe at the last minute to get a bargain with any confidence? I don’t think so. Do i know the devil in the detail before bidding, no i can’t view that.

Not good.

Whilst data charges are still high and the take up of flat rate data is still low, consumer browsing remains low. Therefore… the operator continues to deliver content of the low hanging fruit variety.

This can only lead me to think that the industry doesn’t understand the consumer behaviour.
or
The desire of consumers to create, share and consumer content that is unique, timely or interesting on their mobile…

Or if they did they would educate the consumer via something good. FREE data and FREE MMS packages. Pre-loaded useful mobile content. Encourage genuine two way interactions between consumers and content providers.

Now that would be a little bit more compelling than playing Tetris on your phone…

.. surely?

- - -

Thanks for the permission to republish Ian. You can read more of Ian’s views at Mobile Answers.

With Nielsen recently revealing that 46 million mobile users used mobile search functions in Q3 2007, the marketplace for mobile search and advertising is hotting up. Right there in the middle of it is JumpTap.

Business is good at JumpTap — so much so, they’re busy extending their team — and they’ve just hired an interactive advertising guru in the form of Paran Johar. Apart from speaking the language of the ad agency big wigs on Madison Avenue, Paran will be working to reinforce JumpTap’s relationship with advertising and marketing communities and to help brands and advertisers effectively employ JumpTap’s highly-targeted mobile search and advertising solutions.

Over to CEO Dan Olschwang:

“Paran provides a unique perspective, having integrated offline, online and mobile marketing strategies for large brands,” said Dan Olschwang, president and CEO of JumpTap. “His leadership and strategic insight will help JumpTap continue its global growth, product innovation and ability to offer a full suite of mobile search and advertising solutions that truly reflect the needs of advertising agencies and the clients they represent. Paran’s addition to the team fuels our prediction that 2008 is the year of mobile advertising.”

And Johar’s background?

Johar comes to JumpTap from MRM Worldwide, McCann’s digital division, where he was executive vice president of digital marketing for North America and managing director of the Los Angeles office.

So Johar knows a thing or two about interactive marketing. Before MRM, he was the top chap at the LA office of Tribal DDB, quickly growing their revenues to $80m+. Paran’s been working with the likes of GM, Microsoft, Wells Fargo (you can’t go a mile in San Francisco without coming across a Wells Fargo), Paramount, E! Online and Applebees (British: think TGI Fridays-ish).

How does Paran react to his new role?

“JumpTap is in an enviable position because it allows advertisers to reach a personal medium that is in everyone’s hands and which has yet to be fully leveraged,” said Johar. “With over 2.7 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, mobile search and advertising has enormous growth potential. Capitalising on JumpTap’s market leading search and advertising technology to deliver behaviorally targeted ads, one of my jobs is to place a quantifiable value on the incredible synergy between medium and message that only JumpTap can deliver to agencies and their clients.”

Exciting. Very exciting. We need more of this in the mobile industry. We need more interactive advertising geniuses to feel the force and work their magic with their heavily mainstream-focused contacts.

If you’re popping by New York any time soon, it might be worth connecting with Paran as he’s heading up the JumpTap NYC office. I’m going to try and catch him for an interview shortly.

Bluepod Media has netted themselves a sweet deal with several Premiership football clubs in Europe after trialling with Portsmouth and Birmingham City. Bluepod will be seeking 3rd parties to setup and spam distribute to users branded content in all of the stadiums on match days. Obviously, the content will be free for sportsfans, since the brand owners will be forking over the funding.

Personally, I’m going to take a seat when it comes to Bluetooth marketing. I don’t mind marketing on my mobile phone, as long as I request it, either by downloading an application that features the advertising, or by navigating to an advertising-supported website. However, having ads beamed to me without my permission is annoying.

Yes, I realize I can just set my phone’s bluetooth to ‘hidden’, and that I can also just press ‘No’ to the authorization request that is part of sending things via Bluetooth, but I’d rather not encourage this type of marketing in the first place. There are infinite number of ways to better advertise to sports fans than Bluespamming them. Thoughts?

Link: StrategyEye :: Visual Market Intelligence

Californian mobile advertising platform firm Smaato is receiving USD3.5m in funding from an undisclosed number of angel investors from the media, financial and telecommunications sectors. Smaato is an ‘ad-enabler’ for mobile advertisers and carriers, with its Smaato Open Mobile Advertising (SOMA) platform allowing the delivery of targeted mobile advertising, including the Smaato News RSS newsreader and Smaato Cost real-time mobile cost control application. The company operates out of both the San Mateo and Hamburg, with strategic partnerships with Third Screen Media and Adconion Media Group in the US and Europe respectively. The funding is expected to be used to boost marketing efforts and build further client relationships.

I’m going to try and take a closer look at what Smaato is doing. I particularly like the concept of giving away useful and free (ad supported) mobile applications.

ROK TV is certainly one of the most active mobile entertainment companies as of late, and today brings another announcement. ROK Entertainment Group has hooked up with Utarget Mobile to include mobile video ads to its free FreeBe TV product. The service will include targeted videos pre-rolled before each video. FreeBe TV is one of the initial partners of Nokia’s Video Center service, included in the latest Nseries handsets and designed for streaming video content via mobile networks.

The first few sponsors will be announced shortly, with more coming on board along the way. I recently added the FreeBe TV service to my Nokia N95 and was impressed to find quite a bit of content, with several channels including Sports Bloopers, Classic Commercials, Fun Little Movies, an other interesting feeds. The content is designed to stream over EDGE data connections, though a 3G high-speed connection obviously makes things work a bit faster.

Today Yahoo! announced that it will be the exclusive provider of graphical ads for T-Mobile UK’s Web’n'Walk internet service. Web’N'Walk was introduced in 2005 as the first mobile internet experience with access to the entire web. Along the way it has also come to offer pre-paid users the freedom of unlimited mobile internet access. I had the pleasure of using it when I was in London late last year and it worked great, offering me unlimited HSDPA access on my Nokia N95 for 1GBP/day (T-Mobile now offers a 5-day pass for pay-as-you-go for 2.50GBP).

The Yahoo! partnership will enable UK advertisers the ability to directly target these users with contextual graphic ads, and should roll out in the first half of 2008. This is a big win for Yahoo! and its advertising departments against Google, who will not have access to these highly mobile customers.

Hopefully, eventually this will work to reduce the price of Web’n'Walk to consumers, though there was no mention of such plans in the press release.

I’ve been having a look at Celltick. I’m half sold on the concept, half deeply unimpressed. The concept, in a nutshell, is this: When you’re phone is not being used, Celltick’s software will float an advertisement across it.

Right.

My problem is that I like when my phone isn’t being used. I look at it to see what the time is. I don’t look at it for inspiration, challenges or entertainment. That all starts when I flick off the standby screen. In fact I’ve had more than a decade’s worth of experience of dismissing my phone’s standby screen whenever I want to ‘do’ something on it.

Can’t argue with the numbers though. They’ve apparently got over 38 million folk ‘connected’ to the service. Mysteriously, I’ve never, ever, ever seen it in use in the wild. And I do get around. Just, obviously not anywhere near their Portman Square headquarters as yet.

Link: Advertisers’ direct cellphone connection - International Herald Tribune

Celltick believes it has solved the problem of intrusiveness with a silent ticker that floats across the screen of a handset while it is not in use, a tactic that a few other companies are trying to exploit as well.

Celltick baits users with little bits of content, such as a news headline, stock quotes or games, on the screen of an idle phone. Two clicks, in some cases one, and the content arrives downloaded from the Internet.

Obviously you need some fairly enlightened mobile operators to run this with. It’s only in recent times that it’s been possible to buy a handset in the UK, walk out the shop with it and get it to connect to the internet without arsing about (and no doubt incurring stupid data rate charges too). And you also need some fairly decent mobile handsets. I’m willing to bet that half the handsets on sale in the UK aren’t compatible.

So I think good news and I think bad. I’ll err on the side of good and I’ll see if I can take a look at the LiveScreen service in the wild sometime soon.

Wapple.net has an updated service that allows advertisers to create mobile campaigns easily. Wapple uses a web-based editor to easily design mobile websites, in addition to being able to receive payments via mobile, SMS campaigns, and other mobile-based marketing.

For free, users can create a mobile website that can include polls, a webcam, and other neat features. Using the free version, you will have third-party ads delivered on your mobile site. They also offer several other packages, depending on what your needs are.

I really like the idea of companies making it as easy as possible for companies to create mobile-optimized sites easily. Even if most of it is junk, one of the many things that I’ve heard against the “mobile internet” is the lack of content and optimised sites.

James Burland’s sharp eye noticed that Nokia’s doing more product placement in movies these days. The latest is in JJ Abrams’ ‘Cloverfield’, set to debut soon. The trailer features a black Nokia N76, and a pink Nokia 7373 (from their 2nd Fashion Series).

Personally, this is something that I don’t think we see enough of, product placement in movies. It doesn’t need to be overt, but can be just showing a character using a device, that’s it. Typically whenever there’s a movie out with handsets, the forums go crazy with people clipping scenes to try to figure out what the device is.

If you want to see how product placement is done right, watch the U.S. version of The Office (I know, blasphemy, but hey, I’m in the States, and it’s not like I haven’t seen the UK version). The U.S. version has product placement all over the place, but you wouldn’t notice if you don’t watch the commercial breaks.

Do you think product placement is a good idea, or no? Obviously it’s a fine line between overt and not, but I think it can be done tastefully and without intrusion.

Link: SHKSPR.mobi: Bluetooth Spam from Coca-Cola

was quietly sat in a London restaurant when my phone bleeped into action. Would I like to receive a Bluetooth message from “Coca-Cola”.I was curious and I accepted the message

But what we all want to know, Terrence, was did you order a Coke as a result?

M:Metrics recently conducted a survey of 625 mobile phone users, trying to get a grasp on where mobile phone users are most receptive to ads on their mobiles. The study was commissioned by digital SIDEBAR, a company that specializes in mobile advertising and digital content.

The key purpose of the study was to determine what actions or events on a mobile would be optimal advertising opportunities. A few areas tested included before and after voice calls, data calls, or SMS/MMS, as well as on the home/idle screen. SIDEBAR also wanted to know what types of incentives would encourage consumers to sign up for mobile promotions.

Among the findings, the top 3 preferred actions or events were while the browser is loading a webpage, on the home screen, and after a completed phone call. I find this interesting, as those are mostly times when the consumer is not necessarily paying attention to the screen of their mobile (save for the browser). Also, the top 2 incentives were, not surprisingly, discounts on monthly bills and free minutes.

Personally, I would like to keep my phone clean of ads, it’s the last place that advertisers haven’t been able to break through. I don’t mind them when browsing the mobile web, but ads that are actually served up on my phone are not something I’d be open to, even for free minutes. What about you?

(Image Source: The Economist)