Mobile Advertising in The UK

Mobile phones have become as indispensable as wallets and doorkeys. Most people won�t leave home without them, and if they do, they will more than likely go back to pick them up. So why is mobile advertising�sending promotions and targeted adverts to people via their handsets�not yet perceived as big business by advertising agencies in Europe?

The revenue for mobile advertising is set ot rocket to $11.5 billion in the next 5 years according to Informa, the research company.

The mobile marketing and advertising sector in the UK is currently dominated by smaller digital agencies rather than the big ad agencies.

So far mobile is being investigated, but not invested in, by the above-the-line agencies.

Many agencies are not famed for their forward-thinking, especially when it comes to technology. But there is another reason for reticence on the part of the above-the-line advertising agencies. Penetration of mobile in the UK may be high, but it�s still very early days when it comes to mobile multimedia use.

This is a combination of slow and poor technology combined with the data costs for mobile users.

�The big steps that need to be in place for any brand to seriously consider a new channel is to be able to reach as broad an audience as possible and to do so in a compelling way and to have the ability to measure its effectiveness,� he says. �Those aspects have not been in place in mobile.�

Indeed, even a basic issue like the cost to produce a mobile advert yields wildly different estimates, ranging from �100 to start a trial to �13,000 for a full-blown campaign.

On the plus side, there are signs that the building blocks are being put in place. For starters, mobile advertising platform vendors like Bango are bringing out new products to measure the response to mobile adverts. Systems such as immedia24 also hope to tap into that market.

There were reports that mobile operators, including Telefonica�s O2 and Vodafone, were in discussions to create a common search platform that could work across multiple mobile Internet portals. Their thinking is that a single platform would help ease the burden of larger companies investing in this still-emerging space. The operators are reportedly debating whether to create their own platform or to buy one in from an established search portal, such as Yahoo! or Google, which want to mark out their own advertising territory on the mobile Internet.

Some major brands have already seen early mobile advertising success. Last November, Coca Cola launched its newest campaign, The Happiness Factory, on mobile before doing so on traditional media. Over the Christmas period, the drinks giant reported 579,000 page impressions for a mobile campaign it ran with operator 3, with a conversion rate of 9.5% for click-throughs on the advert.

Typical conversion rates for mobile adverts are between 1.5% and 6% - �Coca Cola now considers mobile media just like any other media in the mix,� an agency insider said.

�You can see agencies wanting to get involved and move into the space, which is being driven by the tightening of ad budgets across the board�. �In the last year, we�re seeing a lot more budget coming into digital.�

Countries in Asia have stolen a march on mobile advertising, by far. In fact, in Japan advertising has become the primary way that mobile content companies make their revenue. Anderson at Bango believes the US, too, has huge potential.

Back in Europe, the market could be at a tipping point this year. If increasingly sophisticated devices and high penetration can be accompanied by new mobile advertising initiatives, from operators and Internet portals, it could be the opening that agencies and their large media clients have been waiting for.

Cheating by Text (again)

It's interesting to note that the vast majority of our users in our personal SMS to web messaging,txt4everywhere are texting their loved ones.
Typical users are where their partner is in a different country and they can use the flat, worldwide rate to their advantage.
However our most active user is a man who is messaging more than one woman - cheating by SMS!

Young Mobile Users Say 'No' to Mobile Internet

Well here's a surprise. The Times Online reports that young phone users are not using the internet on their mobile phones.

Clearly they are competent with the technology, but why are they so slow to embrace internet services on their mobiles?

The answer is simple and obvious. Money. It costs to much to get data on your phone. At £7 per megabyte on PAYG it's not surprising. Vodafone typically charges £2 per meg for contract customers. web n walk system is an example of a good way forward - 7.50 for around a gig of download, but it is still not applicable to PAYG custoemrs.


The networks are desperate to increase mobile internet usage, and tie-in's with MySpace and Google are attempting to help this. But cynical attempts to increase interest in IP-based services cannot address the fundamental financial and functional issues - it's too expensive and too slow.


Interestingly the average young customer spends €25 (£17) a month on their bill — about 20 per cent more than the €21 (£14) spent by the wider population — and the majority of additional spending after the monthly contract goes on text messages, ringtones, picture messages and television voting.


The growth of mobile internet use, by comparison, remains slow. More than half of those surveyed said that they never browsed the internet, and only 8 per cent said that they used it once a week or more.


A separate study by Q Research shows only 3 per cent of young people aged 11 to 25 had downloaded music directly to their mobile phone, with the high cost of doing so the main dissuading factor. By comparison, two thirds of those aged 20 to 24 spend up to £10 a month on music downloads to their computer, and nearly half of those under 16 spend a similar amount.


Ben Wood, an analyst with CCS Insight, said: "Phone operators have gone from believing they can deliver everything themselves to realising that if a teenager wants to share photos, they're going to do it on Flickr, not via a Vodafone picture gallery."


Michel de Lussanet said: "Mobile phone companies have always been keen to offer internet services, but they’ve forgotten that people don't interact with their phones the same way that they do with their computers.


"Mobile TV, for instance, was a common offering early on — largely because it was technically possible — but operators didn't consider that the image wasn't like the one customers were used to in their lounge."

Exactly. It's pretty simple in fact - how many people use those tiny portable TV's? Very few. It doesn't take months of research and millions of pounds to know that!

The future is undoubtedly user generated content. No one trusts the phone networks to do it, and MySpace and YouTube show the future. Systems for mobile and web sharing such as immedia24 show where things are heading.


The customer, however, remains to be convinced. Despite 61 per cent of young people surveyed saying that they had internet on their phone, only 34 per cent wanted it on their next phone — in comparison with 65 per cent who wanted an MP3 player and 44 per cent who wanted Bluetooth.

Unfaithfull by Text?

It's that age old question that crops up at parties ... is being flirty by text cheating on your partner?

David Beckham has allegedly done it with his former PA. Shane Warne has been exposed doing it several times with nurses and glamour models ...

A worldwide study of 8,500 people has shown that one in seven people in Britain have admitted to sending flirty text messages to someone other than their partner.

The global study conducted in November 2006, by Ipsos MORI research of 8,518 consumers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia, Italy, UK and Germany found that Brits are amongst the biggest 'text cheats' in the world, second only to Malaysians. The UK are also the most suspicious - seemingly with good reason - with one in six people checking their partner's phone for 'suspicious messages'.

Suspicious Minds

Worldwide it seems that Malaysians are the most likely to send these kinds of texts, with nearly 40 per cent of people sending flirty messages behind their partners' back.

However Germans reputation for letting it all hang out and walk around in the all-together perhaps proving they have nothing to hide and are the most text-trusted, with barely 7 per cent of people checking their partner's mobiles.

By contrast, millions of 'Latin lover' Italian men use SMS as their primary tool for wooing lovers. One in ten relationships in Italy started with a text invitation for a first date, and nearly a third started with text-flirting. This is backed up by mobile phone penetration in Italy which runs at 138%.

And breaking up?

Nearly one in ten Singaporeans have used SMS to break up with someone. Germans are the least likely to be text-ditched, while 3 per cent of Brits have been dumped in this way.

Over in the text capital of the world, men in the Philippines could be said to have the easiest Valentine's Day, with more than a third of women preferring a romantic text message to chocolates or a card. Likewise 40 per cent of Russians make do with a text message on Valentine's Day.

Unfaithfull by Text?

It's that age old question that crops up at parties ... is being flirty by text cheating on your partner?

David Beckham has allegedly done it with his former PA. Shane Warne has been exposed doing it several times with nurses and glamour models ...

A worldwide study of 8,500 people has shown that one in seven people in Britain have admitted to sending flirty text messages to someone other than their partner.

The global study conducted in November 2006, by Ipsos MORI research of 8,518 consumers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia, Italy, UK and Germany found that Brits are amongst the biggest 'text cheats' in the world, second only to Malaysians. The UK are also the most suspicious - seemingly with good reason - with one in six people checking their partner's phone for 'suspicious messages'.

Suspicious Minds

Worldwide it seems that Malaysians are the most likely to send these kinds of texts, with nearly 40 per cent of people sending flirty messages behind their partners' back.

However Germans reputation for letting it all hang out and walk around in the all-together perhaps proving they have nothing to hide and are the most text-trusted, with barely 7 per cent of people checking their partner's mobiles.

By contrast, millions of 'Latin lover' Italian men use SMS as their primary tool for wooing lovers. One in ten relationships in Italy started with a text invitation for a first date, and nearly a third started with text-flirting. This is backed up by mobile phone penetration in Italy which runs at 138%.

And breaking up?

Nearly one in ten Singaporeans have used SMS to break up with someone. Germans are the least likely to be text-ditched, while 3 per cent of Brits have been dumped in this way.

Over in the text capital of the world, men in the Philippines could be said to have the easiest Valentine's Day, with more than a third of women preferring a romantic text message to chocolates or a card. Likewise 40 per cent of Russians make do with a text message on Valentine's Day.

Web-based messaging system txt4everywhere offered special deals and timed messages for Valentines.

More Operators looking at 3rd party content

More and more mobile operators are looking to content providers to increase their revenues according to new research from technology intelligence firm ABI Research. They have revealed that WCDMA subscriptions have increased by 102 per cent over the past year and that operators are looking to capitalise on this by improving their mobile content services.

They also noted that most mobile traffic will be data-orientated within the next seven years.

'Operators are now looking to YouTube Mobile, Jamster and Warner Music for content to excite and entertain consumers,' commented Jake Saunders, Asia-Pacific research director for ABI Research.

He added that messaging platforms such as Blackberry devices, as well as enterprise applications, are also helping to increase data traffic.

Earlier this month, Vodafone announced its impending rollout of YouTube Mobile for subscribers, closely following a similar mobile deal with social networking site MySpace.

Mobile as an advertising medium

This is a subject that I'll be blogging about more.
The concept is this: ad agencies and brands find it harder and harder to reach their audience. There are dozens of digital tv and radio channels. New magazines appear each week yet people get their entertainment and socialise through YouTube and MySpace. The point is that there is no mass media for advertising anymore.
The one thing that everone owns, and has with them most of the time is a mobile phone. There is a massive potential for these devices to be a channel through which information, entertainment and advertising can be sent.
When I say advertising onto mobile, I'm not talking about spam texts. As with spam mail, sending unwanted messages is not going to benefit brands. Fortunately because there is a cost to sending a message there is a limit to SMS spam, and the return would have to be pretty high.
When I talk about advertising to mobile, I'm talking about the kind of opt-in messages that will benefit the consumer in the form of useful information or offers. The advantage for the advertiser is that they are using the most powerful 1 to 1 marketing available. The mobile phone is the thing that most people have with them most of the time. To be able to get their attention through a mobile device is extremely powerful.