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Ozometer by Play
The campaign was created to celebrate Foster's famous ‘No Worries’ attitude. In creating the campaign, Play searched for some of Britain’s most, and least, ‘No worries’ people, celebrities and places. More on Play's award winning campaign.The mobile advertising market in the UK
Written by Rachel Wright, business development director, Phonevalley
There are many different ways you can use the mobile phone to communicate with a specific audience, making the most of its unique functions and targeting opportunities.
In the main, when we talk about advertising on the mobile we are referring to mobile internet advertising. This can be split into three distinct categories:
The operator portals have the highest reach, and are critical for building 1+ coverage within mobile advertising campaigns, thus mass reach. This means that everyone sees your advert at least once, so for example, if you had 3+ coverage of 10 million, 10 million people would have seen your ad at least 3 times. However, with more and more big players entering the mobile arena, consumer interaction with off portal sites is growing. As an example Bebo, the most recent mobile social networking site to start accepting advertising, attracts 857 000 monthly unique users (Source M:Metrics).
It is important, however, not just to view mobile as an extension of online, there are many other ways to advertise and market a product or service. Text for example is one the most used functions on a handset making SMS or MMS a great advertising and CRM opportunity. Blyk have managed to tap into this offering providing a free network for 16-24 year olds based on them accepting a set amount of text based advertising. Another noninternet opportunity is Bluetooth which works well with location based campaigns, both Bluepod and Breezetech offer strong site and mobile pod opportunities in this area.
One of the major developments to occur within this area is the proliferation of high speed networks, with 3G penetration at 31% (source M:Metrics.) This linked with the growth of the multimedia handset has not only made the user experience faster and more engaging but has opened up creative opportunities, with the iPhone being a great example.
Flat rate data packages have also taken away the worry of cost for many users and following in the steps of online several years ago has helped encourage people to surf not only for longer but also across a number of different sites. O2 for example have reported seeing a 300% increase in mobile surfing for those on their unlimited surfing package.
Mobile internet advertising formats
Mobile internet in many ways reflects a scaled-down version of the advertising opportunities available online:
Non internet advertising
There are many different ways you can use the mobile phone to communicate with a specific audience, making the most of its unique functions and targeting opportunities.
Mobile internet advertising
In the main, when we talk about advertising on the mobile we are referring to mobile internet advertising. This can be split into three distinct categories:
- On Portal - operator sites (O2, Orange, T-mobile, 3 and Vodafone) that are normally set as your default landing page.
- Off Portal - sites that fall outside of the operator portal or walled garden (Facebook, The Sun etc).
- Search - primarily used via search partners on portal sites, but like the internet can be accessed directly. The major players in this area Yahoo! and Google.
The operator portals have the highest reach, and are critical for building 1+ coverage within mobile advertising campaigns, thus mass reach. This means that everyone sees your advert at least once, so for example, if you had 3+ coverage of 10 million, 10 million people would have seen your ad at least 3 times. However, with more and more big players entering the mobile arena, consumer interaction with off portal sites is growing. As an example Bebo, the most recent mobile social networking site to start accepting advertising, attracts 857 000 monthly unique users (Source M:Metrics).
Other mobile advertising
It is important, however, not just to view mobile as an extension of online, there are many other ways to advertise and market a product or service. Text for example is one the most used functions on a handset making SMS or MMS a great advertising and CRM opportunity. Blyk have managed to tap into this offering providing a free network for 16-24 year olds based on them accepting a set amount of text based advertising. Another noninternet opportunity is Bluetooth which works well with location based campaigns, both Bluepod and Breezetech offer strong site and mobile pod opportunities in this area.
Recent, significant developments
One of the major developments to occur within this area is the proliferation of high speed networks, with 3G penetration at 31% (source M:Metrics.) This linked with the growth of the multimedia handset has not only made the user experience faster and more engaging but has opened up creative opportunities, with the iPhone being a great example.
Flat rate data packages have also taken away the worry of cost for many users and following in the steps of online several years ago has helped encourage people to surf not only for longer but also across a number of different sites. O2 for example have reported seeing a 300% increase in mobile surfing for those on their unlimited surfing package.
The formats available
Mobile internet advertising formats
Mobile internet in many ways reflects a scaled-down version of the advertising opportunities available online:
- Text links - offer a low cost and low risk entry method to mobile advertising especially for DR clients with them being bought on a CPC basis.
- Banners and super banners - again like on the PC, and we are starting to see more opportunities for animations and creativity.
- Ad funded content – as technology and demand has opened up the content on the mobile, so has the opportunity to advertise, and with there still being reluctance and misunderstanding in terms of data charges, sponsorship, which enables free or reduced cost content for the consumer, has increased.
- Pre/post roll video – often linked to the above, usually 15 second video clips which can be supported by clickable banners making them great for both branding and DR.
- Search – basics are the same as online but results are more location based. Major benefits with search on the mobile over search on the PC is the less cluttered environment and lower CPC due to less advertisers bidding on keywords.
Non internet advertising
- SMS (text) MMS (picture) or VMS (video) advertising (which has been estimated at over 90% of mobile marketing revenue worldwide) – can either be sent out to own customer database or to a targeted opted in bought list. This can be a great form of CRM or due to the viral benefits of mobile a great way of distributing money off coupons or incentives.
- Bluetooth – an alternative to WAP for broadcasting information. Generally installed at set locations such as cinemas or train stations and can distribute opted in content within a limited area.
- Mobile games – often linked in with ad funding or sponsorship, can be as simple as a full page interstitial before the games, or a fully integrated branded experience.
- There are also several emerging formats - Mobile TV, screen savers or the new mobile phone ad funded directory enquiries service, making use of the original purpose of the mobile ‘voice’.
