Pitching Consumer Goods by Mobile in the UK

The mobile advertising scene is changing in Europe, according to a study by comScore M:Metrix. Its August 2008 Benchmark report showed a sharp increase in European mobile ads for goods that previously had little exposure on the mobile channel, such as food, clothing and consumer electronics.

The ads in question used SMS, not a Web-based technology. But the survey showed that in the year to August 2008, food advertising on mobile phones grew 53%, while ads for clothing and fashion rose 38.2% and restaurant ads 37.3%. Overall, advertising for consumer goods and services on SMS was up 15.2%, while advertising for mobile products such as downloads and entertainment fell by 9.6%.
Consumer response rates were also excellent. For example, 15.5% of mobile owners who received an ad for a restaurant in the three months to August 2008 responded, and 12.6% of those who got offers for food, such as grocery coupons, did so.

UK advertisers are well-placed to take advantage of these trends.

Penetration of active mobile phone connections in the population stood at 122.6% at the end of 2007, according to Ofcom’s report, “The Communications Market 2008.” Fully 86% of UK adults ages 16 and over owned a mobile phone in Q1 2008, and access rates were even higher among children ages 12 to 15. In addition, more than 60% of children ages 8 to 11 polled by Ofcom owned or had access to a mobile phone.

The UK also boasts high rates of SMS text messaging. In 2007, the last complete year for which Ofcom measured this activity, SMS use was up 28% on the previous year, and an average of 68 texts were sent each month from every mobile connection in the UK.

Before the financial crisis, industry observers were convinced that the mobile Web, together with mobile online advertising, really was approaching liftoff. Now it seems unlikely that 2009 will see a big breakthrough in mobile. But advertisers can still learn how to engage with mobile subscribers. Those looking for ways to connect with key target audiences during the economic downturn, and drive direct consumer response while keeping a firm grip on marketing budgets, should compare the costs of online and mobile SMS campaigns, or the feasibility of combining more-traditional Internet ads with an SMS dimension.

Early Movers in Mobile TV are Poised to Capture a Burgeoning Market

Traditional television has had a glorious run. For decades, broadcasters and content providers have extracted profit from this media conduit to the mass market by offering a growing array of channels and scheduled programming on ever-bigger screens.

However, this paradigm is now being challenged by the Internet, ever-growing data rates on both wireline and wireless networks, as well as the proliferation of content formats and devices. End users, meanwhile, have become more demanding and fragmented, splitting their precious time among myriad media choices, channels and platforms while younger viewers move beyond the TV content consumed by their parents’ generation. As a result, traditional TV is experiencing significant erosion of viewers and advertising revenues.
The marriage of the mobile and broadcast worlds has given rise to mobile TV — enabling viewers to access their favorite programs however, wherever and whenever they want. While there are clear opportunities for service providers associated with this trend, it represents unfamiliar territory for many in the communications industry. To succeed in this space, operators will be challenged with:
• Delivering a compelling end-user experience (for example, graphically pleasing, easy to use and interactive)
• Providing a wide selection of attractive handsets and devices
• Offering a broad range of appealing content
• Establishing an appropriate business model for the target market and culture
• Offering transparent tariff plans
• Developing effective go-to-market strategies
• Choosing the right underlying technologies
• Complying with regulatory environments (for example, spectrum availability)
A Growing Opportunity
According to ABI Research, the number of mobile TV subscribers worldwide will grow from 11 million in 2006 to 462 million in 2012, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 85%. But cashing in on this growth will require service providers to make significant changes to existing network infrastructures and business models.
The migration away from analog TV will free spectrum to enable service providers to build dedicated broadcast networks. The acceleration of mobile broadcast networks (such as DVB-H and MediaFlo), the 4G network adoption (LTE/WiMAX (News - Alert)) and the proliferation of user-friendly handsets and other portable multimedia devices will increase the advantage gained by the early movers in this space.
Differentiation from voice-centric plans is just the beginning of the journey. Service providers are at a pivotal point to leverage the merging broadcast and telecom worlds. This fusion will empower new levels of converged and blended services, for example seamless multi-screen experience and interactive targeted advertisements, allowing users to have anytime/anywhere access to the content they crave, while enabling service providers to implement innovative business models and tap into new revenue streams.
A close look at some of the trendsetters in mobile TV services should provide inspiration and encouragement to service providers considering moving into this space.

MySpace delivers video to mobile phones

MySpace users with mobile phones are about to find out if they can walk and watch TV at the same time.

On Wednesday, News Corp's online social network will make video clips from its members' pages available for viewing on mobile devices including the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95 and Samsung Instinct.

Members will be able to look at video on their own homepages as well as friends' pages. They also will be able to view professionally produced video from TMZ, the celebrity news and gossip website owned by Time Warner Inc; the National Hockey League; National Geographic magazine; satirical newspaper The Onion and others.

The free service will be supported by advertising. MySpace and many other companies are trying to exploit the small but growing mobile advertising market.

MySpace declined to comment on the cost of the project or how much money it would make them.

"These are the big guys doing it, and they're going to make some noise about it," said David Card, a media analyst at Forrester Research who called it a medium-sized deal in terms of significance. "Mobile is one of those things where people keep saying, 'Is next year going to be the year of mobile'?"

MySpace video will be sent, or "streamed," from the social network's pages rather than downloaded onto mobile phones. For this reason, the clips will not be available on Apple Inc's iPhone, which runs downloaded video.

MySpace, one of the world's largest online social networks, plans to support mobile video downloads in the future, a spokeswoman said.

MySpace's growth strategy includes developing mobile phone applications, as well as international markets and building up its music service. Acquisitions are central to this strategy, Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe told the Reuters Media Summit on Monday.

The company will work with technology from a company called RipCode to make video available on mobile handsets that have different technical specifications for how they handle video.

RipCode also will allow MySpace users to stop having to save their video clips in different formats, something that it said would save hardware, energy and storage resources.

MySpace delivers video to mobile phones

MySpace users with mobile phones are about to find out if they can walk and watch TV at the same time.

On Wednesday, News Corp's online social network will make video clips from its members' pages available for viewing on mobile devices including the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95 and Samsung Instinct.

Members will be able to look at video on their own homepages as well as friends' pages. They also will be able to view professionally produced video from TMZ, the celebrity news and gossip website owned by Time Warner Inc; the National Hockey League; National Geographic magazine; satirical newspaper The Onion and others.

The free service will be supported by advertising. MySpace and many other companies are trying to exploit the small but growing mobile advertising market.

MySpace declined to comment on the cost of the project or how much money it would make them.

"These are the big guys doing it, and they're going to make some noise about it," said David Card, a media analyst at Forrester Research who called it a medium-sized deal in terms of significance. "Mobile is one of those things where people keep saying, 'Is next year going to be the year of mobile'?"

MySpace video will be sent, or "streamed," from the social network's pages rather than downloaded onto mobile phones. For this reason, the clips will not be available on Apple Inc's iPhone, which runs downloaded video.

MySpace, one of the world's largest online social networks, plans to support mobile video downloads in the future, a spokeswoman said.

MySpace's growth strategy includes developing mobile phone applications, as well as international markets and building up its music service. Acquisitions are central to this strategy, Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe told the Reuters Media Summit on Monday.

The company will work with technology from a company called RipCode to make video available on mobile handsets that have different technical specifications for how they handle video.

RipCode also will allow MySpace users to stop having to save their video clips in different formats, something that it said would save hardware, energy and storage resources.

Mobile Video Gets Standards

The Advanced Television Systems Committee, an industry organization responsible for setting standards for digital television, said Monday it has approved proposed specifications for mobile digital television, which are eligible to become the industry standard. The ATSC's Technology and Standards Group has set a timeline aiming for fast adoption of the standard, which governs the way digital video content may be delivered to mobile devices.

Under the proposed standards for mobile digital TV, a broadcaster would be able to use part of their existing allotment of broadcast spectrum to create a mobile video channel. This mobile video channel would be embedded in the broadcaster's digital channel, but would not interfere with the broadcaster's standard or high-def services, or their digital multicasts.

For manufacturers, the new digital mobile TV standard will serve as a baseline for end-to-end system specifications, allowing consumer electronics makers to begin developing and producing the next generation of mobile devices with digital video functions.

The proposed standard has been supported by the Open Mobile Video Coalition, which hopes to establish a uniform mobile digital TV marketplace in 2009. According to the OMVC, mobile digital video will benefit advertisers in a number of ways, mostly hinging on its interactive potential.

This opens up possibilities for location-based services, advertising and sell-through transactions, pay-per-view, digital video recording, and programming guides. The OMVC is planning interoperability testing and trials for broadcast signals and devices in the coming months.

The OMVC is composed of 20 members that own and operate over 450 commercial television stations, as well as the Association of Public Television Stations, which represents an additional 360 stations.

Teens to Mobile Advertisers: Gimme!

More than one-half of teens do not want mobile ads. What about the rest?

If teens are drivers of change in mobile phone usage, can they also drive change in mobile advertising acceptance?

The good news is that, according to a 2008 survey by the Direct Marketing Association, 19% of teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 21 to 30 have responded to a mobile phone offer. However, the response rate dropped substantially to 7% among 18-to-20-year-olds.

The bad news? Harris Interactive and CTIA found that more than one-half of teen respondents were not interested in mobile ads, even in exchange for some type of incentive.

The silver lining: Teens were somewhat more likely than adults to be interested in mobile advertising; 64% of the adult group said they were not at all interested, according to Harris/CTIA.

Among the teens and adults who did say they would be motivated by incentives, the favorite was cold, hard cash. However, teens were more likely to appreciate free music downloads than adults. Free minutes were another popular incentive for teens, according to Harris.

Teens also were somewhat more responsive to ads that came in the form of polls or contests, according to comScore M:Metrics.

Assuming teens wanted to receive advertising on their phone, what would they most like to see? Ads aimed at areas of interest, such as sports or entertainment, according to Harris Interactive. Teens were substantially more interested in these ads than in restaurant ads, coupons or ads scheduled to arrive at a certain time of day.