Tag Archives: mobile media news

IAB Survey: Rapid rise in mobile budgets shown in 300 US companies

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The latest survey conducted by Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has indicated some mobile marketing issues of highest concern to marketers, which cover the issue on consumer privacy (40%), device operating system fragmentation (39%), and lack of standardized metrics (31%). The study on “Marketer Perspectives on Mobile Advertising” featuring 300 companies in the US revealed that marketers are generally happy with results achieved by mobile marketing across the range of key objectives:  the majority of respondents were reasonably satisfied with mobile advertising’s ability to deliver on increased engagement (59%), increased brand awareness (58%), customer relationship marketing (57%), and sales drive (54%).

Some important benefits are pinpointed in the study to have caused the success of mobile devices as an arising medium of engaging consumers. These include the appealing elements of mobile as an advertising medium, the high potential for engagement and personalization, and the opportunities to better align the messages to targeted audiences.

The survey also revealed the companies’ goals of adding the mobile medium on their advertising budgets. Some marketers embraced mobile advertising as part of their digital advertising strategy and full integration with other media (31%) while other 21% doesn’t prefer a full integration to other mobile media. Some companies (14%) use the mobile ad more ad hoc basis while 35% in experimental stage.

In allocating for budgets, 28% of featured companies said their current mobile advertising spend is from $50-$150,000 per annum with 7% allocating in excess of $300,000 per annum.  The study also revealed 55% of respondent companies at lower end of budget spectrum spending of $50,000 per year.

The survey also revealed some very significant factors in terms of increasing on mobile ad spend, budget allocation, mounting brand awareness, mobile advertising strategy, geographic focus, top priority mobile device, the increasing interest on tablets, the continued patronage on low end mobile devices, and satisfactory levels with agency partners. Read more

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Mobile internet revolution takes Zimbabwe by storm

Zimbabwe entered a new digital era last week Friday when the largest mobile phone network Econet Wireless launched its mobile broadband package available to their estimated 4.5 million subscribers.  Econet CEO Douglas Mboweni said this was the most ambitious project they had undertaken since 1998 when the company was launched adding the broadband would be pivotal in reconstructing the country’s economy. Reporting from Harare our correspondent Simon Muchemwa said three broadband packages were being offered; “On the Go” for customers on the move using internet capable handsets and laptops, the “@Home” package for home users surfing for leisure, school and light business and “@Work” for business users.

MMA announces 2011 Asia Pacific board of directors

SINGAPORE: The MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) (www.mmaglobal.com) has announced its 2011 Asia Pacific board of directors. The key focus areas for the new board will be to accelerate the growth of mobile marketing and advertising, oversee the release of next generation advertising and mobile marketing standards and best practices, streamline and foster the burgeoning mobile marketing marketplace across industries, collaboratively support industry self-regulation and consumer protection efforts, and oversee the production of enhanced industry measurement, metrics, and educational programs and solutions.

Asia-Pacific Drives the Boom in Global Mobile Handset Market

Emerging economies like China, India and Indonesia are ahead of other advanced countries when it came to buying mobile handsets, said market analyst firm ABI Research. In its latest report titled “mobile device shipment market data,” the research firm has predicted that the global shipment of mobile phones will have reached 1.34 billion by the end of 2010.

PLDT to transform into ‘multimedia group’ in 3 years

MANILA, Philippines – Two to three years from now phone giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) expects to complete its transformation from a traditional telecom service provider to a “multimedia communications group,” a move seen necessary to arrest declining revenues. The phone giant has, in fact, started to move its subscribers away from traditional telco services over to the Internet by providing them with options—starting with mobile Internet browsing. Looking forward, the PLDT group also intends to construct a smart grid, which can deliver electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to control appliances at consumers’ homes.

Internet, Mobile at Forefront of Election Coverage

NBC’s “Nightly News” on Tuesday flashed a clip of Barack Obama speaking on the night he was elected president two years ago, with anchor Brian Williams remarking on how much younger Obama looked. Plenty had changed in two years, and news organizations harnessed firepower on the air and online to record a long, tough political night for the Democratic president. Republicans were making strong inroads in Congress, and it was clear from the coverage who was to blame. “This is about President Obama tonight,” Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said. Voters were saying, “Look, we gave you a chance and you’re not cutting it. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to cut it next year or the year after. But right now, you’re not cutting it,” he said.

Monetising the mobile Internet

We’ve all heard the big numbers: there are more than 4.6 billion mobile phones in the world, many countries have more cellphones than people and there will be more smartphones than PCs in most countries by 2013. The fact however remains that mobile advertising in 2009 accounted for a paltry $1 billion to $2 billion of the $460 billion global advertising market, even if growth rates are impressive at 20% or more per year in most markets

Analysis: Canada mobile market offers profit model for others

(Reuters) – Unlimited wireless data plans are almost unknown in Canada, and that’s a strategy telecom carriers elsewhere are starting to emulate as they look for ways to cope with booming demand and capacity limits. BCE’s Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus Corp — Canada’s “Big Three” telecoms — command profit margins that are the envy of the industry. They have an historical advantage over their peers because Canadians accept that they have to pay for as much capacity as they use

Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom expects to reach 1 million mobile Internet-access subscribers in 2011

Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) plans to offer less expensive mid-range smartphone and tablet PCs to increase the number of its mobile Internet-access subscribers from 700,000 currently to one million in 2011, according to the company. Offering high-end smartphones by Apple, Samsung Electronics and HTC has driven the global smartphone market to take off, but in the Taiwan market less expansive models matched with relatively low monthly rates are key to expanding user bases, CHT pointed out.

Telecom Argentina’s 9-month earnings up 30 percent

Telecom Argentina S.A. reported Wednesday that its net revenues increased by 30 percent to 1.3 billion pesos ($325 million) in the first nine months of this year amid growth in broadband internet and mobile devices that foster text messaging and other added services. Earnings per share increased by 31 centavos to 1.33 pesos on Argentina’s exchange during the nine-month period, and the company’s American Depository Receipts rose by 38 cents to $1.65.

Deutsche Telekom confirms its guidance for the full year 2010

Deutsche Telekom confirmed its full-year forecasts after a strong third quarter. Excluding the effects of the joint venture in the United Kingdom, Deutsche Telekom expects to generate adjusted EBITDA of approximately EUR 20 million and free cash flow of at least 6.2 billion euros. At the end of the first nine months, adjusted EBITDA amounted to 14.9 billion, while free cash flow amounted to EUR 4.8 billion.

Advertisers in Africa allot more than 50% of interactive marketing budgets in Mobile

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Some of the biggest success stories in the mobile space came from Africa with advertisers in the region spent more than 50% of its interactive advertising budgets to mobile, Starcom’s Ravi Kiran said.

mobile-marketingThe African region became a hot topic among marketers during the Mobile Conversations 2010 conference in India as Starcom’s Ravi Kiran cited some of the biggest success stories in the mobile space, which actually happened in the region. In an Afaqs article, Mr. Kiran substantiated his points saying that more than 50% of interactive budget for the African region got routed to mobile marketing, compared to Asia (2.5%) and 1.3% to US and Europe regions.

Explaining to this inspiring occurrence, he said that one has to look at the unique mobile marketing services that are being offered in the region. The mobile is also the only pan-African social infrastructure in the region, and how it is connecting the African market nowadays has become a case study worldwide.

There were some other points raised during the conference, and Kiran ended up with an enticing tip saying that a “simplified language is required to convince marketers to invest in the medium”. Whilst mobile marketing is treated as another format of marketing, the principles of traditional marketing have to be applied as well.

He added, “We should tell marketers about how it can be used for marketing instead of talking or explaining the technology behind it. Also, we should encourage marketers to experiment with mobile marketing with scale.”

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Mobile Internet Content Coalition petitions FCC to promote open mobile Internet

The Mobile Internet Content Coalition, consisting of 4Info Inc., Myxer Inc. and mobileStorm Inc., is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission in support of opening up the mobile Internet. The MICC’s comments to the FCC, drafted by law firm Arent Fox LLP, take a stand in favor of providing “consumers access to the content of their choosing without improper interference by wireless providers.” The MICC also proposes that SMS and MMS also be considered under the umbrella of the mobile Internet.

How mobile is evolving the media business

The once-static media landscape is evolving with the advancement of mobile technology, giving advertisers more options. Whether it is through mobile sites, applications or the recent trend of 2D bar codes and image recognition, media brands are taking note and evolving with the ever-changing world of mobile. Publications such as Entertainment Weekly, W Magazine, Golf Magazine, GQ, Wired and Marie Claire have all integrated mobile in some aspect.

Are US carriers finally making mobile marketing a priority?

With their wireline business on the down slope and competition ramping up in the wireless space, U.S. carriers are seeking alternative revenue streams and engaging in mobile marketing like never before. However, carriers are still struggling to figure out which vendors to partner with, how much data to share, which policies to impose and which monetization models and ad units to use. In addition, the explosion of smartphone adoption has been a double-edged sword: increased data revenue but also overburdened networks and the migration of traffic from on-deck to off-deck.

Juniper forecasts retail mobile marketing to exceed $8 billion

Recent research by Juniper Research has found the mobile marketing and retail sector including mobile advertising, smart posters and coupons, will exceed $8 billion globally by 2012. The “Mobile Marketing and Retail Strategies” report found that retailers are already starting to woo consumers via the mobile channel using mobile ads and coupons, and the market for these two activities alone is expected to grow by half over the next couple of years.

Stock Market Panic Brings Surge Of Traffic To Mobile Web

During one of the largest stock market plunges in American history, Online and mobile-based financial sites were brought to their knees yesterday under the weight of worrisome investors scrambling for information and answers. Portals like Yahoo and Google Finance went down hard after news broke that the stock market was losing equity fast for relatively unknown reasons, forcing people all of the world to take to their mobile devices and computers in search of additional information.

Mobile devices set to interact with TV: Analyst

As demand for connected devices expands, Internet-enabled televisions form a category poised for growth. According to new forecasts from ABI Research, the estimated 19 percent of flat-panel TVs shipping with Ethernet in 2010 will grow to 46 percent in 2013, and connectivity is expected to become a mainstream feature. “In terms of mobile devices and the primary screen I would say there are two primary motivations for connecting or linking the two devices,” said Michael Inouye, industry analyst of digital home at ABI Research, Oyster Bay, NY.

Why brands must have a 360-degree mobile Web strategy

A 360-degree mobile Web strategy spans far beyond just a mobile-optimized site and means that brands need to tie mobile to their traditional marketing. For example, email campaigns are generating a lot of conversion traffic for sites. Including a URL to a mobile site will factor in mobile email users and provide them with a better experience than just throwing them onto a wired Web site on their device.

How retailers can leverage SMS for inventory management

One of the most recent trends on the retail scene is the private sale for inventory management, and SMS can serve as a great tool to get customers in for one. Research shows that after 60 days, an item at a retail location has about a 15 percent chance of being sold. After 90 days this number drops to just 5 percent, and that is why retailers are relying on private sales to keep inventory moving.

HBO taps SMS to build database during Mayweather-Marquez fight

HBO used SMS to drive awareness and pay-per-view purchases of a recent Mayweather-Marquez boxing match and to generate opt-ins for its own mobile VIP club.

Mobile Handsets Grow 19% in Q1

Global shipments of mobile handsets grew 19% year-over-year during Q1 2010, according to ABI Research. In total, 303 million mobile handsets shipped worldwide during Q1 2010. This puts annual global mobile handset shipments on pace to reach about 1.3 billion in 2010. Strongest handset shipment growth was seen in the Middle East and Africa (20% year-over-year) followed by the Americas, particularly the US (11%). Europe, on the other hand, is languishing with single-digit growth. It is also notable that 3G handset shipments eclipsed 2G handset shipments globally.

Facebook, Twitter Post Strong March Growth

Facebook and Twitter clearly surpassed all other major social networks in US year-over-year growth during March 2010, according to data from The Nielsen Company. In March 2010, Facebook reported 117.1 million unique US users at home and work. This represented 69% year-over-year growth from 69.1 million unique US users in March 2009. While Twitter only reported 20.1 million unique US users in March 2010, this still represented strong 45% year-over-year growth from 13.8 million unique users in March 2009. It is also worth noting that Twitter had a negligible 520,000 unique users in March 2008.

Low Ad Recall but High Response for Location-Based Services

In 2009, digital advertising solutions provider Eyeblaster set out to go beyond the click and measure user engagement with online ads according to a broader set of actions dubbed “dwell.” Users dwell when they mouse over an ad, or interact with a rich media placement, for example. The company’s “Global Benchmark 2010” report analyzed dwell metrics for billions of rich media impressions served in 2009 and found that high dwell correlated with high engagement, brand-related searches and ultimately conversion.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Mobile can restore diminished brand loyalty caused by recession: Study

Due to the recessionary environment, consumers have been willing to forgo their favorite brands to cut household costs. Mobile represents a new access point for brand engagement and marketing opportunities. There has been a clear willingness to “trade down” to lower-priced brands over the past two years. According to research by comScore a decline in loyalty to consumer goods brands is typically one of the byproducts of a recession as consumers give greater consideration to price.

Consumer dependency on mobile devices increasing: InsightExpress

Forty-five percent of users check their mobile devices first thing in the morning, according to InsightExpress. The study showed a shift in three major mobile user profiles. Mobile Intensive, Mobile Casuals and Mobile Restrained represent the latest in mobile behavioral and attitudinal trends among consumers. “The Mobile Intensives segment, the group that is consuming the most content on mobile phones, is an incredibly attractive audience for advertisers,” said Joy Liuzzo, senior director, marketing and mobile research at InsightExpress, Stamford, CT.

Australians take to mobile internet

Nearly half of all Australian mobile phone users now own an internet-capable phone, but only a third accesses the web regularly on them, according to new research by The Nielsen Company. Australians’ ownership of internet phones now sits at 43 per cent, with 29 per cent regularly using it to search, email, find maps and to share their lives on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Even though people have an internet-enabled handset, some people aren’t necessarily using it.

Webinar: Applebee’s and MMA: Five Drivers Influencing Mobile Marketing This Year

As more marketers and retailers such as Applebee’s incorporate mobile into their multichannel plans and more consumers engage with content, marketing and commerce on their mobile devices, increased scrutiny and expectations are likely to result. In this free, hour-long webinar on Thursday, May 20 at 2 p.m. ET, Applebee’s executive Scott Fischer along with the top officials from the Mobile Marketing Association will outline the five factors that could propel the use of mobile.

Advertising Scene: Pepsi rolls out multifaceted LBS mobile loyalty initiatives

PepsiCo Inc. has debuted application-centered mobile initiatives to help its restaurant partners inspire customer loyalty and drive consumers to nearby locations. PepsiCo is working on two separate initiatives.

Indonesia: Bakrie Telecom issues $250 million debut bond

Indonesian mobile phone operator Bakrie Telecom sold $250 million worth of five-year bonds on Friday. The 144A high-yield notes, which are callable after three years, pay a semi-annual coupon of 11.5% and were re-offered at par, resulting in a yield of 11.5% as well. The maturity date has been set to May 7, 2015. Bakrie initially announced a deal roadshow on April 21 and on the following Monday (April 26) came out with guidance for a $250 million five-year issue with a yield in the area of 11%.

5 Keys For Successful Mobile Marketing

If the majority of your customers have cell phones, you might want to consider a mobile marketing strategy to reach them. Reaching out to your customers via text message is a great way to promote special offers and encourage further engagement with your brand. Choose a simple keyword that is easy to text. Most of your customers will join your mobile program by sending a text message to a short code number (5 or 6 digits) with a keyword to identify your program.

Smartphone Shipments Jump 50% During Q1

People want smartphones, as evident by a new report indicating global smartphone shipments totaled an estimated 54M units during Q1 2010, growing 50% from Q1 2009 when 36M units were shipped. The report, published by Strategy Analytics under the name “Global Smartphone Market Share Update,” also indicates Nokia shipped a record 21.5 million smartphones worldwide in Q1 2010, rising an above-average 57% from 13.7 million units a year earlier.

Mobile Marketing and Retail Sector to Exceed $8 Billion by 2012: Report

A recent research conducted by Juniper Research has found the mobile marketing and retail sector including mobile advertising, smart posters and coupons, will exceed $8 billion globally by 2012. The “Mobile Marketing and Retail Strategies” report found that retailers have started exploiting mobile channel through advertising campaign on the handset and also by issuing free coupons.

Portals and directories lead mobile advertising spend in 2010: Study

Portals and directories, travel, entertainment and telecommunications lead mobile advertising spend in quarter one of 2010, according to Millennial Media. In the company’s one-year anniversary edition of its monthly Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting report, it focused on a number of trends observed from its ad servers and campaign data. In addition, the report showed that Blackberry smartphones dominate 12 of top 15 DMAs and the iPhone is tops in the Bay area.

Whitepaper: Mobile Marketing Predictions For The Next Five Years & Beyond

Dubbed “Mobile Marketing for Business – Part One – An Overview,” the new whitepaper does an excellent job at detailing the fundamentals of mobile marketing, current industry statistics, examples of “what’s working now,” current drawbacks and future predictions for the industry as a whole. The whitepaper details stats such as that mobile devices will surpass desktop Web browsing within five to ten years, citing the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) who states cell phone use is far higher than Internet use.

Industry News: Of budgets, Apple and mobile advertising

Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems intent on bludgeoning everyone to submission with his love-it-or-leave-it attitude to mobile. First it was the tight girdle around applications and now it’s his diktats on mobile advertising. Quite clearly, Mr. Jobs is taking advertising agencies, application developers, ad networks and advertisers on this rollercoaster ride, making each descent more frightening than the other. Does he know something that mobile marketers don’t?

Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE regions shift to online and mobile media for news

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Experts call 2010 the year of digital media. In an AFP report, 49% of consumers in UAE use both the internet and print media; and more than half in Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia use online sources.online-news

The industry experts confirmed that news consumption in these regions is increasing rapidly in favor to the digitals – the online and mobile media. According to the Arab Media Outlook 2009-2013 report, more than half of the news consumers in Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia depend on internet sources while 49% use the internet and print media in UAE.

As industry experts anticipate the online advertising growth in the region in the next three years, they started laying foundation of new business in the domain of digital and online marketing solutions.

In line to this trend, the mobile penetration in the region is extremely high, most especially in UAE and Egypt, according to Anna Gibbons, Business Director of neo@Ogilvy, OgilvyOne Middle East. Hence, the mobile media are also expected to become the new buzz in terms of attracting new consumers and in advertising spend as well. READ MORE

Mobile Devices: Gateway to Dive into Brands or Advertising, Starcom

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The mobile technology is seen to continuously strengthen its presence in the global market; and consequently, this medium has created a unique role in the worldwide advertising scene.

In a recent study on consumer behaviors and attitudes toward mobile advertising, Starcom USA revealed that mobile subscribers are using the mobile phones to connect to ads or offers in other media. This, somehow, is a good catch for millions of marketers worldwide.

Starcom: Mobile Data Users Connecting To Ads In Other Media

By: Mark Walsh (MediaPost)

Almost two-thirds of mobile content consumers use their handheld devices to act on advertising in other media like out-of-home ads and digital videos, especially while on the go, according to new research from Starcom USA.

That’s among the key findings from the second phase of the agency’s ongoing study of mobile consumer behavior and attitudes toward mobile advertising. Starcom released an initial set of research findings in January 2008 based on a survey of both light and heavy users of mobile data in Chicago, Houston, New York and San Francisco.

Among the earlier results was that while people are not averse to advertising on mobile devices, they object to the lack of relevant ads. Working with comScore on its latest round of mobile research, Starcom found 63% of mobile data subscribers are using mobile phones as a way to access ads or offers in other media.

“What’s happening is the mobile device is becoming a gateway to further dive into brands or advertising to get more information about products being promoted,” said Brandon Starkoff, senior vice president and mobile activation director at Starcom. That can range from billboard ads featuring mobile short codes to in-store promotions to print and TV advertising. Read more

Mobile Usage on the Rise, New Landscape for marketers

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Recent study on mobile media reports the rise of consumer usage to consequently open new landscape for global marketers.

In a report published on Brandweek, the study conducted by IPG’s Universal McCann and AOL reveals 80% of smart-phone users satisfied to the quality of Internet on their mobile devices.

The research study has presented 95% of the respondents saying they used mobile media to fill downtime; 82% said they use it at work; 81% of the respondents use mobile while shopping; 80% at home; and 65% while commuting to their offices.

Stuart Rodnick, Senior director of Strategic Insights at AOL, describes the mobile to lead into a “social transformation”. And with mobile usage forecasted to grow 60% over the next two years, marketers are advised to formulate ways of communicating about their brands with mobile users, or risking of missing out huge opportunity. READ MORE