Mobile Advertising: New Revenue Earning Business Area for the operators

Mobile advertising can be a new business idea for any mobile operator. In the concept of Mobile Advertising, the network operator can play the role to act like a medium for advertisement.

As is the case for a TV channel & a newspaper, a mobile can be thought of as a prospective and direct medium for the advertisers to reach and sell their product.

One TV channel or a newspaper can be shared by many people, whereas at a time one mobile is shared by only one person. This personalization characteristic gives Mobile Advertising to be the most promising advertisement medium.

Giving an advertisement to any TV channel or in a daily newspaper it is not possible to claim how many people actually view the advertisement. And so comes the hit rate. But of course if there is no technical problem then when a mobile promotion finishes the advertisers of course will know how many people actually viewed their ad. So from the advertisers’ viewpoint Mobile Advertising will be more quantifiable.

a. What facilitates the business:

• A large customer base.
• A huge amount of customer information (preferences, real-time usage, demographics/other data)
• Billing and payment relationships and capabilities
• call-centre and customer customer service

These assets give operators the opportunity to add value to advertisers by helping them:

• Target advertising more effectively as customers roam the web
• Track advertising performance
• Provide a response channel for customers (including payments)
• Support customers post-purchase

b. Scopes of Mobile Advertisement:

Several kinds of mobile advertising scopes are there which operator can provide to the advertisers:

(1) Push Based: Can be effective for running special campaign.

1.1. Splash Screen Ads:

• An advertisement page will be loaded before the main WAP page loads.
• This page may remain for 1/2/3 seconds & then the main WAP home page will load.
• This splash screen ad will remain there for a certain period as per the contract with the advertiser.
• As a total solution the operator can develop the ad page for the advertiser on payment.

1.2. WAP Push Broadcast:

• The subscribers will receive a WAP push message containing the URL of the ad page.
• They clicks the link and will visit the advertisement page.
• As a total solution the operator can develop the ad page for the advertiser on payment.

1.3. MMS Broadcast:

• Advertiser will provide a image describing their offer.
• The operator will broadcast it to the subscribers.
• Advertiser will pay the operator for the broadcast (can be a per reach basis).

1.4. SMS Broadcast:

• Advertiser will provide a message body describing their offer.
• The operator will broadcast it to the subscribers.
• Subscribers may response depending on the campaign requirements.
• Advertiser will pay the operator for the broadcast (can be a per reach basis).

(2) PULL based advertising:

2.1. Banner Ads:

• In the top of the operator WAP page there comes a banner (may be with an image).
• If the subscriber feels interested & clicks then they can be routed to the advertisement details page.
• As a total solution the operator can develop the ad page for the advertiser on payment.
• Now in case of banner ads, it is possible to give the advertiser freedom to choice the position/placing (in which page the ad should appear) of the ad. Like an ad in the home page may cost more than the rate of ad which will be placed in a page which is two or three layers down in the WAP page tree.

c. Subscriber Response Models:

In two levels the operator can do the advertising business:

• Just reach the product offer to the subscribers & do not bother about the subscriber responses.
• Can reach the product offer to the subscriber and also provide them facility to participate in the offer (ie. Providing them the facility to response back through sending SMS or calling like click-to-call etc).

But to keep the model simple it is desirable to maintain point 1 as the standard, because then a general structure can fit all the different ad requests from the advertisers.

d. Business model parameters:

The following cost parameters can be considered:

Design & Development Fee: The operator can claim charge for the development of the ad page (may be advertisement WAP page).

Broadcast Fee: Advertisers may pay based on the number of persons received their product info through several channels (like sms, or ad page hits etc)

e. Where the business success lies:

• Detecting the exact advertiser market size.
• Contact & link building with the advertisers.
• Planning the event calendar for the year so that targeted advertisers can be located.
• Building a proper SOP
• Creating effective price package for the advertisers.

f. An Example:

Suppose Pizza Hut may have an offer for 1 USD pizza offer which is very hot offer. They may think that subscriber carrying the MMS enabled handsets are commercially solvent enough to take the 1 USD offer.

So they come back and through proper channel request can request IT to prepare the list of MSISDNs who are carrying the a MMS capability enabled handset and then to broadcast.

Conclusion:

Advertising is a huge revenue business. So what you think? Should the operators go for it?