Mobile Advertising

The business of encouraging people to buy products and services using the mobile channel as the medium to deliver the advertisement message
— Internet Message Access Protocol

Mobile advertising is an innovative and a customer-centric approach to reach promising customers. It includes advertising in the form of Short Message Service (SMS), mobile alerts, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile games and videos. Mobile advertising can be divided into two main categories: Mobile Push Advertising and Mobile Pull Advertising. Mobile Push Advertising, can be in form of solicited or unsolicited advertising News alerts, job alerts and cricket score alerts are a few examples in this category. Mobile Pull Advertising, on the other hand, is defined as advertising when users request for the services from the service-provider for instance daily horoscope.

Mobile advertising is the latest buzz in the field of advertising, since it is a cost-effective way to promote and inform the target customers. With the advent of new media, mobile advertising has become one of the most demanding and integral part of marketing mix.

Benefits of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is cost-effective and offers flexibility to inform target group as and when required. In the case of mobile advertising the advertising message can be personalized with respect to Target Audience. The mobile advertising is interactive in nature and advertiser gets feedback immediately. Though mobile advertising offers flexibility to contact target group as and when required. It also gives option of permission-based advertising, which is also governed by telecom rules and regulations. The mobile advertising is still not brand creator but it is more helpful in brand recall and brand interactivity. The benefits of mobile advertising include: flexibility of content, speed of reach.

Limitations of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising has limited message content. It is mostly driven by key words and target audiences in most of the cases take mobile advertisements casually. Moreover it still has very limited reach as compared to other conventional tools of advertising. The visual display is not as impressive as TV advertising. Though the advertiser has more control on the mobile advertising but still cant calculate ROI of advertising more accurately. Most importantly, mobile advertising is often criticized for intrusion of target audience privacy.

Guidelines for Mobile Advertising
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published guidelines for mobile advertising. These guidelines are designed specifically for the Asia-Pacific region to encourage the use of mobiles for advertising-related purposes as well as its acceptance by marketers and consumers.

As of now it is not in practice. There are companies, and advertisers violating the defined guidelines but we are moving in the direction where the advertising world will take it seriously.

Conclusion
Mobile Advertising is at infant stage of the life cycle. The share of advertising spend on mobile advertising is minimal but when advertising spend is seen from the lenses of life cycle it is a good start.

Mobile Advertisement to touch INR 500 crore in 5 years

Reliance Communications, is pioneer of mobile advertising in the country, has effectively offered mobile advertising solutions for more than 20 clients over the past four years. In my understanding, the mobile advertising, started with LG during World Cup Cricket in 2003. Reliance Communications has also handled Cadbury’s, Coke, Maruti, Hyundai, ICICI, Kotak and HDFC. The mobile advertising in India is at nascent stage it is roughly INR 40 crore industry but advertisers in India are looking to cash in on the mobile advertising as potential tool of advertising. Experts predicts that advertising spend on this medium is expected to jump more than ten to twelve-folds to touch a size of INR 500 crore in next five years.

Mobile advertising can attract advertising spends from integration with below-the-line budgets, retail budgets and the digital budget. The bottleneck, however, is the unreasonable cost of Internet on mobile and also disproportionate sharing of revenue between telecom service providers and advertisers. The mobile advertising is demanding even playing field from internet and mobile providers. The operators, at present, are acting as a gatekeeper and commands control over the revenue distribution. Currently mobile advertising revenue is split at 70:30 ratio between operators and the companies, which gives very little scope for the growth of the mobile advertisers. Moreover, the operators have to stop acting as gatekeepers to the Internet and allow consumers to access content and services on the Internet easily and cheaply, using their mobile devices.

The mobile advertising market which is currently valued at INR 40 crore can grow more than nearly twelve times provided the telecom companies offer open Internet access at low rates along with standardization of regulations.

Reference: http://www.business-standard.com, Mobile ads to touch Rs 500 cr in 5 yrs: Experts, June 22, 2008.

Mobile Advertising

The business of encouraging people to buy products and services using the mobile channel as the medium to deliver the advertisement message
                                                                                               — Internet Message Access Protocol

Mobile advertising is an innovative and a customer-centric approach to reach promising customers. It includes advertising in the form of Short Message Service (SMS), mobile alerts, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile games and videos. Mobile advertising can be divided into two main categories: Mobile Push Advertising and Mobile Pull Advertising. Mobile Push Advertising, can be in form of solicited or unsolicited advertising News alerts, job alerts and cricket score alerts are a few examples in this category. Mobile Pull Advertising, on the other hand, is defined as advertising when users request for the services from the service-provider for instance daily horoscope.

Mobile advertising is the latest buzz in the field of advertising, since it is a cost-effective way to promote and inform the target customers. With the advent of new media, mobile advertising has become one of the most demanding and integral part of marketing mix.

Benefits of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is cost-effective and offers flexibility to inform target group as and when required. In the case of mobile advertising the advertising message can be personalized with respect to Target Audience. The mobile advertising is interactive in nature and advertiser gets feedback immediately. Though mobile advertising offers flexibility to contact target group as and when required. It also gives option of permission-based advertising, which is also governed by telecom rules and regulations. The mobile advertising is still not brand creator but it is more helpful in brand recall and brand interactivity. The benefits of mobile advertising include: flexibility of content, speed of reach.

Limitations of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising has limited message content. It is mostly driven by key words and target audiences in most of the cases take mobile advertisements casually. Moreover it still has very limited reach as compared to other conventional tools of advertising. The visual display is not as impressive as TV advertising. Though the advertiser has more control on the mobile advertising but still cant calculate ROI of advertising more accurately. Most importantly, mobile advertising is often criticized for intrusion of target audience privacy.

Guidelines for Mobile Advertising
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published guidelines for mobile advertising. These guidelines are designed specifically for the Asia-Pacific region to encourage the use of mobiles for advertising-related purposes as well as its acceptance by marketers and consumers.

As of now it is not in practice. There are companies, and advertisers violating the defined guidelines but we are moving in the direction where the advertising world will take it seriously.

Conclusion
Mobile Advertising is at infant stage of the life cycle. The share of advertising spend on mobile advertising is minimal but when advertising spend is seen from the lenses of life cycle it is a good start.