Continuing with my coverage of the World Telemedia event in Budapest, I discovered a little-known soon-to-launch mobile music and content service that harnesses visual search to sell content and keep the customer. Craze Productions, headed by Sam Doctor of Dance Kleinman, a digital media company specializing in Urban & Dance music, has quietly teamed up with DSPV Ltd., and Israeli provider of visual search solutions based on its own IP, for visual search. The service, which Kleinman tells me will debut in the U.K. in the next weeks (most likely before the holiday season gets into full swing), will allow users to shop till they drop using their camera-enabled 3G phones. DSPV has also recently run a visual search service with Orange in Israel, delivering results the operator said exceeded expectations.
DSPV informational video:
Kleinman’s new service will go beyond music content. Users who take a liking to an artist's Phat Farm cap or a RocaWear jacket, for example, will soon be able to purchase apparel and a variety of other cool stuff using visual search. As Kleinman put it, the technology (and the no-brainer interface that visual search represents) makes buying music and merchandize œinescapable. What you see is what you will get. And - because Craze sells D2C- Kleinman can monitor purchasing patterns and collect the analytics that will make for a better and more targeted marketing of music services. (Craze has recently sealed a deal with Sky Interactive TV in the U.K. to offer viewers video & music downloads, ringtones and video ringtones via Sky's portal, Sky Net. Once on the Craze site, which users can access by tapping 1818 into their remote control, users can purchase and download to their phones.)
Craze production examples:
In Kleinman's view, visual search will eventually œpulverize the middlemen in the search & discovery value chain. This jives with what Tsvi Lev, DSPV's founder, recently told me. As he put it: The real power of visual search is the control it gives companies over keywords without having to pay a cent for them. Put another way, visual search allows companies to associate their offers with brands and merchandize without having to own them. Want to sell a Black Eyed Peas ringtone? You don't need to negotiate rights or buy a keyword. œThe sale is triggered by a visual image and companies can use any visual image of the artist to clinch the deal,” Lev said. Of course, some campaigns will continue to require users to capture specific images or barcodes with their phones. But the advance of visual search creates new opportunities for independent merchants to connect with their customers and sell their content. More importantly, it allows these companies to take a huge detour around mobile search schemes that cost money (keyword costs are on the rise) and threaten to send their hard-fought customers to competitor sites.
Can the use of advertising to fund mobile services significantly increase the consumption of mobile content and generate a new revenue stream for operators? Amobee Media Systems, a developer of ad-funded mobile content and communications, thinks it does, and has released some interesting figures to support this view. Based on “aggregated data from multiple trials with tier 1 operators in multiple markets,” Amobee reports that for every user who paid to download mobile content, up to 50 users went for the ad-funded offer (accepting advertising in return for free or discounted content). The operator trials involved a wide range of brands including Disney, Lynx, Adidas, News of the World, Canon, Sunsilk, McAfee, Disney, Apple iPod, IBM/Lenovo and Orient Express.
And then there are some stats that aren’t revealed in the recent press release. For example, when given the choice, over 90% of users opted for the ad-funded version rather than pay full price for ad-free content. Moreover, 30% of those users who downloaded a free version of a game (as part of the ad-funded scheme) had not downloaded a game in the last 3 months.
However, as I’ve preached in the past, relevancy is a must-have feature of any successful mobile advertising pitch – period. Amobee “gets this” and puts its efforts into delivering contextual, targeted and personalized advertising. Amobee also supplies developers with HAPI (Handset Application Programming Interface), which can be integrated and activated to make mobile content (just games for the moment) “Amobee ready” and conditioned to take ads. These insertions are served to the user’s screen during idle time in the game, for example between levels or during loading.
This was one of the questions that dominated the World Telemedia conference I attended in Budapest. The jury is out on whether ad-funded will be the basis for a sustainable content-selling strategy, but the window of opportunity is open wide for offers that use advertising to offset mobile data charges. And keep in mind it's not just about ad-funded mobile content; mobile services are also a crowd-pleaser. In fact, offering users services that allow them to communicate P2P may be a much better way to lure and lock in customers. This is the approach of eBuddy, a Dutch provider of ad-funded IM services. The company provides users free access to all IM services (MSN, AIM and Yahoo) without need of a software download. The business model? Users view advertising on their mobile phones at the beginning of each IM session. To date eBuddy counts 4 million mobile users (the largest user concentration is in Argentina followed by the U.K. and the rest of Europe) and 200,000 + logins daily.
Building on this momentum, eBuddy is gearing up to launch a new ad-funded mobile service in 2007 that Jan-Joost Kraal, eBuddy director of mobile, said will effectively scan chat for keywords and create linkages to relevant advertising. His dream is to collect enough information (based on the users profile and preferences revealed by the chat) to match the right ads with the right people at precisely the right moment. To this end the company also plans to develop ad categories (such as cars and music) and profiles (car lover and music lover) that will assist in triggering an ad-funded response to certain key words. To waylay any privacy concerns the service would be entirely opt-in, and users would be asked to fill out their profiles and provide more personal information. Moving forward, Kraal told me eBuddy may offer the service as a mobile client as part of a subscription service free of ads and other intrusions.
SNAPin, a U.S.-based provider of self-service software, has a different approach. Since it essentially enjoys the undivided attention of users during the lesson, its strategy is to present users advertising related to the services and content they interact with at that moment in time. Tom Trinneer, SNAPin VP of marketing and product management, told me the current model uses advertising to promote operators' on-portal content. Orange in the UK, a SNAPin customer, uses the service to suggest similar content and services to users who have already exhibited an interest in that content/service through their initial choice of training. For example, SNAPin shows users who frequently access the camera function on their phone an ad for Orange's photography service, a subscription service users can download to their phones. Moving forward, Trinneer expects operators to proactively invite brands to the table (this content is brought to you by) and more fully integrate ad-funded schemes into their on-portal content promotions. Again, it’s early days for ad-funded, so we’ll have to watch if these campaigns really drive positive results. But one thing for sure: the clever use of contextual advertising will separate the leaders from the also-rans.
The past few years haven’t been easy for wireless service providers. With 3G and fee-based data services a flop and a sagging voice business, not much seems to be going right for the mobile industry. But the situation is set to change.
After many false starts, wireless advertising is finally ready for primetime. Startups and major players alike are jockeying to see who can market most effectively through the wireless medium.
Here’s a quick summary outlining seven of the most discussed strategies and their long-term prospects:
1) Marketing via SMS/MMS: This is an easy one. Advertisers like Procter & Gamble work with carriers and companies such as Enpocket to sponsor audience polls. Think American Idol. It’s quick and easy to implement—polls use existing messaging infrastructure—and advertisers establish direct relationships through the mobile phone with customers who opt in to their programs. Unfortunately, there isn’t much excitement here, and the potential is limited. Not to mention that consumers who participate often won’t have any special affinity for the marketer.
2) WAP banner ads: The cousin of the internet banner ad is the grandfather of mobile advertising techniques. Guess what. It’s surprisingly effective. Advertisers know that handset users who look at WAP sites fundamentally have time to waste. They’re commuting by bus, waiting for a friend, or sitting in their doctor’s office looking for ways to kill time. The problem is that WAP advertising inventory remains small because mobile web sites are relatively expensive to build. What’s more, the value chain around WAP banners remains murky. Who deserves what share of the revenue and who really owns the ad inventory? Is it the carrier, WAP site owner, or WAP advertising facilitators like Third Screen Media? It’s not clear, and by the time this one is figured out, the mobile marketing train will have left the station long ago. I think the way to go is off portal WAP banner ads to circumvent the issue.
3) Location-based advertising: Remember all the hub-bub about location-based services in 2000? Mobile phone users will merrily walk down the street as their mobile phone beckons them in to the nearest boutique or café with a well-timed ad. The scenario sounded nice…until you actually thought about it for more than two seconds. Location-based services don’t work unless you have a critical mass of advertisers and willing consumers signed up to participate. Not to mention the considerable privacy issues. Don’t expect this chicken and egg problem to sort itself out anytime soon.
4) Video ads on cell phones: Here’s another extension of common advertising techniques to the mobile platform. Companies like MobiTV and Rhythm Networks are making good progress with carriers, but they face an uphill battle. Currently, only 10% of domestic mobile handsets are video-enabled, and it remains unclear if the average user is willing to pay for video services. Watching a video ad is a known quantity for consumers, but who really wants to pay for the “privilege” of watching low-quality video ads on tiny screens? Witness the recent failure of ESPN Mobile.
5) In-game advertising: Product placement isn’t just for TV shows. Now advertisers are working with startups to insert their brands into your mobile games. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Who owns the ad inventory? The carrier? The game publisher? It’s not clear, and until the value chain is resolved, this method won’t take off. Besides, is a sponsor’s billboard in mobile Grand Theft Auto really going to capture the attention of attention-deprived youth game players?
6) Online coupons: Paper coupons have been around for decades. The problem is you never have them when you’re checking out at the store. Enter mobile coupons. It’s a simple concept. People carry their phones, and their mobile coupons, everywhere. And now that startups like Cellfire have figured out how to eliminate the need for a coupon client on the handset, this is a space that holds considerable promise.
7) Interstitial ads: Of all the techniques I’ve evaluated, the most promising is interstitial ads. Interstitials are ads that play during the dead time during downloads. They’re unobtrusive—watching an ad during a WAP page download is certainly no worse than watching a progress bar. When implemented effectively, they actually provide information that is both useful and immediately actionable. Imagine downloading a WAP-based movie review and getting an interstitial with showtimes and locations for every movie in your town. What’s more, there’s no argument about who owns the deadspace between downloads. It’s the carriers. And with new technologies like Flash Lite (Adobe), uiOne (Qualcomm), and MIDAS (Openwave) that greatly simplify interstitial implementation, you can bet that Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular will be increasingly focused on generating revenue with interstitial advertising.
Мой комментарий: Каждый кулик свое болото хвалит. Комментарии автора по рекламным каналам местами верны, а местами поверхностны и тенденциозны. Статья размещена потому, что в ней описаны большинство из имеющихся на данный момент рекламных каналов.
