Increasing competition, falling subscriber voice revenues, and saturation of handsets per mobile subscriber are forcing mobile operators to focus on generating additional revenues from new business models such as advertising.
Most mobile-advertising campaigns so far have been operator independent, but Ericsson is helping operators get involved and reap the benefits from the mobile-advertising value chain.
Nick Wiggin, Head of Advertising Strategy at Ericsson says: “Operators in mature markets are looking at ways to increase and generate revenue, and advertising is clearly a new area that falls within the combination of multimedia services that operators are interested in.
“In emerging markets, it also makes sense to capitalize on mobile advertising by avoiding the lessons learned by the mature markets. Emerging markets can jump straight into a mobile-advertising program, now that the advertising ecosystem has had time to mature and provide real solutions.”
Mobile advertising is not an isolated product or service that drives revenues, but is a part of a business model integrating services such as TV and music. Mobile advertising involves using a variety of services, such as SMS, MMS, mobile TV and WAP, to carry advertising. The mobile can also be used as one vehicle in a wider campaign, an addition to media such as TV, print and outdoor advertising.
Mobile-advertising features can be delivered in an operator-independent setup, but personalization is a particularly strong asset that operators control and should utilize.
There are almost four billion mobile subscribers, a huge customer base that is of great interest to advertisers. But, Wiggin says, brands realize that mass marketing is not that effective. Sharper targeting is vital.
Operators are able to offer user-profiling capabilities to provide a wealth of demographic and behavioral information on subscribers that advertisers can use to ensure their content is relevant.
“You have to deliver the right content in the right context,” Wiggin says. “If we can combine consumer-behavior information and current service usage, we get perfect targeting easily matched with a campaign. Operators have this information, and the reach, and we want to support the operators with technology that can provide targeted ads that enhance the user experience.”
By focusing on enhancing targeting capabilities, Ericsson can help operators increase advertising revenue.
“Ericsson is in a strong position to improve operators’ ability to provide highly targeted solutions to the advertising industry,” Wiggin says. “We can help facilitate a seamless relationship between the advertising agencies and the operators to remove the hurdles to make mobile advertising happen.”
