HALF THE PLANET

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

Nearly one out of every two people on this planet will own a mobile phone by the end of the year, according to UK-based market data company “The Mobile World”.

“The Mobile World” estimates that this month, mobile phone subscriptions will pass the 3 billion mark and by December some 3.25 billion consumers will own a mobile phone. These figures are after correcting for individuals who own multiple phones. Sixty-five percent of all handsets made this year will be sold in emerging markets.
I find these numbers to be staggering. Think about it. At the beginning of the millennium, broad segments of people across the world had no access to a phone, much less the internet. A friend of mine who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa in the early ‘90s used to travel half a day – longer if his bush taxi broke down – just to make an international call. No more.
Our data at BuzzCity confirms the trend. We track advertising impressions and user traffic, both of which directly correspond to mobile internet usage. During the second quarter of the year, we delivered more than 1.2 billion advertising impressions. This is a three-fold increase from the first quarter.

At the same time, page views by Indonesian and Filipino users are up 9 – 10 times; user traffic in the US doubled quarter-on-quarter. We are seeing consistently high traffic in Africa, where BuzzCity delivered 500 million ad impressions in three key markets: Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Advertisers come from a variety of industries, including mobile entertainment companies and financial institutions.

Niche marketing agencies have adopted mobile advertising whole-heartedly, but traditional agencies are still holding back. They seem unsure of how to enter the mobile marketing arena.

A piece of news this past week out of San Francisco should have ad buyers on their feet, though. Nielsen – the company synonymous with TV ratings – has purchased a well-respected mobile data company called Telephia, which tracks all aspects of consumer phone usage.

“We follow content wherever it goes across all platforms,” a Nielsen executive was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

The Telephia acquisition may help standardise matrix and measurements. It’s also a recognition that mobile advertising is coming of age.

Like internet publishers, we are able to offer advertisers detailed click logs and analytics, including a demographic breakdown (gender, age, ethnicity, geography, phone model and software) of users who click on a banner. Coming soon, we’ll add targeting by hour-of-day and mobile operator.

Mobile ads are normally sold on a pay-per-click basis. But in response to some agency requests, BuzzCity has also started offering CPM (cost per thousand) packages. CPM enables media agents to buy in bulk and re-sell ad banners in the same way that they sell other media.

Online mobile business models were at first predominantly based on the sale of content by publishers. Since the end of last year, though, we've all noticed a decline in paid features and the rise of ad-supported content. Consumers, for example, expect to access information about the weather for free. Even a lot of games and pictures can now be downloaded at no charge. The rising number of mobile eyeballs makes it viable for advertisers to foot the bill.

These consumers will also demand a diverse range of content – a premise that drives social networking platforms, because from the executives hanging around the corporate water cooler to rural women lining up to draw water from a well, people have always congregated to talk, share stories and trade information. Now, in the 21st century, individuals across the globe are increasingly congregating via their mobiles.

---

More on this subject and the challenges & choices in "Monetizing Traffic" from Kok Fung at Mobile South Asia, 10th - 11th July 2007, Dhaka, Bangladesh

---

CONNECTING THE UNWIRED

By Lai Kok Fung, BuzzCity CEO
Life doesn't progress like a spreadsheet.

I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned over the past eight years, since leaving a secure job at Kent Ridge Digital Labs in 1999 to launch an internet startup with three colleagues. Today, that startup – BuzzCity – is a vibrant mobile service provider delivering content to consumers in over fifty countries. By the end of the year (2007), we expect to add another 8 markets in eastern and central Europe. We currently serve more than 1 billion mobile advertising impressions every 3 months, have multiple revenue streams and are not overly dependent on any one market.

 

But it hasn't always been like this. In fact there have been moments when we wondered how to carry on. This week, I'd like to share with you a bit of our company's history and the lessons we've learned along the way.

Before forming BuzzCity, I was a researcher specialising in pattern recognition. We worked with barcodes and taught computers to recognize faces. Some of the technology was adopted by government agencies and Singaporean government-linked companies. However after a few years, I was tired of simply publishing papers and I really didn’t like the idea of our technology servicing only a select group of people. I remember a particular moment when I was at an underground station, watching commuters enter and exit the trains, and I thought “What a pity. My work has nothing to do with them.”

REFLECTIONS FROM THE RIVER GANGES

By Lai Kok Fung, BuzzCity CEO

I stood on the banks of the River Ganges – one of the holiest sites for the Hindu religion – watching people throw cremated ashes of loved ones into the river’s holy waters. Religious pilgrims voyage to the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to bathe in the river, drink its water and visit one or more of the 1500 temples located here in the town of Varanasi. It’s one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and devotees believe that someone who dies by the river will be freed from the endless cycles of reincarnation.

After a few busy days in Mumbai where we hosted the Mobile Monday, I traveled to Varanasi for some reflections. I’ve always wanted to see the Ganges for myself. It is the city of the Lord Shiva, and the Lord Buddha is said to have preached his first sermon at a nearby town. Over the centuries, the city has produced prominent Indian philosophers, poets and musicians like the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who had such a huge influence on the Beatles. And for anyone who has benefited from an Ayurvedic massage – yes you can thank the people of Varanasi for that as well.

PAPPU MAKES THE GRADE

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

I just got back from Mobile Monday Mumbai, where an enthusiastic audience of industry players, ad agencies, bankers and even a dentist were keen to explore the uptake of mobile ads. There are some 150 million mobile phone subscribers in India today and the number of cellphone users there is expected to triple within the next four years. Ignore this market base at your own peril!
The big topic of discussion at Mobile Monday was about how the value chain starts with content (yes, content is still king), integrates across media, requires effective campaign management and in the end must resonate with a company’s customers. (Thanks to Gopala Krishnan of mobile2win, Swaminathan of iContract and our own Lai Kok Fung for some excellent presentations.)

I’d like to share with you now three incredibly creative and successful mobile ad campaigns and then take a look at what’s required for a business to effectively use this new medium. All three examples below are being recognized at this week’s Venice Festival of Media (and I owe the festival’s website an acknowledgement for some of the background details cited below).

INDIA - CADBURY – “PAPPU HAS PASSED” 

At any one time, nearly 20 million students take public exams in India. The results – anxiously awaited and vital for a pupil’s future – can now be accessed earlier than ever before, thanks to a mobile campaign implemented by Cadbury India, in collaboration with Reliance Infocom and Madison Media.

Instead of waiting for results to be posted on a college notice board or published in a newspaper, exam takers can now log onto a WAP platform, select the name of their exam and enter an identification number to find out their results.

If they’ve passed, they receive a message saying “Jab Pappu pass ho jaya,” which roughly translates to “Pappu has passed!” The mobile message links to a very successful TV ad campaign – which practically every student has seen – featuring a sympathetic 40 year old man named Pappu who finally passes his exams. Incidentally, Pappu also likes to give away Cadbury chocolates to his younger classmates.

More than 30 state exam boards have taken part in the campaign and Reliance says it has received 50 million hits.

KOREA – ADIDAS – COLOR CODES 

In the run up to the World Cup, Agency W wanted to increase traffic to the +10 mobile site. (If you followed the Cup, you were bound to have seen one of the +10 TVCs.)

The ad agency built on a Japanese concept – mobile barcodes. When photographed by a phone, these black and white images direct users to a mobile site. In Korea, Agency W decided to up the ante. They created colourful circles placed in a seemingly random arrangement on a black background. These color codes were featured in outdoor ads, in print, on hangers in stores and even as part of the Adidas clothing label itself.

Seventeen thousand items of Color Code clothing were distributed throughout South Korea. The campaign increased traffic to the mobile site by 10 percent or 25,000 users.

UK – TEEN ROAD SAFETY (PSA) 

British authorities created a unique public service announcement aimed at teenagers by recruiting members of the target audience – teens – to film a 30” ad on their mobile phones. The spot shows a group of friends hanging out by the side of the road, when one teen walks into traffic without looking first. He’s hit by a vehicle. The ad was distributed online, via mobiles, in cinemas and youth clubs. Within five days, nearly 30 percent of the targeted audience had seen the clip. And ninety percent of viewers said they would be more careful.

I don’t know about you, but I am struck by both the creativity of these campaigns as well as their impact. How can you join the list and like Pappu make the grade? What’s needed to implement a successful mobile marketing campaign? I think there are four pre-requisites:

1. Define Marketing Goals
Just like traditional campaigns, it will be easier to determine what mobile tactics work best—as well as what measurement criteria can be used to evaluate success – once you have clearly defined your goals. Are you trying to

* Increase brand awareness;
* Generate a customer opt-in database
* Drive visits to WAP sites
* Increase downloads or sales

2. Select the Right Marketing Partner – you have three choices:
(a) Interactive Agencies
If you want a full-service provider or don’t want the hassle of developing your own WAP site, this is the way to go. Most traditional ad agencies now have digital divisions. Other providers like Buongiorno and mobile2win can also host and develop your sites too.

(b) SMS Aggregators
These companies will help you obtain the short codes needed for SMS ad campaigns. Providers in Singapore include iPOP and mblogs. mobile2win can also help here.

(c) Mobile Advertising Networks
This is where companies like BuzzCity and services like myGamma come into play, by aggregating traffic from multiple sources and making campaign management easier.

You may choose to go with just one of these marketing providers or all of the above, depending on your needs.

3. Strategize. Determine the Right Marketing Tactics
As Cadbury, Adidas and the British authorities have demonstrated, we’re not just talking banners or SMS campaigns anymore. Options include functions to click and call (these are great for call centres / delivery services like Pizza Hut and McDonald’s), contests, coupons and landing page information. Be creative.

Each of these will deliver a different value and experience to your target consumer. Work with your mobile marketing partner to determine what’s best for you to achieve your specific goals and objectives. When choosing tactics, keep the following in mind:

* Will you need a WAP site?
* Define the promotions flow
* Provide Customer Support
* Campaign Reporting & Analysis

4. Look Beyond Operator Portals
There are only a limited number of telecom operator portals in each market – and users don’t stay on just one portal - so you need to look off-portal to extend the reach of a campaign. myGamma delivers a million ad impressions a day in India alone. It’s difficult to make a precise comparison as operators don’t release their figures, but we estimate our network reaches 30 percent of each operator’s traffic.


OK, so that’s my list. What do you think?


(Note: photo of Indian model holding a mobile phone is from Tribune India.)