P&G, Others Build Mobile-Marketing Budgets

Could Be Signal That Medium Is ‘Out of Trial Mode’

By Alice Z. Cuneo

Published: November 29, 2006

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — Procter & Gamble, Microsoft Corp. and other major marketers have set aside a piece of their ad budgets — albeit a small piece — for mobile marketing, representing a “significant shift” for the emerging medium.

Major marketers are beginning to take third-screen media seriously as a potential advertising venue.

Mainstream now
Any money put toward mobile ad platforms last year came from marketers’ discretionary funds, but now mobile marketing is a dedicated line item in their budgets, Jay Emmit, president of the Americas, mBlox, a global mobile transaction firm, told some 400 attendees at the 2006 Mobile Marketing Forum.

“It’s a significant shift in the advertising world — [mobile marketing is] now mainstream; it’s out of trial mode,” he said.

The banking and financial sectors were responsible for some of the more innovative uses of the emerging medium in the past year, as when MasterCard used text messaging as part of its fraud-alert program. P&G, which won the Mobile Marketing Association’s first Overall Excellence award, has developed the Ad Lab, a program where key marketing executives on more than a dozen brands have been educated in mobile opportunities such as mobile video and text messaging. As a result, a flurry of new efforts and programs will be rolling out from P&G brands starting next year.

Lingering issues
Still, mobile marketing continues to have its hangups, Mr. Emmitt said. Mobile companies don’t have a foolproof method of ensuring that ads for sexually explicit material, gambling and other adult-aimed content will stay off cellphones in the hands of kids. Wireless carriers led by Sprint have begun to warm up to providing marketers with targeted mobile advertising opportunities, a move than may not find fans with privacy advocates.

Marketers and agencies are also demanding better measurement tools. “I want data,” said Eric Bader, senior VP-digital at MediaVest. There’s “not a lot of ‘M’ in the CPM,” meaning there’s not a lot of mobile included in ad rates determined by cost-per-thousand (CPM) consumers. Another stumbling block to mobile marketing’s success is the inability of marketers and media buyers to buy ads across carriers: In the current setup, ads with each wireless service provider need to be negotiated individually.

Kim Olson, marketing director, Sprint Mobile Media Network, said marketers need to present strong, compelling mobile offers, “not just put a logo up.” She declined to answer a question from the audience on the carrier’s share of ad revenue.

Not so fast
Not all attendees were convinced that mobile has turned the corner. Courtney Jane Acuff, associate director, Denuo, said many marketers have not made a commitment to an interactive budget, let alone a mobile-marketing budget. “There’s a big difference between a discretionary budget and an actual budgeted dollar,” she said. Ms. Acuff added that next year, when the 2008 broadcast TV “upfront” ad-selling period is conducted, she will watch to see if mobile is included as part of the offerings. That “will dictate whether mobile is happening or not,” she said. “It didn’t happen this year.”

A study this month from JupiterResearch found 22% of companies advertising online also are doing mobile marketing. Overall, the study predicted mobile ad spending to more than double from a predicted $1.4 billion this year to $2.9 billion in 2011.

A number of the conference’s attendees, particularly those representing the wireless carriers, noted the fragile nature of mobile marketing in light of the threat that comes from unscrupulous marketers, such as spammers. “Those in it for the short term: We will find you all and kick you out and never see you again,” said Christopher Black, director-mobile marketing and interactive media, Cingular Wireless.

And one conference speaker had some old-fashioned advice based on lessons learned from the internet’s growing pains. “Pop-ups — don’t do it,” cautioned Greg Stuart, president-CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau. “Don’t let it happen.”

Handy Group set to form “deep links” with several national airlines both in the UK and US

The market is “slow to see mobile Internet as a serious channel” and there is
“lack of ‘sexy’ content”. These forthright opinions were put forward by Michael
Lacy, chief executive officer, Handy Group (UK) Ltd during the last year’s
Travel Distribution Technology held in London in November last year

A year later, as EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta again got in touch with Lacy
to check on how the situation has changed, he says, “Yes, 12 months ago we were
pushing on locked doors and getting the response ‘lets wait until mobile
develops as a serious channel’. Today, as Handy, we are being welcomed as the
leaders in the field and there’s no doubt that all the major players are
developing a mobile strategy and are more than keen to talk and learn from
us.”

Last year, referring to user profile and trends, he stated that the data
retail market is dominated by male 15-19 year olds for tones, music,
videoclips, soft-porn etc. Also, handsets were patchy with more than 100 types,
and 3G is getting there.

“Those 15-19 years olds are now a year older for a start and looking at more
serious content. However these products still dominate the world of mobile
transactions but mature products are at last making headway. To a large extent
this is strengthened by the forward thinking approach of networks such as O2
with i-mode which has 50 million subscribers worldwide. HandyTraveller our
mobile travel portal is on i-mode in the UK and Ireland and will launch with
the other European i-mode operators from December,” he says.

The company is set to launch the second phase of its product line-up which
features ‘global’ product allowing it to partner with any mobile network in the
world and have relevant product to that market.

“We have both deep links and intermediary feeds with low cost airlines and
last-minute rate hotels servicing more than 50 countries with 600 points of
origin and destination. We are soon to announce partner status with one of the
worlds largest car rental suppliers and deep links with several national
airlines both in the UK and US,” he says.

The technology the company utilises to provide the HandyTraveller service both
as a web-based travel portal and as a mobile phone based portal is available to
business partners as a ‘white label’ product.

Lacy acknowledges that this service has been very well received, particularly
so in the last four months.
“We plan to launch five services on behalf of white-label clients in the first
half of ’07 but am bound by contract not to say who. What we do is really
specialised, keeping up with all the latest handsets and software releases,
making complex browse and book services useable on a mobile phone and keeping
the transfer of data compressed to make it both fast and secure is not easy. It
makes much more sense for company to contract with Handy to build their service
- for one thing they know it’ll work because HandyTraveller proves it.”

PDAs are increasingly being thought of as computer platforms which can run
software applications, through which travel content can be sold.

On new platforms becoming a viable distribution channel, he says, “Only in the
same way a mobile can. To view a full size site on a PDA is still a terrible
user experience. We have a mobile xHTML site optimised for PDA’s that makes
really good use of Windows Mobile and Pocket PC. We strongly feel that Travel
like many other products are best sold over browser based services rather than
a user having to download a software application which is why we utilise WML,
xHTML and cHTML. We detect the level of the browser installed on any handset
accessing our service and supply the most appropriate site for the users phone
or PDA that will correctly render for the screen size and installed operating
system.”

“Handy Group is developing a hugely powerful CRM that handles all these added
features – with GIS and particularly the cross boundary GIS services to be made
available from the European Galileo system, we not only will know who is
accessing our services but where they are at the time and with the ability to
instantly push context sensitive deals back to them on a device from which they
can instantly buy,” says Lacy.

On future projections, he says, “There are many exciting things we can do with
the mobile device but ultimately it will come down to what the consumer wants to
do with it. Our job is to make sure it works, to innovate for the benefit of the
consumer and to ensure the customer interface and experience is exceptional. By
doing so, this will determine just how far we can go. Undoubtedly the very
least mobile will give us is the ability to buy internet products whenever and
wherever we may be, at the most our mobiles will become the single device we
use to manage our lives.”

Mobile technology gains momentum for travel

Interest in mobile technology is increasing as operators and airlines explore the potential of the medium for travel purchases.

O2 product manager for travel Nancy Lyndhurst said large travel players such as Cathay Pacific, Accor Hotels and KLM are already showing success with mobile technology.

She also drew on the experience of Japan where one major airline generates 5% of sales through mobile technology while a leading travel agent in the country sees one booking on mobile technology for every five bookings on the fixed internet.

Despite the growing interest in the medium Lyndhurst said mobile technology would not replace the internet.

“Mobile is content snacking. It’s there to give us the information when we are not near the internet.”

Lyndhurst also provided some statistics on UK usage with about 25 million people browsing on their mobiles.

“There are about 60,000 users a day looking at train times on their telephones. Lastminute had someone book a £3,000 holiday through their telephone. The key point is that people are interested and they are looking at it. It’s so easy and you can be so targeted with it.”

She also commented that transaction rates were still low because of the perceived security issue and because mobile phone transactions have been the reserve of the younger generation up to now.

Internet Advertising Bureau chief executive Guy Phillipson added that navigation was also still a problem but that the medium is well set up for payments because of people purchasing ringtones.

02 runs runs the i-mode platform which includes travel customers such as lastminute.com and Handy Traveller.
Source: Travelmole.com

Mobile Users Like ESPN, Weather

Mobile users have a much greater propensity to access sports and weather websites like ESPN and AccuWeather than PC users, however, the results for search giants Google and Yahoo are exactly the opposite. The news is part of comScore and Telephia’s new “Mobile Web Metrix” which compares mobile and personal computer usage.

by Kristina Knight

According to a new report from JupiterResearch, “US Travel Forecast: 2006-2011,” online travel revenues will reach $128 billion in the US in 2011 – 38% of all travel revenue for that year.

“Online travel revenue will continue to grow strongly from $85 billion in 2006,” said Jupiter analyst Diane Clarkson. “Factors that will spur online spending are greater consumer wallet share, increasingly sophisticated products available online and improved online compliance in business travel.”

For comparison, eMarketer’s estimate of this year’s US online travel sales is somewhat more conservative at $77.7 million. comScore Networks put first-half 2006 online travel sales at $34.7 million, a year-over-year increase of 14.7%.

While the exact figures may not match, all the sources agree that online travel sales are continuing to fly higher.