Where's the money in mobile advertising?

The study, commissioned by the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) and research group Tomorrow, highlights three barriers to mobile advertising, which includes the mobile TV audience size, effectiveness of mobile ad serving and targeting technology and the sophistication of the local ad market.

Mobile advertising remains a "sleeping giant" the report said, and to date, markets which have launched free services dependent on advertising, have struggled due to the relative immaturity of the three factors listed above.

Kevin Huang, CEO for Pixel Media, whose company was appointed by Nokia Ad Business to sell mobile advertising in Asia in November last year, said the report is accurate in stating the lack of sophisticated infrastructure at present for mobile ad opportunities.

He added however that mobile advertising is still new and that the situation will change, but the bigger issue facing advertisers is how to integrate mobile into their overall marketing plans.

Amy Choi, interactive marketing manager for Global Chinese Telemedia, said one of the key challenges of mobile advertising in Hong Kong is that there are too many phone operators here, which makes it hard for marketers to hit the right target audience.

She also had to convince phone operators providing the platforms that the mobile campaigns would generate revenue for them and benefit their subscribers.

Choi added it is important to motivate users to interact in the campaigns using the features of the mobile phone rather than employing traditional marketing methods and treating the device like a TV set.

In September last year, 3GTV partnered with CSL and Hutchinson to launch an interactive game that generated more than 40,000 hits, featuring mobile clips of local university students acting in commercials for sponsors such as Sinomax, Laosmiddle and Watami restaurant.

Targeting teens and office ladies, subscribers had to pay $5 to operators where they could vote on their favourite actors by pressing #1388 on their mobiles to watch the commercials.

Compared to online, Choi said the speed of delivering video on 3G mobile is faster and provides an innovative as well as economical platform for merchants to promote their products.

But while some find success in the mobile space, others warn that advertisers should be careful about using the mobile phone as an advertising vehicle.

Speaking to Marketing recently, Patrick Stahle, Aegis Media CEO for Asia Pacific, warned that advertisers should be wary of a consumer backlash over intrusive mobile messages.

"The mobile phone is still considered a personal space, that's why it has not become a big advertising vehicle where you can actually monetise it, you need to respect integrity much more. People don't want to be intruded by too many messages. I think that is so obvious now," he said.

Box Out

Weekend Weekly brings dining to mobile

New Media Group's (NMG) Weekend Weekly has partnered with Hutchinson 3G to launch a dining channel on mobile phones available for subscribers.

Sabsen Chen, general manager for NMG Digital, said that the partnership with Hutchinson would allow the travel magazine to tap on the telco's current subscriber base of 20 to 30-year-olds with a high mobile usage.

Chen said NMG is aiming to provide a mobile sponsorship platform for marketers and revealed that several banks particularly those offering credit card services had already shown interest.

The Chinese language mobile dining channel, based on a monthly subscription model, features content highlights from Weekend Weekly, daily dining news and unlimited access to its dining search engine that allows consumers to click and book restaurant services on their phones.

He added more features will be added in the coming months from viral SMS to location based discount offers but emphasis for the new channel will focus on providing a user-friendly customer experience on mobile phones.

A marketing campaign to support the new service kicked off this month via SMS, tele-sales, e-newsletters and in-store promotions.