You can download the PDF or browse the document online.  Either way – it is a great snapshot of what is happening in the UK from a brands, agencies and technology perspective – well worth downloading and reading at your leisure.

• MMA Brands and Agencies London event shows the power of mobile
• With mobile it’s personal – marketers must respect customer information
• What does a Mobile Advertising Evangelist actually do?
• Top 50 Australian marketing blogs 2009
• Think big, act small, scale fast – advice from Procter & Gamble on mobile advertising

I saw Paul and Wes last night at a function pre-launch and I asked them who they saw their major competitors were.  “Admob” was the answer.  I’m happy to give them some promotion below and enclose their launch release.  Competition is a good thing and I hope they do well.

LONDON, UK – July 1, 2009.  Launched today, advertisers and agencies can bid for advertising on mobile sites and apps, creating a new revenue stream for mobile publishers. Adfonic’s self-service global mobile advertising platform addresses the advertising community’s increased demands for more sophisticated mobile campaign management and maximises the earning potential for a new generation of mobile internet sites and applications worldwide.

With Adfonic, advertisers and publishers alike will benefit from the most advanced targeting capabilities in the market, detailed web-based real-time reporting and analytics, and an intuitive user experience.

“We are creating a transparent marketplace for advertisers to buy mobile inventory using an auction model which will keep costs low whilst protecting their brand. Mobile has the potential to be the most powerful channel in the marketing mix. Our goal is to turn that potential into reality,” says Victor Malachard, CEO of Adfonic.

Adfonic’s campaign management tools have been designed from the ground up to allow advertisers and agencies to connect with their desired audiences, with a wealth of targeting options including location, device, mobile operators, demographics and day-time parting. A Web 2.0-style “tag” approach further helps advertisers reach a contextually relevant set of publishers, who in turn benefit from increased earning potential.

The Adfonic platform will serve display advertising to mobile sites and applications at launch, and publishers and advertisers can create an account for free in minutes at http://adfonic.com. The easy-to-use interface is designed for companies ranging from larger brands and established mobile destinations to bloggers and small developers seeking to monetise or drive traffic to their sites and iPhone applications.

The three co-founders of Adfonic – Victor Malachard, CEO; Wesley Biggs, CTO; and Paul Childs, CMO – collectively bring 40 years of mobile marketing, mobile technology and start-up experience to their roles. The company is founded on the principles of trust, openness, flexibility, innovation and continuous improvement: essential elements for the development of a vibrant mobile community.

About Adfonic

Adfonic is Europe’s first self-service mobile advertising marketplace. Founded in October 2008 by three mobile and marketing industry veterans, Adfonic is headquartered in London, with operations in France, Spain and USA. Adfonic offers comprehensive and intuitive capabilities that make it easy for advertisers to connect with their target audience and for publishers to maximise the earning potential of their mobile sites and applications. To learn more visit our website at http://adfonic.com.

• Think big, act small, scale fast – advice from Procter & Gamble on mobile advertising
• Mobile Monday Amsterdam video on mobile advertising
• mobile advertising – walking the talk
• Mobile advertising ’stalled by over-caution’ says UK survey
• MMA Brands and Agencies London event shows the power of mobile

According to the PR who sent me the details,  “Getty Images embarked on this partnership was to offer its clients the chance to purchase genuine, unexpected imagery which would otherwise be unable to be licensed”.

More information from the release below:

As of today we are launching some really cool and exciting new digital features for the Flickr Collection at www.gettyimages.co.uk/flickr to help people explore the thousands of amazing Flickr images available to license through Getty Images.

The Flickr Collection was launched back in March, which allows Flickr photographers to bring their imagery to Getty Images’ worldwide customer base. They in turn get the opportunity to license an untapped selection of fresh, authentic and locally relevant imagery.

The new features include an embeddable widget, Facebook app and screensaver which can be accessed from the  ‘Inspiring Downloads’ tab on the bottom left corner of www.gettyimages.co.uk/flickr and following the instructions.

Some of the new features include:

Flickr Clouds

Flickr Clouds enable customers to create little ‘packages’ of their favourite images based on a certain theme, photographer name or specific occasion. The Clouds can then be used as an inspirational tool or as a way of creatively presenting an idea or topic. It’s a great way to search, select and save images from the collection.

See an example cloud of images from around the UK

Widget

By downloading and embedding the Flickr Collection widget, using the embed code available at www.gettyimages.co.uk/flickr, you will be able to search the entire collection from your own blog or website and create Flickr Clouds, that can be seen by your readers, without having to navigate away.

Facebook Application

‘PictureMe’, will be available to all users of Facebook. This unique application brings a person’s Facebook status to life by visualising it through images from the Getty Images Flickr collection. Every time a Facebook status update is made, that user’s personal cloud of Flickr images will form accordingly, effectively visualising their thoughts in a highly original way.

Screensaver

People will also be able to draw inspiration and discover new imagery via a screensaver which will display the most popular images being searched for on the Getty Images Flickr Collection website.

You can browse my photos on Flickr also – it’s a fantastic site.  Why not also follow me on Twitter @andrewgrill

• what is the collective noun for a gathering of mobilists?
• What is next for innovators and early adopters?
• Someone once told me … photography meets storytelling mashup
• Mobile social networking meets crowd powered media
• First look at the Nokia E71 after a week of power use

Zoompass, Canada’s first mobile payment service is a new fast, safe, and convenient way for Canadians to send and receive money using their mobile phones.   It is the first product launched by EnStream LP, a mobile commerce joint venture company owned by Bell Canada, Rogers and TELUS – Canada’s three leading wireless operators.

Canada’s three largest wireless phone companies decided to collaborate and launch the Zoompass service together with the vision that a common standard and interoperability for mobile money transfers across all networks would result in unprecedented convenience for consumers.

Nadir Mohamed, President and CEO, Rogers Communications had this to say about the launch: “Today the industry announced something called Zoompass, a collaboration between the three players [Rogers, Bell Mobility, and TELUS].  These are early days, but they allow for people to exchange currencies, make payments between friends, between supplier and provider. It’s the beginning of something that’s going to revolutionise our industry.”

Zoompass makes it easy to split a lunch bill, request money from parents, collect sports team fees, solicit money for a co-worker’s gift, or even pay a babysitter – right from a mobile phone. If Canadians find that the service fits into their mobile lifestyle we can expect to hear more people ask one another “Do you want me to Zoom you the money?”

For more information, see www.GetZoompass.com and if you can get access to a Canadian mobile phone, or you are reading this in Canada, sign up for an account at www.Zoompass.com.

It is great to see the 3 Canadian operators getting together to launch a venture that can benefit 100% of the mobile population – we need to see this sort of collaboration in the UK around mobile payments and mobile advertising as well to move things forward.

• No related posts found

Quoting from the story: 

Dell embraced social media in 2007, and set up their @DellOutlet account to advertise discounts on refurbished products.

It also publishes promotions exclusive to 600,000 Twitter followers.

Dell now has a string of accounts and 200 staff use the site to talk to customers.

“Since we started back in 2007, we’ve earned more than $2 million in revenue at @DellOutlet attributed directly to our Twitter activity,” Dell’s Stephanie Nelson blogged.

This figure is double what Dell made from the Twitter account six months ago.

Taking all the Twitter-related purchases together adds up to more than $3m in sales, Ms Nelson said.

When shoppers complained online that some keys were too close together on one laptop model, the company announced they would change the design of the keyboard.

I think we can expect to see many more stories like this in the future as brands embrace social media in the right way.

• an almost perfect mobile campaign
• Xtract launches industry’s first social intelligence solution as a service
• Which twitter personality are you?
• what is the collective noun for a gathering of mobilists?
• What is next for innovators and early adopters?

Stephanie Kovner-Bryant, senior integrated marketing manager of Unilever was quoted in the article as saying

“The reason we wanted to test this it is it is an exciting technology for us. A big part of strategy has to do with providing consumers coupons and we want to be able to do that in whatever way is most convenient for the consumer.

Everyone has a mobile phone these days and providing coupons to a consumer’s handset is a breakthrough.

We are currently doing research to find out whether mobile coupons are allowing us to reach a younger demographic that isn’t really too big on clipping coupons from the paper.  However, we don’t have this demographic information as of yet.”

Good to see big brands like Unilever actively playing in this space.  Expect more brands to enter the mobile retail space soon.

Read the full article over at mobile marketing magazine.

• With mobile it’s personal – marketers must respect customer information
• Why is mobile advertising treated like a 7 year old?
• What does a Mobile Advertising Evangelist actually do?
• Vodafone Completes Roll Out of Mobile Advertising Services to 18 Markets in 18 Months
• Top 50 Australian marketing blogs 2009

According to the article, the agency is also being backed by ex-Overture CTO Carl Uminski and Simon Edelstyn, former director of syndication at Google.

Somo, which currently employs nine staff, will offer clients a range of creative and planning/buying services, as well as mobile direct marketing opportunities and consultancy.

Good to see the space hotting up with more specialised mobile agencies.

• IAB launches mobile innovation award
• With mobile it’s personal – marketers must respect customer information
• Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland on mobile advertising/marketing
• Mobile web take up across Europe up 4% on last year says Forrester
• Mobile Monday Amsterdam video on mobile advertising

B&T claim to be “Australia’s highest-circulating advertising, marketing and media magazine” – which is probably true,

The top 10 are listed below and the rest can be found at the B&T website.

01. Bannerblog Bannerblog.com.au

These guys are getting rather good at the blogging game. Retaining top-spot from the list B&T published in 2008 are Bannerblog creators Ashley Ringrose of Soap Creative and Ashadi Hopper of RMG Connect. Launched in 2005 to showcase online banner ads, it continues to go from strength to strength.

02. Acidlabs.org Acidlabs.org

Canberra-based Stephen Collins is the man behind this blog. His stated intention is “to help individuals, brands and organisations understand their clients, stakeholders and people by working with them on listening, engaging and being human.”

03. Servant of Chaos Servantofchaos.com

With a background in marketing and publishing, Sydney-based Gavin Heaton slips back one spot from the 2008 list into third. Heaton says he’s focused – among other things – on the scripting and crafting of brand stories. Well worth a look for content on branding, digital strategy and social media.

04. Inspiration Room Daily Theinspirationroom.com/daily

Part of The Inspiration Room – a site that “through the use of world-leading visual search technology offers members a unique platform to display, search and filter creative work” – the daily’blog is authored by the Gold Coast’s Duncan Macleod.

05. Mumbrella Mumbrella.com.au

Founded at the turn of the year by former B&T editor Tim Burrowes, Mumbrella came out of the traps fast with a mix of news, opinion and diary sections. The site looks to have a met a pent-up demand for conversation around big topics for those in and around the social media community.

06. Marketing Magazine Marketingmag.com.au/blogs

Leaving its bigger rivals from the B2B publishing world in the dust is the blog from Marketing Magazine. The site has leapt a whopping 14 places since the last time B&T published it Top 50 Bloggers list back in October 2008, so hats off to these guys for making up so much ground.

07. Laurel Papworth Laurelpapworth.com

Slipping back from 4th spot in our 2008 list, Papworth is among the most active, prolific and outspoken bloggers in the Australian social media community. Her blog, which also made it in to AdAge’s recent Power 150 list, is focused on “the business of being social”.

08. Young PR Youngie.prblogs.org

With the stated intent of discussing issues affecting PR students and new practitioners to the industry, the blog is authored by the eponymous Paul Young. It slides back from the heady heights of third position versus our 2008 list.

09. Adspace Pioneers Adspace-pioneers.blogspot.com

Digital strategist at The Population, Julian Cole has been running this blog since his university days. Well written and very collaborative in tone, there’s the odd bit of activist-type activity on here too. Earlier this year, Cole hijacked an online Samboy Crisps competition to raise funds for the bushfire appeal.

10. London Calling LondonCalling.mobi (hey that’s us!)

A new entrant to the top-10, author Andrew Grill is focusing on mobile advertising here. With a mix of stories from overseas and his own views and theories on related events, Grill’s blog could continue to go from strength to strength as marketers’ attention increasingly turns to mobile.

Methodology

The Population Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs are scored out of 50 with scores out of 10 given in five categories. A subjective mark is given for how thought provoking the content is, how often the site is updated and how much insight the authors provides into the field of marketing.

Google Page Rank, Alexa Traffic Rank, and a list of the number of unique blogs that link into that website and the number of posts that have cited that website in a post are also calculated with a score given out of 10.

And before anyone complains, London Calling (that’s us) is run by an expat Aussie in London who still has his finger firmly on the pulse of what is happening in the Australian market.  We’re thrilled to be on this list and hope you enjoy reading the posts here.

Why not follow me on twitter @andrewgrill

• Australian mobile market perspective part 1
• Xtract launches industry’s first social intelligence solution as a service
• With mobile it’s personal – marketers must respect customer information
• What does a Mobile Advertising Evangelist actually do?
• What am I reading over Christmas?

“This time…it’s personal. How mobile challenges everything we thought we knew about advertising“.

From the website description…

“Andrew, a mobile advertising evangelist, talks about how mobile impacts advertising. Your mobile tells a whole lot about you, but the advertising industry has not yet tapped into the full potential. Andrew talks about the worlds most successful mobile marketing campaign, what is happening now and the importance of making campaigns measurable. He also shares some mobile secrets…”

I was introduced by Joseph Pine.

• Interview with Klaas Weima from Energize.nl at Mobile Monday Amsterdam
• Andrew Grill speaking engagements 2009
• Mobile Monday Amsterdam #11 Monday June 1st
• MMA Brands and Agencies London event shows the power of mobile
• Search works founder goes mobile and launches SOMO

HAMPSHIRE, UK: June, 3rd 2009 — Advertising budgets for mobile channels are expected to buck the downward trend and exhibit strong growth over the next five years, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

The report found that constraints on budgets, imposed in the wake of the global economic downturn, had resulted in an increasing migration of adspend from above the line to below the line channels: the need for engagement with the consumer, and a quantifiable ROI, meant that mobile was increasingly being perceived as a key medium through which to pursue this strategy.

However, the Juniper report stressed that, while this was encouraging, the level of growth had to be put into context – that mobile advertising still remained very much a nascent medium, and even by 2014 it would only account for up to 1.5% of total global adspend.

The report noted that, while a number of major brands had made relatively large investments in the mobile platform, advertisers have yet to be fully convinced that mobile has sufficient reach to warrant substantive adspend.  As report author Dr Windsor Holden pointed out, “These investments still form only a small proportion of a brand’s total advertising budget: Regardless of mobile’s advantages – its personal nature, the facility for highly targeted advertising – advertisers will not commit more budget until  they perceive that the audience for their advertisements has reached a critical mass.”

Other findings from the Juniper report include:

•       Mobile Internet will become the most popular mobile delivery channel for advertisers in 2009, and will attract the largest proportion of mobile adspend  throughout the forecast period

•       Mobile Cost Per Clickthrough (CPC) and Cost Per Mille (CPM) rates have fallen sharply over the past year in large part due the negative impact of the economic downturn

•       Mobile advertising response rates remain substantially higher than those in other media

Juniper Research assesses the current and future status of mobile advertising based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile advertising industry.

White papers and further details of the study ‘Mobile Advertising: Delivery Channels, Business Models & Forecasts 2009-2014 (Second Edition)’ can be freely downloaded from http://www.juniperresearch.com 

Alternatively please contact John Levett at john.levett@juniperresearch.com, telephone +44(0)1256 830002.

• Y Combinator – “30 Startup Ideas We Would Like To Fund”
• Xtract launches industry’s first social intelligence solution as a service
• Would a TV show about advertising work in the UK?
• Why traditional advertising won’t work in social networks
• Where have all the ethical Marketing Managers gone?

I was delighted to participate, and we did a simulcast (Vod and Podcast at the same time).

Below is the video we shot straight after the talk, and you can also view the slides from the talk which was titled “This time…it’s personal.  How mobile challenges everything we thought we knew about advertising”. 

There was a large amount of content generated as a result of all the excellent talks, as well as the event itself and the use of social media at conferences will be the subject of an upcoming post.  See for yourself all the great content from #momoams

The topics covered (and relevant point discussed in the video) are presented below

What do you do?
How do traditional advertisement models translate to mobile?
What do advertisers want?
The mobile as a personal device
The evolution of mobile and where next (03: 43)
The iPhone as the catalyst for the use of apps and mobile browsing
Are mobile browsers the future, or do mobile apps have a future?
Define “Mobile Advertising” without using the word “advertising” or “mobile”? (06: 33)
Can others compete with Google in the mobile space? (08: 11)
How can we can persuade senior management that mobile advertising really works? (12: 31)
How do you see the mobile landscape in 2015? (13: 57)
What is your “killer advice” for Dutch marketers who want to go mobile? (15: 00)

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @andrewgrill

Interview Andrew Grill by Klaas Weima (Energize) from Marketingfacts on Vimeo.

• Mobile Monday Amsterdam video on mobile advertising
• With mobile it’s personal – marketers must respect customer information
• MMA Brands and Agencies London event shows the power of mobile
• London Calling: new name, new look, new location but still providing great commentary on mobile advertising, location and social networking
• Carnival of the mobilists 172 at mobilestance.com

Ahead of the UK mobile advertising conference to be held in London on June 15, where the results of a groundbreaking survey on UK mobile advertising usage will be revealed – we have some interesting stats that have just been released below:

• 64% of consumers would grant permission to receive mobile advertising if they are incentivised
• FIVE advertisements per day is the most accepted by consumers
• 52% of consumers don’t mind listening to a brand message while waiting for someone to pick up the phone
• 54% of consumers would send an interesting offer they have received to  friends and family

The results from a poll asking “Why has mobile advertising been slow to grow?” have also been released:

• 29% Cautious brands and agencies
• 27% Advertising must change for mobile
• 11% greedy operators
• 11% other
• 8% no one wants advertising on their mobile
• 7% Agency commission structure
• 6% technical challenges

To attend the conference, you can book online, and by using the discount code lcall09 London Calling readers can claim a discount and pay just £199 plus VAT- which is an excellent deal for a conference of this calibre.

• Where have all the ethical Marketing Managers gone?
• The Davos Effect – Google CEO Eric Schmidt expects mobile to be big – is he right and what has to happen to prove him right?
• The battle between the suits and the creatives is back on
• mobile advertising – walking the talk
• Google’s Eric Schmidt bulish on location based advertising

Nice to see there is some decent competition in the mobile browser space with the launch of Skyfire.  Now Opera need to come up with version 9.6 for Symbian to catch up.  Full press release is below – and you can download the browser from get.skyfire.com - why not give it a try!  You can also see what’s new in version 1.o.

Skyfire Launches its 1.0 Version with Over One Million Users, Making it the Fastest Growing Downloadable Mobile Browser in the United States/United Kingdom/Canada/France.

The 2009 People’s Voice Webby Award for Best Mobile Application is the only mobile browser to bring the full PC Web to phones with a variety of new features and improvements

(MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA) May 27, 2009 – Today Skyfire, the makers of the same-name PC-like browser for mobile devices, is announcing the launch of its 1.0 version now available for free download at get.skyfire.com. Over one million consumers have installed and used the Skyfire browser in just under five months, making it the fastest growing downloadable mobile browser in North America. This demonstrates the explosive consumer demand for exact-PC like full internet browsing on mobile devices.

Skyfire 1.0 delivers the PC web, real fast
Skyfire remains committed to providing everything the PC web has to offer in a mobile experience with blazing fast speeds. For the first time, consumers can use their phones to watch any web video and live events, stay connected with friends, share web pages instantly, and use the full-featured PC versions of their favorite websites.

Skyfire is the only mobile browser to support popular web standards and plug-ins such as Flash 10, Silverlight 2, Ajax, Javascript and more, so the rich media on websites work on phones just like the PC. Known for its speed, Skyfire launches quickly and loads web pages quicker than other mobile browsers.
Skyfire users can customize the start page with RSS feeds from their favorite websites.

In addition, they can integrate their Facebook and Twitter accounts to import status updates and tweets, and easily publish their status to these networks. Skyfire is the only mobile browse to share and publish any web page to Facebook and Twitter networks with one click.

For an example of how Skyfire works, watch this video:
http://www.skyfire.com/product/demo

What’s new in Skyfire 1.0
Improvements specific to the Skyfire 1.0 release include enhanced navigation, zooming and interaction as well as faster launch, power optimization, and new search functionality. Having previously delivered rich media and text readability
on a small screen, the focus of this latest release was helping users get to the content they want more quickly.

As the new version starts-up, users can type a search or URL in the Superbar while even while Skyfire is connecting in the network. After a web page loads, smooth scrolling and zooming – similar to an iPhone – helps users navigate the page more quickly. Likewise, now users can click on links on the first page load without having to zoom first.
Please refer to the Release Notes for specific details about Skyfire 1.0 features.

Tremendous growth and engagement during Beta
“We were absolutely floored by the initial response to the Skyfire Beta,” said Nitin Bhandari, CEO. “We knew people wanted the PC web on their phones and this was clearly confirmed in the significant user growth and engagement during our beta period. We achieved our goal of delivering both a better and faster mobile browsing experience.

However, bringing it to over 1M consumers exceeded our expectations of a beta, especially since they were all acquired organically by buzz and word of mouth. As we experienced explosive growth, we also experienced significant uptake in user engagement. People were using Skyfire more often and more people were making Skyfire their default browser – for all of their mobile browsing, not just video consumption.”

Unique user activity – Doing things no other mobile browser can do
Skyfire users are different than iPhone and Opera users because they can watch video, and tend to watch a lot of video on their phones – something not possible on other browsers. They watch video on the PC version of websites such as Hulu, but also video embedded and shared in Twitter and Facebook updates

Users can watch TV shows anywhere:

• Real-time access to your Facebook and Twitter feeds from their friends.
• They also watch video on news sites and experience browsing and video in one experience, vs waiting to click through to a separate application.
• There is also high engagement with watching live streaming events such as the Barak Obama Presidential inauguration and Summer Olympics during the beta period

Skyfire users are active on websites that don’t work on any other mobile browser. Consistently, the top websites used on Skyfire are the top websites used on PCs – such as the full-featured Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, Google Docs, full-featured Gmail, and professional sport leagues’ full websites.

Giving a significant installed base a better browser
Skyfire runs on more than 70% of the worldwide installed base of smartphones, based on figures from a March 2009 Gartner report. These include smartphone devices made by HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile, to name a few, and newer models with VGA and WVGA screen resolutions all running on Windows Mobile or Symbian platforms.

These consumers now have a mobile browser that gives them an iPhone-like browsing experience but more, since Skyfire offers Flash 10 and Ajax. With the Skyfire 1.0 release, this large installed base can get the PC web on their phone with a simple to install, free download.

Poised for massive growth
The smartphone market is forecasted to be larger than 400M installed base by 2010, and almost 4B total mobile devices. The smartphone segment is growing even in the recessionary climate. Mobile data revenue was $32B in revenue in 2008, with a 26% ARPU growth. As a browser that delivers the PC web, Skyfire has much to gain from this growth. Additionally since Skyfire handles much of the processing work on the server-side, the browser reduces carrier bandwidth – making it not only good for consumers but mobile operators as well.

“As web content continues to include more Ajax applications, Javascript, video, Flash 10, and web pages double in complexity every 12 months, there will always be a gap between phone and PC capabilities. PC web progress will not slow down for the mobile industry to catch up,” said Bhandari. “Skyfire’s architecture keeps pace with web technologies and seamlessly bridges the gap. Using Skyfire, consumers continue to get their PC web on their phones, no matter how complex a website.”

BlackBerry next platform
Skyfire has plans to bring their browser to more smartphones and recently launched a Private Closed Alpha program for the BlackBerry platform. The company will announce plans for a Public BlackBerry Beta at a later date. This step will offer an approximate twenty-one million BlackBerry users the opportunity to finally be able to access the PC web on their phone.

About Skyfire
Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, which delivers the PC web to mobile phones so users can experience the web on their phone exactly as they do on their PCs. The company was founded in 2006 by Nitin Bhandari and Erik Swenson, who serve as CEO and CTO, respectively. Skyfire is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures and Matrix Partners.

For more information, visit www.skyfire.com, or follow Skyfire on Twitter at: twitter.com/skyfire. @skyfire

• Is your site mobile friendly?

According to the Forrester report, some 24% of Europeans regularly access the internet on their mobile phones.

The research found mobile internet use increased over the past year, from 20%, and found the growth in take up increased for consumers who owned smartphones.

Some 35% of iPhone owners and 30% of smartphone users regularly accessed the internet.

Forrester revealed cost perceptions and the lack of transparent and affordable mobile internet tariffs were key barriers in growth in take up. Regular mobile internet use increased to 60% of those who had both a smartphone and an unlimited data plan.

Thomas Husson, analyst at Forrester, said, “Apple is only the tip of the iceberg, as drivers are now in place for mass-market take up of the mobile internet in Europe. The expansion of internet brands, smarter phones, and high-speed networks are enabling compelling user experiences that, coupled with all-you-can-eat data plans, are driving usage.

“The mobile internet is gaining momentum, with 24% of European online users regularly accessing the internet from their mobile phones. A year ago, the percentage was only at 20%,” said Husson.

As I am seeing on my travels throughout Europe and Australia, mobile web adoption (driven by transparent pricing) will help drive mobile services, applications, widgets and also mobile advertising (sponsored information).

Companies such as Vodafone in the UK are making data pricing transparent and included in basic plans, and a good start has been made on data roaming, but more is yet to be done.  The key takeout from the Forrester research is those on unlimited plans are encouraged to explore the mobile internet – which can only be good for the industry as a whole.

• Will the 3G mobile broadband “dongle” kill the WiFi hotspot market?
• Search works founder goes mobile and launches SOMO
• IAB launches mobile innovation award
• Are app stores just another type of walled garden?
• 3G dongle family grows – Vodafone announces USB stick 3G modem

Nice set of quotes  from well known practitioners in this space.  Worth a quick look and a re-tweet etc

Simply use http://tr.im/tenthings to re-tweet easily.

1. It’s an always on medium. Consumers love their mobile phones so much that researchers found when they took peoples phones away for a day they claimed to feel a phantom ‘tingle’ in their pocket that normally proceeds the excitement of a text/call.
Stephen Upstone, Managing Director of European Business Development, AdInfuse.

2. Social media is driving growth. IAB research in 2009 found that updating social network sites via mobile handsets is increasing with 25% of all social networkers logging on to check or update their pages.  16 to 24 year olds are the biggest mobile social network fans with 44% saying they have updated via mobile, compared to 17% of over 55s.  Amy Kean, Senior PR and Marketing Manager, IAB.

3. Provides immediate interaction. Mobile phones allow the consumers to interact immediately with advertising. Upon seeing an advert the consumer can text, call or download content instantly. It can help maximise the effectiveness of other media, a short code is a great example of this.  Rachel Wright Business Development Director, Phonevalley.

4. It’s got a lot to offer. Mobile advertising is much more than banner adverts within internet content; a wide range of formats can be delivered as campaign components from text links in SMS messages through to full screen static or video display adverts within applications or mobile internet sites. Jeremy Copp, CEO, Rapid Mobile Media.

5. Application crazy. iPhone users have downloaded over 1 billion applications worldwide to their handset since launch. Applications are not restricted to iPhone however; advertisers can create useful applications for consumers for the majority of handsets. David Fieldhouse, Mobile Manager, MediaCom.

6. It’s popular. The number of mobile media users in the UK has reached the tipping point with over 30% of all UK adults accessing mobile media every month and a large proportion of those going online everyday according to ComScore. Stephen Upstone, Managing Director of European Business Development. AdInfuse

7. Smartening up. Over the last 18 months the number of UK Smartphone users (iPhone, Nokia N96, T-Mobile G1 etc) has grown from 3.6m subscribers to 6.3m, a 73% increase, and these users are over three times more likely to browse for News and Information on their phones than non Smartphone users (Comscore/MMetrics).  Tim Hussain, Head of Mobile Advertising, Sky.

8. It’s out of your hands. If you’re not sure if your brand should be on mobile, consumers have already made the choice for you. 0ver 4 million consumers are already using their mobiles to search for information on products and services and search volumes are growing 4 times faster than online. Jon Mew, Head of Mobile, IAB.

9. It can reach you. Target through to point of purchase – no other medium allows such precise targeting, from location based services like local search through to in-store Bluetooth marketing you can reach consumers wherever they are and provide relevant and engaging advertising. Paul Lyonette, Head of Mobile Advertising, Microsoft.

10. Consumers like advertising.  The Orange Exposure study shows, 70% of mobile media users find innovative ad formats appealing. In an ad funded games trial 89% said they liked or were neutral to advertisements appearing on the Orange World portal and 88% said they were happy to be exposed to advertising in exchange for free or discounted content.  Alex Kozloff, Media Research Manager, Orange.

Nice soundbites here.

• IAB UK debate outcome says Mobile ‘provides value for money’
• IAB launches mobile innovation award
• Are app stores just another type of walled garden?
• Xtract launches industry’s first social intelligence solution as a service
• Why is mobile advertising treated like a 7 year old?

I picked up an interesting survey ahead of the UK Mobile Advertising conference to be held in June from James Cameron at Camerjam – full details below.

Operators, brands and agencies all to blame, finds survey

Over-cautious brands and advertising agencies are responsible for stalling the growth in the mobile advertising market, according to mobile industry insiders.

At least that’s the findings of a survey by mobile events start-up Camerjam. The online survey, part of the build-up to Camerjam’s Mobile Advertising UK (MobAdUK) conference in London in June, found that nearly a third of respondents thought brands and agencies had been too slow buying into the idea of advertising on mobile.

Camerjam founder and mobile industry expert James Cameron, said: “The recent Volkswagen Tiguan campaign divided its budget between TV, print and online, allocating just one per cent of online spend to mobile. While it’s great that big brands are spending on mobile, the success of the medium depends primarily on greater budgets from the brands.”

Thirty one per cent of respondents to the survey which asked, “Why has mobile advertising been slow to grow?” blamed cautious brands. Other respondents said the fact that advertising must change for mobile (27 per cent) and operator greed (12 per cent) were the chief contributors to slow growth.

“More creative thinking is required to adapt advertising to mobile,” Cameron added. “Traditional broadcast advertising doesn’t work, and simply squeezing a banner onto a mobile screen has limited impact. Mobile advertising needs to offer a clear benefit to the user through free talk time or texts and access to free services and benefits from advertisers themselves.”

Operators also have a part to play. “Operators must make customer data accessible and useful to advertisers and significantly reduce the cut they take on traffic generated through their portals,” Cameron said.

MobAdUK speakers have also commented on the findings. Jonathan Mew, Head of Mobile at IAB UK, said: “Mobile is the most consumed medium in the daytime… (yet) still by far the smallest in terms of ad-spend” while MediaCom’s mobile manager, David Fieldhouse, said: “The advertising industry is ready and waiting to spend (on mobile) – the mobile industry needs to guide us, set standards and deliver the targeting that has long been promised.”

Each week up until MobAdUK on June 15, Camerjam will be asking a different question of mobile, advertising and brand experts. This week: Why are agencies and brands so cautious?

Check the poll results at www.amiando.co.uk/mobaduk or by following @jamescameron on Twitter, where you’ll also find up-to-the-minute links to all the latest news and thought from the mobile advertising industry as it happens. MobAdUK can be tracked using the hashtag #maduk

About MobAd UK
Endorsed by the IAB, MMA and AIME and sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent and adfortel, MobAdUK is a one-day conference designed to cut through the hype surrounding the mobile advertising industry, giving a clear representation of the state of the current market and highlighting key industry strategies to stimulate growth.

The event will also unveil the results of a UK specific research project carried out by EverySingle OneOfUs and Æneas Strategy Consulting & Management into the mobile advertising market and host the inaugural EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Advertising Campaign of the Year Award 2008/9.

MobAdUK takes place on June 15 at the Old Cinema, Westminster University, 309 Regent Street, W1B 2UW. For details, comment and media passes contact James Cameron james@camerjam.com or +44 (0)7940 749874.

About Camerjam
Founded by expert conference producer James Cameron, Camerjam (www.camerjam.com) is an exciting new conference and events company at the forefront of the mobile industry. Under the Camerjam umbrella, industry experts, leading executives and high end analysts are brought together in stimulating environments to promote idea exchange, facilitate networking opportunities and drive industries forward.

• Mobile Monday Amsterdam video on mobile advertising
• Mobile advertising thought leaders share their views on video
• MMA Brands and Agencies London event shows the power of mobile
• Jonathan MacDonald interviews Andrew Grill
• Adfonic launches mobile ad marketplace to rival AdMob

Jens walked through an excellent case study surrounding the launch of the Volkswagen Tiguan.

Basically, they built a “long lead” marketing campaign to promote the launch of the new Tiguan before the car even existed – using the web and mobile.

A quick summary of Jens’ presentation is below, and you can see some of his slides on Flickr.

• The VW Tiguan campaign launched in 8 countries
• There were 14,000 SMS sent as a result of interaction with the campaign
• The campaign site had 150,000 page impressions
• There were 6,000 downloads of the mobile application
• The campaign was well received inside VW as it generated test drives from mobile campaigns
• Normally in Germany you need 8 test drives to sell 1 car
• A customer who buys a car has 9 contacts with the brand (eg 8 TV + 1 mobile)
• VW think performance based marketing is the future but the TV guys still win out “we made them love the brand”
• Mobile is more expensive than online
• VW booked lots of ad impressions with operators  which was expensive

The most arresting point from Jens presentation was that yet in spite of the VW campaign, there is still no budget assigned to mobile.  The current marketing spend is divided between online, print and TV.  Amazingly, mobile receives just 1% of the online budget!

Jens has been involved in the digital and agency space for a while, and he also thinks that we are with mobile now where we were with online in 2000 – which is not unexpected.  One of the strong discussion themes on day 2 was that we need to learn from our experience with web advertising – or risk making the same mistakes as we transition marketing onto mobile.

The other piece of irony is that inside VW locations, phones with cameras are prohibited (to stop spy photos leaking out) - so people inside VW cannot see the mobile ad campaigns, and those people visiting their offices to show them the latest in mobile have to leave their phones at security…

The key takeout for me is even with a strong and progressive automotive brand like VW, who have invested heavily in a mobile presence for the launch of a car AND have seen test drive and sales conversions AND with someone like Jens driving this at VW – they only spend 1 percent of the digital budget on mobile.

Clearly more work has to be done with measurable case studies such as this one to prove the power and value of mobile, one brand at a time.  Hats off to Jens and Volkswagen for taking a chance with mobile advertising.

• Mobile Content conference in London 18 – 21st November
• Mobile advertising ’stalled by over-caution’ says UK survey
• IAB says UK mobile advertising market worth £28.6M in 2008
• Andrew Grill speaking engagements 2009
• Xtract launches industry’s first social intelligence solution as a service

Social Links On-Demand gives mobile operators 39 per cent faster payback time

Helsinki, Finland and London, England — 20 May 2009 – From today, Xtract will offer its flagship social intelligence product, Social Links, as a service, while the software licensing model still remains fully supported. Called Social Links On-Demand, it enables mobile operators to cash in on the social networking phenomenon for targeted, viral marketing on a pay-as-you-go service model.

The On-Demand model means minimum upfront investment and no operational hassle. Xtract estimates that Social Links On-Demand is 74 per cent faster to set up than traditional in-house implementations and offers 39 per cent faster payback time.

Julien Theys, mobile industry analyst at Screen Digest, said: “Efficient analysis is key to leveraging the power of social networks and eventually monetising them through relevant content and advertising. An on-demand solution can provide access to social network intelligence that is light, flexible and financially less cumbersome than traditional software licenses. It is therefore ideally suited for operators who prefer not to invest heavily in in-house analytics and database marketing solutions and resources, especially in the current economic climate.”

Social Links On-Demand combines software, hardware, implementation, customer support, operations and maintenance in a bundled service, hosted by Xtract. This means operators don’t need to invest upfront in software licenses or hardware platforms. Social Links On-Demand is delivered via a service level agreement that best suits each operator’s business needs, e.g. dependent on the number of subscribers served, amount of data or level of security required. All data is processed anonymously and customer transaction results are processed in a way that complies with data security and privacy regulations.

Business users such as marketing and campaign managers are provided with a secure browser-based graphical user interface which they use to: view social intelligence dashboard reports and graphs; create Social Links analytics runs; define campaign targeting; configure and export target lists; and, view their community dynamics.

About Xtract Social Links
Social Links is the first commercial software that uses social network analytic¬s to enable companies to leverage social intelligence in marketing. Social Links utilises anonymised subscriber transaction data to generate customer insight based on social intelligence, predict the behaviour of subscribers (e.g. for churn management and product up-sell/cross-sell) and to understand the network of influence between subscribers.

Social Links is based on advanced analytics that dig deep into the granular communication patterns between subscribers to draw highly accurate profiles and targeting. Social Links has won several industry awards for being successfully deployed by top-tier mobile operators worldwide.

Social Links offers benefits for mobile operators’ marketers, campaign designers, product managers, analysts and CRM managers. The information provided is used in highly accurate targeting, and gaining customer insight for campaign and product planning. Social Links also supports subscriber lifetime valuation and campaign design.

About Xtract
Xtract (www.xtract.com) refines social interaction, behaviour and demographic data to create accurate 3D user profiles. These profiles for the first time utilise data as a dynamic tool in the day-to-day marketing for effective and intelligent targeting of campaigns and advertising. Xtract’s Social Links is an automated, self-learning solution capable of analysing billions of mobile transactions with easy to use and actionable tools for operators to define accurate target groups for their marketing campaigns.

Press contact
Emily McDaid
Hatch PR
emily@hatch-pr.com
+44 7748 6333 55

• Review of must read new social media marketing book
• Gigafone and Xtract partner to create a superior mobile marketing platform
• Where have all the ethical Marketing Managers gone?
• The Davos Effect – Google CEO Eric Schmidt expects mobile to be big – is he right and what has to happen to prove him right?
• STOP PRESS: Customers with unlimited data plans use more data than those charged up to £4 per megabyte!

The theme for MoMo #11 will be Visions on Mobile and I will be joined by some of the world’s best thinkers including

Update:  Below are the slides I presented at Mobile Monday AMsterdam #11 on Monday 1st June 2009.

The program for the evening will be (all times GMT+2 – Amsterdam time)
12:00 Doors open
13:00 Marc Fonteijn – Kick off (Yuri van Geest, Rudy de Waele)
13:15 Alan Moore – Social marketing intelligence
14:00 Jamais Cascio – Mobile intelligence
14:45 Break (Jeroen van Glabbeek)
15:15 Andrew Grill – How mobile impacts advertising
16:00 Joseph Pine II – Infinite possibility
16:45 Break (Rudy de Waele)
17:15 Howard Rheingold – Smart mobs revised
18:00 Robert Rice – Augmented reality
18:45 Marc Fonteijn – Closure
18:50 Drinks

The full title of my talk will be “This time…it’s personal.  How mobile challenges everything we thought we knew about advertising“. 

I have been paired with the legendary Joseph Pine II, Author of such books as Mass Customization, the Experience Economy and Authenticity.  He is currently engaged in outlining the new concept of the multiverse, and I hope my talk will fit nicely with his on “mobile marketing in the multiverse”.

The event will be streamed live from mobilemonday.nl/live from 12:00 London time (I will be up at around 14:15 London time) and watch out for the twitter stream with the hashtag #momoams.

Event details:
Date: Monday, June 1st 2009 (Whit Monday/’Pinksteren’!)
Time: 12:00 – 19:00 (excluding drinks – Amsterdam tie GMT +2)
Location: Rode Hoed, Amsterdam (Route | Map)

Pay attention: this special event will start earlier than our usual MoMo events! You will have to take care of lunch before you come, we’ll take care of snacks during the breaks and the ‘borrel’. If you wonder why this MoMo will take longer, the list of speakers makes pretty clear why that is;)

As is usual with MoMo Amsterdam events, the available places were gone before emails hit the inbox – with an expected attendance of over 400 people.

If you are lucky enough to have secured a ticket, I look forward to seeing you at the event in Amsterdam – with my fellow guest speakers it is shaping up to be an extraordinary event. 

Why not drop me a line before the event.  I will of course be speaking on mobile marketing and advertising.

• Mobile Monday Amsterdam video on mobile advertising
• Andrew Grill speaking engagements 2009
• Mobile Monday London July 14th: enabling location in applications
• Interview with Klaas Weima from Energize.nl at Mobile Monday Amsterdam
• Carnival of the mobilists 169 at Chetan Sharma’s AORTA

Today there has been a lot of noise and discussion in the press about the changes at Blyk and in Jonathan’s post “Blyk Is Not Closing: The Facts As Of 13th May 2009 “ he sets out the facts.

The official line from Blyk is below (via Jonathan)

Blyk is expanding, not closing shop… Blyk is looking to evolve its UK operation in line with a global strategy of partnering with operators. We already have an operator relationship in the UK with Orange and we are discussing the next stage for Blyk as an operation and the next stage for Blyk members.

Blyk sees its members as its core asset. It is in Blyk’s interest to look out for its members. In turn, this will allow Blyk to create a global community which delivers personal value for each member.

This change is part and parcel of Blyk’s journey. The MVNO model acts as proof of concept – Blyk needed to build the mobile media model from the ground up with end-to-end control of the network and complete control of the customer/ user experience. This has created a unique competence within Blyk.

As hoped, Blyk’s success in the UK has driven high interest from operators. Partnering enables the Blyk media to gain faster scale globally (in audience) and this is game changing from an advertising perspective.

As someone who was at Blyk from the beginning, I urge you to read his post on the subject to get a better perspective on their plans and what is happening.

• The 3 P’s of mobile advertising from Jonathan MacDonald
• Mobile advertising debate summary from netimperitive roundtable
• The impedance effect of the mobile industry
• The end game: week 19
• Shaun Gregory from Blyk on mobile advertising

Some of the services coming up from Vodafone I have been personally involved with and it will be good to see Vodafone roll these out in a range of markets.

The full Vodafone release is here.

Vodafone announces today that it has fulfilled its ambition to expand the availability of its mobile advertising services to 18 operating company markets in the last 18 months. Despite the worsening economic climate, Vodafone has also enjoyed strong revenue growth from mobile advertising services during 2008/9 and plans to continue the roll out, expanding both the portfolio of mobile advertising services and their reach.

Over the last year Vodafone Marketing Solutions has run over 2000 campaigns across its global footprint for hundreds of global brands*. While those brands continue to enjoy considerable success with mobile banner campaigns, they are increasingly trying newer mobile advertising formats including the use of branded content, sponsored alerts, opt-in push messaging and advertising on service based text messages**.

Rick Fant, Head of Internet Discovery at Vodafone said “In the current economic climate brands will look even harder at their budgets and how they spend them. Mobile advertising offers a combination of great response rates alongside the opportunity for advertisers to reach out to and engage with their customers. We are pleased with the performance of Vodafone’s mobile advertising business and that more and more brands are moving spend to this innovative medium”.

Vodafone will continue to invest in its advertising offering in the coming year both by adding to its global reach through its network of operating companies, affiliates and partners – including operators such as Mobilkom, Proximus, Vodacom, and China Mobile – as well as by seeking to extend the number, type and effectiveness of its portfolio of advertising services.

Vodafone’s advertising development programme is designed to provide customers with relevant and engaging advertising experiences and advertisers with effective and responsive marketing platforms.

Services in development or trial include:

Zonal marketing trial – This will allow opted-in customers to receive promotional messages from brands relevant to their profile and their real-time location. As they enter a pre-defined area they will receive an MMS or SMS message from Vodafone containing the promotion.

Incoming voice/text alerts advertising trial – Full screen advertisements from a range of advertising partners will be shown to opted-in customers during the moments before they answer a call or view a message. Customers who choose to join the database, and who go on to view adverts will be rewarded with points that they can redeem against goods or services.

Branded applications and widgets trial – Assessing customer acceptance of and interaction with, as well as brand marketing effects of, branded mobile apps.

Location based advertising trial – Vodafone plans to trial customer acceptance of and engagement with branded Points of Interest,(locations of – for example – stores, restaurants and petrol stations) and branded locational search.

Trial of an enhanced mobile internet browser – Vodafone is looking at how to simplify and enhance the mobile internet browsing experience for opt-in customers as well as investigating opportunities for mobile publishers and advertisers.

Vodafone myCampaign – An online self-service platform for mobile advertisers. Currently in development in Germany and Czech Republic, with further markets planned, this tool will allow small businesses to set up and run cost-effective, and local mobile advertising campaigns. The service is designed to be simple, quick and easy to use – combining creative, reporting and online prepayment via credit card.

Fant said, “We are an ambitious company in a leadership position and we have big plans for this space. Vodafone has always been an innovator in its products and services, in its technology and most importantly in its customer offering. So over the next year it’s natural for us to continue to invest in and improve our offering for all of customers – be they consumer & business subscribers or our brand & agency customers around the world”.

Read more on the Vodafone website.

• Location Based Advertising – an introduction
• Vodafone New Zealand launches innovative local zone home phone service
• UPDATE: Mobile Commerce named as the provider behind Microsoft LIVE LBS service in UK
• Think big, act small, scale fast – advice from Procter & Gamble on mobile advertising
• The Davos Effect – Google CEO Eric Schmidt expects mobile to be big – is he right and what has to happen to prove him right?

IAB and PwC research reveals mobile ad spend higher than market expectations and doubled in size year on year.  According to the press release below…

Expenditure on mobile advertising in the UK exceeded market expectation in 2008 to reach a total of £28.6 million, according to a study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) – the trade body for digital marketing – and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). 

As mobile advertising becomes increasingly important for operators and advertisers, the study – a UK first – shows that mobile adspend bucked all market trends, doubling in size on a like for like basis in 2008, increasing by 99.2% year on year.  Investment in mobile advertising grew at a faster rate than predicted as more UK brands invested in the medium due to its exceptional targeting, immediacy and return on investment.

Mobile advertising formats
Mobile display advertising – which includes banners, text links, tenancies pre/post roll and in-game – accounted for £14.2 million in 2008, 49.8% of all mobile advertising spend. 

Paid-for search advertising on mobile internet was estimated to account for £14.4 million, 50.2% of all mobile advertising spend.

This survey represents solely mobile media spend, and therefore does not include mobile marketing expenditure such as SMS or MMS production and delivery costs.  This ensures the figures are comparable with all other media.

These first mobile figures correlate strongly with the early days of online advertising.  When the IAB and PwC study was first released ten years ago, in 1998 the internet advertising market was worth £19.4 million.  In 2008 online advertising rose to £3.35 billion, accounting for 19.2% of all advertising spend. 

The IAB officially widened its remit to include mobile internet advertising in July 2008, when the five main UK networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – became members.  Since then it has invested heavily in educating the market about the potential of mobile media, through a programme of events and research initiatives. 

In the coming weeks the IAB will launch a ‘How To’ guide on briefing, planning and executing campaigns for marketers and is currently conducting research into the effectiveness of mobile advertising, with the results due in early June.  More information can be found at www.iabuk.net/mobileadvertising.

Jon Mew, head of mobile at the Internet Advertising Bureau, said: “This study is a UK first and means the IAB can accurately prove and track how much marketers are spending on mobile. The sector is in its infancy but is considerably bigger than the market was expecting.  Thanks to these landmark figures we know the real value of the mobile advertising industry, and will now be able to chart the medium’s growth with confidence.”

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Over the past 12 months the marketplace has been buzzing with anticipation about this exciting new channel.  Now is the perfect time for brands to dip their toes in the water, to see for themselves how effective and complementary mobile advertising can be. The IAB is dedicating considerable resource to educating marketers and agencies so they can optimise their campaigns as mobile becomes an essential part of all communications plans.”

Eva Berg-Winters, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said: “Mobile advertising has shown impressive, steady growth throughout 2008 in an overall declining advertising market. The mobile phone has become our constant companion and its ability to meet consumers’ growing demands for accessing entertainment and information on the move has attracted advertisers. The way has been paved by online advertising, which combined with the rapid uptake in mobile internet usage, will ensure it becomes a very powerful advertising medium over the next few years.”

Key drivers for growth:

A bigger audience than ever: Mobile internet usage grows in 2008 from 8.6m in Dec 2007 to over 11m in Dec 2008, and people on unlimited data plans (unlimited access to the mobile internet as part of their contract) has grown by a massive 109% in 2008

Mobile offers a great user experience: Advertising on mobile phones has generated a positive response from consumers – they like this form of advertising. According to the Orange Exposure 2 study, 70% of mobile media users find innovative ad formats actively appealing.  Operators and site owners have been careful not to annoy consumers with interruptive formats, in order to build trust in their services and help mobile adspend to grow.

Social networking driving growth of mobile internet usage:  People using social networks on their mobile phone grew by 180% in 2008.  According to recent research from the IAB, 44% of 16-24’s have checked their social network profile via their mobile phone.

Better, smarter handsets: The 3G iPhone launched and has transformed usage. iPhone users for example are around 7 times more likely than average to browse on their phones daily for news and info. It is not the only phone to do this, with penetration of 3G handsets overall increased in total by 36% in 2008.

Growth in mobile departments:  More and more media agencies in the UK are appointing dedicated heads of mobile, charged with working full time on the medium to educate teams and promote the channel.

The industry is working together to move things forward: The IAB is working with operators and the key mobile advertising players to educate the market place. As knowledge grows it is becoming much easier to plan and buy successful mobile advertising campaigns.

For more information, contact:
Amy Kean, senior PR and marketing manager, IAB, amy@iabuk.net, +44 773 937 2042
Jon Mew, head of mobile, IAB, jon@iabuk.net

London Calling comment: Interesting numbers here and also what is included in the study and what is not.  Industry figures I speak to in the UK put the number at more like £10M for 2008 so there must be a different accounting treatment here.  In Australia during my visit the consensus was that their industry was worth about $6-8M (£3-4M) in 2008.

What is key though is we now have a “number” that we can track each year (or quarter) to see if we’re going up or down.  Great initiative from the IAB and I also look forward to becoming involved in their “how to” initiative.

• IAB UK debate outcome says Mobile ‘provides value for money’
• IAB launches mobile innovation award
• Volkswagen Tiguan mobile advertising case study
• Telecoms Hothouse: Mobile advertising industry calls for action
• Mobile Industry Thought Leaders New Initiative Launched

This week brings you gems from some of the heavyweights, like Tomi Ahonen (on mobile data), Russell Buckley (on an SMS/MMS ad service that works) plus many, many more!

Well worth a read as always.

• Carnival of the mobilists 167 – G20 special edition
• Carnival of the mobilists 169 at Chetan Sharma’s AORTA
• Carnival of the mobilists 132 at blog.mippin.com
• Post of the week at Carnival of the Mobilists
• Carnival of the Mobilsts 119 is up at mobilejones.com

So every Friday, workload and family permitting I’ll post some random gems picked up during the week – I hope you find then useful or amusing, depending on the subject.

To kick this week’s end game off:

Overheard at the MAMA conference in London:  Jonathan MacDonald on a panel talking about mobile advertising (which quickly became a lively debate between the futurists vs the realists ) and how the realists keep talking about “buying eyeballs”.

Jonathan’s retort was priceless – “Eyeballs are something you buy from Latvian slave traders…..that was a joke”

The other piece of news that caught my eye this week was the post from Symbian Freak where they reported on the news that Nokia are planning to launch a gigantic app store (about time – their Download! effort is woeful).  I’m eyeing off the Nokia N97, due for release on the Vodafone network next month.  I’m in line for an upgrade, so might hold out for this new handset, and hopefully this will come with the new Ovi app store.

Until next week – that’s the end game.

• The impedance effect of the mobile industry
• Mobile advertising debate summary from netimperitive roundtable
• Is twitter a serious business tool or just a complete waste of time?
• Australian mobile market perspective part 1
• Twitter vs Google search – is this the eureka moment for mobile?

After attending the Visiongain Mobile Advertising and Marketing Awards (MAMA) and Conference in London on Thursday, I was asked by a number of people on twitter if I could post a list of the winners and the categories for the awards.

Listed below are the categories and the winners – congratulations to all those who took away an award.  You can also have a look at pictures from the event, held in London at the Charing Cross Hotel on Thursday 7th May 2009.

•  Best creativity or innovation in mobile marketing and advertising: Turkcell
•  Best use of mobile in driving new revenue and sales: Upstream
•  Best Ad-Enabled Application: Prim’Vision
•  Best Network for delivery of mobile advertising and marketing: Jumptap
•  Best Location based Advertising Technology: Useful Networks
•  Best Integrated & cross platform technology utilising mobile marketing: 2ergo
•  Best Billing Provider: txtNation
•  Best Use of Mobile in Brand Building: Marvellous Mobile
•  Best viral aspect to a campaign category: Inside Mobile
•  Best Mobile Advertising & Marketing Company of the Year: Admob

Why not get the latest updates on stories related to mobile advertising via my RSS feed, or follow me on twitter @andrewgrill

• Will the 3G mobile broadband “dongle” kill the WiFi hotspot market?
• Top advertisers have eight figure budgets allocated to mobile in 2008 says JumpTap CMO
• The normob view of the new iPhone
• The mobile user experience manifesto and conference
• The Future of Mobile is….

As many of you know, I worked in the mobile location (LBS) space for nearly 4 years while GM of Seeker Wireless, and as such I still have a real passion for the LBS space.

I have been following closely what Google have been doing with Google Mobile Maps, Google latitude, and now the Google latitude API. 

Today I read on the Google latitude site that they now have the ability to allow a badge or application to display your current location – as detected by Google mobile maps (GMM).

This is significant, because now bloggers and developers can use the power of Google’s massive location platform (with a user’s permission) to start to do some really smart things with location and LBS.   In just 5 minutes, I was able to knock up a page with a google map of my current location using the code on the latitude API apps site (see an example above).

One question remains – why would I want my public location available to everyone?  Well firstly I have nothing to hide, and I also have complete control at both the GMM mobile application level as well as the latitude API website level to set what level of detail I share about my current location (accurate street address, suburb, city, state or country level).

Also, as an LBS advocate, I am keen to promote discussion around the valuable uses of live and historic location.  It is a pity that the Google API does not integrate with Yahoo! Fire eagle but perhaps that will come in the future.

Previously, I was using blogloc, a very cool java app that takes your current GPS location and publishes it to fire eagle as well as a blog badge via Google maps.  The problem was however that the blogloc java app required me to manually fire it up, and sync my location each time – and then only when I had a GPS fix. 

The brilliance of the Google mobile application with latitude is that because of their massive Cell-ID and WiFi database, even if I am inside Google returns a location fix of reasonable accuracy. 

Also you can run GMM in the background and have it update my location while on the move.

I’ve set up as short URL http://tr.im/loc8 which redirects to the page showing my current location and it is also mobile friendly – delivering a mobile sized map if it detects you are on a mobile browser.

So…have a look at my current location if you need to know where I am before you call me or contact me and let’s see if this extension to Google latitude helps drive the adoption of always on/auto location LBS services.

Well done Google team – once again you have introduced a step-change to the mobile location space.   Now it is over to the mobile developers to harness this significant resource for mobile advertising and mobile social networking.

• First look at Google Latitude – location sharing made easy
• The new way of helping lost tourists – Google mobile maps
• Nokia Maps 2.0 graduates and gets “my location” feature
• Locatik location enabled social networking service now live
• Carnival of the mobilists 160 at all about iPhone

I have spoken to so many people in just 5 days here, so I will split these posts up into readable parts over the coming weeks.

I was fortunate to speak to a great many people (nearly 30) spanning all parts of the mobile ecosystem – from mobile operators (I spoke with the mobile advertising managers at Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and 3), through to agencies, brands and key players in the mobile space.

Two of the recurring themes from everyone I spoke with was

1) Australia is probably 12 – 24 months behind Europe when it comes to mobile advertising (this was an Australian industry view)

2) mobile operators have not yet started to develop attractive and transparent mobile internet tariffs to help drive the adoption of rich mobile advertising.

Watching “Video Hits”, a Sunday morning music TV show that was on when I lived in Sydney back in 2006, it was a sense of de ja vu to see the same premium rate ads for ringtones after each song – looks like nothing much has changed in 2 1/2 years – even the price point of $A5.50 per tone was the same.

Capped plans

Back in around 2003, when 3G networks were being introduced, the Hutchison 3 network introduced the concept of “caps” where you pay say $49 and get $230 worth of “value” – ie the plan is capped at $230 – after that you pay a lot more.  The pricing model though is that the rates for text and minutes are still quite high so you can exhaust the cap quite quickly. 

It is unusual for operators to include mobile data in these caps, however while I was there Vodafone were introducing a $114 cap where you get unlimited calls and 2GB of data to use on your handset.

This is a reasonable deal – but similar offers in the UK are around the £30 ($60) price point, so you can see that with less competition in the Australian market, the offers are not as attractive.

Contrast this with the UK plans where they talk about the number of minutes and texts you get for a monthly fee (eg I pay £30/month and get 500 minutes, 500MB data and unlimited UK national landline calls) on Vodafone.

The key here is that until one of the operators decides to make the plans more transparent as in the UK, they will all mirror each other with the “caps” concept. 

I put it to a senior exec at one of the operators and their (not unexpected) comment was “we don’t have to make it easy for consumers”.  Oh dear  – we have a long way to go here!

Consumer Champion – Jennie Bewes

This comment was in stark contrast with the view from Jennie Bewes – head of Online for Vodafone Australia, and one of the real consumer champions in mobile land. 

I shared a very enjoyable dinner with Jennie at the Wildfire restaurant that overlooks the Opera House during my trip where we discussed all things mobile, digital and advertising.

Jennie’s view was that we should make things easier to understand for the customer.  She is also pioneering the use of social media sites such as Twitter (she is @jbewes) to keep in touch with consumers, and solicit positive and negative feedback for the carrier.

Jennie absolutely gets social media – and uses it to excellent effect – other mobile operators in Australia and beyond could learn a lot from what she does with twitter.

In part 2 of my Australian perspective series, we’ll look more closely at the sort of mobile advertising campaigns running in Australia and see how they compare to those in Europe and the UK.

Feel free to follow me on twitter @andrewgrill

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I met with John in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress and apparently our discussion there promoted his thinking and this article – glad I helped fuel the debate John.

His byline for the article is “The real value in mobile ads is relevance, rather than reach” which is something I have been saying for some time now, and so it is interesting to have other authors test this theory.

Quoting from the article, John starts by mentioning the Google approach to  “interest-based advertising”, and asking how this might apply to mobile (note the emphasis is mine) …

The idea, now in beta, is simple enough. Google wants to use its AdSense program to deliver ads to your web browser based on where you surf and what you watch on YouTube, and to allow you to refine your preferences accordingly.

Google breaks ads down into categories (i.e. entertainment, games, finance and insurance, etc) and lets you select the ones that interest you – or none at all, if you want to opt out entirely. Result: more relevant ads will be displayed on AdSense-powered sites you visit.

Where things could really get interesting is how Google eventually applies this to its mobile strategy.

Mobile advertising is a massive work in progress, but one recurring point is the need to ensure that mobile-based advertising, be it SMS alerts, mobile web banners or interstitials flashing on the screen as the phone rings (as Gigafone recently demonstrated for me), is relevant to the target. Mobile’s always-on and heavily personal nature practically demands it.

Andrew Grill, head of business development at Gigafone and self-styled mobile advertising evangelist, noted on his mob ads blog London Calling that the Google model on the web could help the mobile advertising case by providing a case study to show brands and agencies that the real value in mobile ads is relevance, rather than reach – provided it respects the “3 P’s” of mobile advertising (privacy, preference and permission) that ensure users have complete control over what appears on their handset.

However, the issue of privacy and control in mobile ads could be far more complex than it looks. In his debut weekly column for Fast Company, futurist Jamais Cascio addressed the Google announcement and expressed doubts about reconciling the theory of relevant ads with the reality that people often don’t use the web the way advertisers expect. “

Machines get shared, people use multiple browsers, and, increasingly, web users are savvy about being able to block ads, regardless of how targeted they may claim to be.”

The point made above by Jamais Cascio however I believe only holds true on the internet, for with mobile I have yet to meet a person that will allow their handset to be shared – such is the incredibly personal nature of mobile.

John also makes a good point below about how advertisers will adhere to the 3P’s of mobile advertising

That’s not necessarily antithetical to mobile advertising, since user control is a core requirement to its success. The downside is that it’s not the advertisers that adhere to the “3 P’s” that will escalate the filter wars – it’s the ones that don’t. Users’ trust in the permission-based mobile model can be derailed by bad targeting or a handful of unethical jerks who invent the equivalent of pop-ups for smartphone browsers.

To be sure, web advertising has weathered the same challenges and survived as a viable business model. And it didn’t have the benefit of relevancy-based ad targeting. It will be interesting to see if relevancy will see mobile advertising through its own personalized trial by fire. But it’s worth remembering that it’s the users who will shape the business model that emerges on the other side.

I think John’s article not only echoes the views I have held for some time, but his article puts the challenge out to traditional advertisers and agencies who are yet to embrace the behavioural targeting benefits on the fixed internet, for fear of reducing their available audience reach.

It would at first appear counter intuitive that by allowing users to opt-in or opt-out of advertising based on the ad’s relevance to them will actually decrease reach – but will increase relevancy, and hopefully drive an uplift in sales (which is what advertising is designed to do).  Throw into the mix the unique 1-1 relationship of a mobile handset to a particular consumer and you have a better targeting system.

If we assume for a moment that the behavioural targeting and preferences model does actually work on both the fixed internet and mobile, the challenge then comes for those creatives to come up with advertising that is interesting to watch.

Indeed, I think we’ve all become fixated in the mobile space on trying to fit advertising built for a 16:9 TV screen or 800 x 600 monitor onto a small 2.4’’ mobile screen.

If we make it easy for users to select what content is useful and relevant, then the “advertising” delivered will appear more like welcome content.

Perhaps some information (note I have not called it advertising here) may actually be delivered by channels other than the mobile.  Operators such as O2, Optus and Telstra that hold fixed and mobile assets may be able to leverage both channels in tandem.  In this scenario, the mobile is used as the “remote control”, allowing users to select what they would like to receive, with the PC being the delivery channel.

A simple example of this at work is the Sky+ remote record service available in the UK.  Here you set up what you want to watch on your mobile via a nifty application and the service sets up your personal video recorder at home to record that favourite episode of Lost you forgot to set to record before you left the house. 

Indeed, your viewing habits and preferences themselves become interesting to advertisers, and I am sure that Sky have in their forward plans the ability to insert relevant ads via IP.TV stream. 

In this case, if I could identify what I am interested in via my mobile, then for the first time since television began, the ads I would receive would be totally relevant and useful to me – and I would view them as information and not advertising.

Clearly we have a long way to go before we reach this stage – either on the web, mobile or for Pay-TV, but I am thankful that John has helped to stir the debate on this issue – otherwise it could be just me banging on about this for the next 10 years!

You can read John’s article in full over at the Telecomasia.net website.

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As always, here you can read a weekly roundup of the very best in mobile writings from across the blogosphere about mobile applications, mobile advertising & marketing, mobile web, handsets and hardware.

As always a great read, so head over to mobilestance and take a look.

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There has been much speculation about the UK taking the series, and in this week’s Campaign magazine there was a mention that the series pilot has been filmed.

The article from Campaign on April 17 claims:

BBC3 has selected Richard Huntington, Saatchi & Saatchi’s director of strategy, and James Hilton, AKQA’s European chief creative officer, to star in the UK pilot of the Australian TV hit show The Gruen Transfer.

The Gruen Transfer format works in Australia and is one of the country’s highest rating shows – not bad given it is on the ABC (BBC equivalent) and about advertising.

Anyone who works in advertising should watch out for the scheduling news of when BBC3 expects to air the series.

I predict it could become an overnight hit!

Footnote: this week’s “On the QT…” section in Campaign reports that the 1st pilot has been recorded, with DDB’s Georgina Murray-Burton missing the taping due to a broken arm.

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