IM-Mobile

Mobile Relationship Marketing and Advertising

NeuStar 2D Bar Codes Enhance Mobile Advertising & Brands

NeuStar

Mobile advertisers, brands and mobile users have a new powerful tool that enables cell phones to scan and process two-dimensional bar codes, which are not dependent on carrier or scanning technology.

NeuStar, a technology company that generates trusted communications across applicaitons, networks and enterprises, announced partnerships with 3G Vision, Mobile Discovery, Mobile Tag and NeoMedia Technologies at CTIA today.

(more…)

Per Holmkvist of Mobiento: Mobile Ad Growth Expanding in Scandinavia

Per Holmkquist, Mobiento

Per Holmkquist, Mobiento

Mobile advertising is growing at a 50%-90% clip per year in Scandinavia, according to Per Holmkvist, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Mobiento, the leading mobile marketing agency in Scandinavia. Although the revenue from the non-mobile Internet is much larger for now, mobile continues drawing an increasing percentage of online revenue. Mobiento has won the MMA Global Awards twice, and was elected in the top-three mobile marketing agencies in the world in at the 2008 MAMA Awards. Mobiento has conducted more than 700 campaigns in Scandinavia and internationally. Mobiento’s customers include major brands such as H&M, a large clothing retailer, Volvo, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Snickers, and Stimorol

(more…)

Mobile Advertising U.S. Growth: Michael Boland Podcast

Michael Boland, The Kelsey Group

Michael Boland, The Kelsey Group

Michael Boland, a senior analyst and program director for The Kelsey Group’s Mobile Local Media Forecast Division, is an expert in mobile advertising market research and the mobile industry. Since joining The Kelsey Group in 2005, Mike has been instrumental in covering the local online space for Interactive Local Media practice.

Mike is a frequent speaker and organizer at top industry conferences including Kelsey Group events, search engine strategies and others. He has authored in-depth reports on the changing local media landscape including online video, social networking and mobile. He contributes regularly to highly read online news sources such as Search Engine Watch and Huffington Post. A trusted source for reporters covering the interactive media space, his comments have appeared in major news and trade media, including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Forbes.

The Kelsey Group is the leading provider of strategic research and analysis, data and competitive metrics on Yellow Pages, electronic directories, local search, SMB advertising and local media.

The Kelsey Group’s Mobile Local Media Forecast for mobile advertising (2008-2013) is highlighted in the report “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity.”

Kelsey’ s projections, quoted in Mobile Marketer, are $330M in 2009; $720M in 2010; $1.5B 2011; $2.3B in 2012; $3.1B in 2013.

In the podcast, Mike discusses local mobile search advertising trends, including advertising revenues changes from traditional media (radio, television, newspapers) to mobile (SMS, display and search). SMS still dominates, but local search is growing faster, and traditional media area adopting mobile marketing as another channel for revenue growth.

Research firm eMarketer recently downsized its U.S. mobile-ad revenue spend this year, dropping the forecast to $760 million, reduced from its $2.8 billion forecast for 2009 predicted last March, with a substantial reduction for 2010-2013. However, Mike and Kelsey are sticking to their higher forecasts.

Online giants, like Google and MSN and large advertisers, continue to dominate mobile advertising, but SMB’s will garner more of the mobile advertising pie as ad revenue growth continues. Mobile search advertising will emulate online search practices—bidding for keywords, demographic targeting, etc.

Mike states that fewer dot mobi sites will appear, due to company’s optimizing their existing websites for mobile devices. XHTML mobile device like the iPhone, Google’s Android devices and other smartphones are the biggest targets for mobile advertisers.

Current handsets in the U.S. (266M) will grow to 280M in 2009, 286M by 2011, 291M by 2012 and flat by 2013 due to high saturation among the total population.

Mike makes astute comments about the growth of Netbooks and mobile devices, combined with 3G and 4G handsets. Netbooks, the most “mobile” laptops on the market, easily complement cell phones, even if only used for voice communications. In fact, Mike says, the use of voice, already tested and in use by Google, is another channel for mobile advertisers.

Mobile marketers are realizing that “the application is the new ad unit.” One example, discussed in the interview, is a Coca-Cola brand campaign in Brazil.

For example, Coca-Cola worked with Nokia to launch a special edition mobile phone brand ‘Coca-Cola Zero Studio’ to put their brand directly into the hands of consumers in Brazil. The exclusive music content was bundled on device and acted as a real incentive to consumers to buy the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music Special edition, a handset that was designed by Nokia with music
in mind.

Other mobile applications and services—especially on smartphones—are boosting mobile advertising revenues and rapidly growing. The iPhone and BlackBerry Application Stores are established channels for application developers.

MobilePeople in Denmark, quoted in one of Kelsey’s blog posts, provides local mobile search and advertising solutions for directory publishers and directory assistance providers, offering SMB’s a new sales channel to monetize their businesses.

Listen as Brian Prows interviews this mobile visionary.

Links for the Podcast:

Michael Boland Bio:

-LinkedIn Bio

-The Kelsey Group

Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity

The Kelsey Group

Kelsey Group Blog

Kelsey FaceBook Group

Reach Michael at mboland@KelseyGroup.com

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

You might also enjoy:

Mobile Marketer’s Mickey Alam Khan: Mobile Marketing and Advertising

Is Advertising Necessary?

Mobile advertising continues its relentless growth, while Internet revenues are falling. As with print advertisers, especially newspapers, that continue losing revenue to online placement, the community of mobile advertisers, mobile ad networks and mobile publishers is dominating worldwide advertising. So much for mobile.

But this post goes beyond mobile ads. It’s about the necessity of  any advertising.  Periodically, we should expose our minds to opposing opinions and views that contradict–and even imperil–our business models.

Such is the case with Eric Clemons at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Clemons just posted an article (available in PDF form) on TechCrunch. His predictions about the demise of PC-based Internet advertising and his comments on social media and mobile ad personalization are controversial with a grain of truth and 100 grains of speculation and flabbergast.

(more…)