NetworkPlay Signs On Airtel For CPM Advertising On DTH; Eyes Mobile, Video

From http://www.medianama.com/2009/08/223-networkplay-signs-on-airtel-for-cpm-advertising-on-dth-eyes-mobile-video/ on August 25, 2009

By Nikhil Pahwa

Capital18 funded advertising network NetworkPlay.in has inked a deal with Airtel DTH for advertising on DTH in India. Interestingly enough, NetworkPlay CEO & MD Rammohan Sundaram told MediaNama that the company is going to sell CPM based advertising on DTH. This obviously means that Airtel DTH needs to be able to measure the impressions and relay the data back to the advertiser – there has to be a feedback loop with Airtel DTH. So far, interactivity has been limited on DTH. The company will offer video and image based advertisements on the DTH boot screen, iTravel, iShop, iMatinee, iCity, iNews, iPizza, iAstro and other Airtel DTH services. According to Sundaram, Airtel DTH service has a penetration of over 1.3 Million households and growing at a rate of 16 percent month on month, and reaches a SEC A & B audience in over 4000 towns in India. The total DTH userbase in India is 13 million; Tata Sky (4 million) and Dish TV (5.07 million as of March 31, 2009) are the top operators.

Sundaram says that the tie-up with Airtel is exclusive and they have been working on the deal for 6-7 months now; they are also actively pursuing deals with other DTH operators as well. The company is looking to launch Video and Mobile advertising solutions in the next couple of quarters, but Sundaram declined to comment on further plans.

Of late, we’ve seen a significant amount of collaboration between Internet, Mobile and DTH companies, with multiple services like ticketing, shopping, matrimonial, job classifieds and others being enabled on DTH. The increasing digitization of platforms means that digital services can be enabled across Internet, Mobile, IPTV, DTH etc; it doesn’t have to be about the world wide web alone.

RCom takes a call on the Zoozoo challenge

via RCom takes a call on the Zoozoo challenge.

Rajesh S Kurup & Sapna Agarwal / Mumbai June 18, 2009, 0:37 IST on The Business Standard

Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications (RCom) is borrowing a concept from the Charlie Chaplin classic The Great Dictator. Just as Chaplin dances with a globe in the film, RCom’s forthcoming advertising campaign will shows five animated characters dancing with a globe.

The similarity doesn’t end there. In The Great Dictator, Chaplin is spoofing Adolf Hitler’s wild ambitions to conquer the world. In its ad campaign slated for launch next week, RCom is taking on Vodafone-Essar’s engaging and hugely popular Zoozoos

Being developed by Delhi-based RocketScience, the characters — five of them representing the five network bars on a mobile phone — are yet to be given a name. Right now, they’re being referred to as “humanised network bars”.

But much like the Zoozoos, these “humanised network bars” will communicate the strength of the company’s network through five-second spot advertisements, they added.

The company’s brief to the agency was to make network bars the brand’s identity and a medium of communicating with its customers, a RocketScience source said.

RCom is making seven short films to be aired across various TV channels beginning next week. The campaign, which also includes an online viral, will run for two weeks.

In one of the advertisements, four of the humanised characters are lifting the fifth and threatening to drop him on the ground. The tagline says: ‘Our network never fails’. Another one has all the five dancing around India’s map, mentioning its “coverage across 20,000 towns and 500,000 villages”.

Asked about the impending campaign, a Reliance Mobile spokesperson declined to comment.

RCom will spend around Rs 150 crore (the amount includes the GSM campaign featuring Hrithik Roshan launched a fortnight ago) over a 60-day period. RCom will also extend its humanised characters to sell its portfolio of value-added brand, just as Vodafone did with Zoozoos. Going a step further, RCom will create jokes around its humanised characters that will be available over SMS and e-mail.

Ad gurus generally have a good take on spoofs. “If done well in good taste and humour, spoof ads are considered flattery, indicating that the idea has been appreciated. It works well for the brand because it creates excitement — but again, this depends on the brand. I am personally not against spoofs,” said Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman, McCann Worldgroup India, and regional creative director, McCann Asia .

K V Sridhar (known as “Pops”), national creative director, Leo Burnett, added that spoofs by challenger brands taking on market leaders are usually well received by customers.

“For instance, Pepsi’s spoof -‘Nothing Official About It’ – was received well. Likewise, when Jet Airways had announced a change — Kingfisher came up with an ad saying ‘We Have Not Changed’.

“If the brand’s personality is fun, and it’s not the market leader, it can take on the larger brand, it’s enjoyable. But if the market leader takes on smaller brands it’s usually not enjoyable.

It’s like a family; the younger brother can take potshots at the older one, but the older one taking a potshot at his younger sibling is considered bad,” he said.

Europe’s BLYK set to enter India

From www.cellstrat.com on June 13, 2009

First world’s biggest, America’s AdMob entered and now Europe’s fully ad supported MVNO, BLYK is all set to launch in India. Operators and mobile advertising companies around the world are trying aggressively for launching their operations in India as per their expansion plans. Market is huge (as per our CellStrat Annual India Mobile Media Survey) as 53% of the top executives in Indian companies feel that mobile yet to become a mass media channel for advertising, mobile TV etc. as is clear from the graph below:

Mobile Media Usage Prediction Amongst Executives

Text-based ads are already being used and preferred by 50% respondents well across Indian executive spectrum, while banner-based ads are preferred only by 24% respondents due to inadequate band width. Both text and banner ads are still a very young area calling for a lot of improvement still. However, we are increasingly seeing creativity with mobile texts (with SMS 2.0 coming in), banners and sponsorships.

Video pre-roll and post-roll, and ad-funded content are starting to emerge. Volume is limited both in terms of current audience and advertising, but this is increasing and will continue to do so rapidly over the next few years. 3G will play a huge role in the same.

Bothese companies AdMob and BLYK will be successful if we go with the statistics from the CellStrat Annual India Mobile Media Survey report as 59% executives believe that mobile advertising works while 24% are not sure if it actually does as quiet a few of these don’t use any mobile analytics to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Thus, with world reknowned companies entering India, future of mobile media is bright.

Please see also https://telcobizpedia.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/dnd-disturbance-now-on-demand/

DND: Disturbance Now on Demand

By Heena Jhingan on www.ciol.com on June 12, 2009

Who does not love freebies? Mobile users are now more willing to be disturbed if that brings along some free-gifts attached. Following a positive response to Virgin mobile’s strategy to offer free calls if customers view and respond to ads, operators in India are becoming receptive to the concept and intend to encash its popularity.

Free talk time offers in India have caused subscriber defection from one operator to the other. But mobile advertising which was once thought to be annoying, is now emerging as a mode to earn a little revenue for the operator, and the subscriber receiving advertisements on his phones can get free music downloads, free instant messaging and video games in exchange.

To make the most of this rage and be in the race, the state-owned BSNL launched an integrated Mobile Advertising Service which will help its mobile subscribers to earn talktime by simply registering for a service which will send advertisement to the registered users which in turn help users to earn talktime .The Mobile advertisement services is currently available in BSNL’s West zone circles in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatishgarh.

Considering the trajectory Indian mobile industry is making with over 400 mn subscriber, UK-based company positioned as a free mobile service network for 16-24-year-olds, Blyk Ltd, is preparing to enter the Indian market and is in talks with one or more local telecom operators.

Blyk that has around 200 brands on board in the UK from leading advertisers such as Unilever Plc and Microsoft Corp, offers customers some free talktime or free texts in return for accepting targeted advertising on their phones every day. In India, the ad-funded company is seeking partners to gain access to their spectrum, or airwaves, and subscriber base. Last year, the company announced an additional Rs267.6 crore of investment to support its operations and international expansion.

If the talks materialize, Blyk will be the first network to open here positioned solely as a free service, although there will be a ceiling on free calls and messages permitted per subscriber.

The operators in India are looking at such models as win-win for all stakeholders, cellular operators, customers and advertisers. It is believed the youth will be very enthusiastic about the offer. Reliance Communications is rumored to be in talks with Blyk. However, some new and small operators are also being considered.

Virgin became one of the first providers to offer such a service in 2006,its customers could get upto 75 minutes of free calls per month if they spent an equal amount of time looking at ads and replying to these ads via text messages. The MVNO made an entry in the market with a unique concept of paying the subscriber 10 pasie per minute for incoming calls.

BSNL who launched the services last month believes it is important to keep with market trends. As of now the operator is offering Rs 5 free talk time for every 10 ads, which is not a big amount. The company says it is still experimenting how more revenue be earned through such schemes.

Interest in such services is reflected in global audit and advisory firm KPMG’s recent study which says Mobile phone users in India are more willing than their global counterparts to receive advertisements on their phones in return of ad-funded content. The survey finds globally 49 per cent of respondents would be willing to watch ads on their mobiles in return for free music. About 44 per cent would be prepared to do the same in return for free access to Instant Messaging. It would not be surprising if more global mobile service network like Blyk show interest in Indian market.

Companies are realizing that the need for engagement with the consumer is increasingly going through cellphone, and quantifiable ROI is alluring for brands. The Mobile advertising is expected to reach $5.7 billion by 2014, though that will still be 1.5% of total global adspend. Creative teams are working on interesting ad content and their presentation. Some companies plan to run ads in the middle of the call.

A major apprehension that operators in India have about mobile advertising is that certain groups may find it intrusive in spite of the freebies. But, no worry as these services are availed by choice and if one needs to be ultra cautious there is an option of DND (Do Not Disturb) registration.

Kodak mobile advertising campaign in India sees 1.7 percent CTR

From www.cellstrat.com on June 11, 2009

Kodak executives wanted to increase the customer base of the brand’s Kodak Express photo processing outlets in India, so they turned to mobile advertising.

The company conducted a month-long mobile advertising campaign based on an opt-in survey and a call-to-action to visit its Kodak Express outlets. To incentivize participation, Kodak offered prizes to those who entered such as a 2GB iPod Nano or a 1GB memory card.

“The mobile campaign was a sort of experiment—promoting Kodak to people with camera phones,” said CEO of the Singapore based advertising company. “The goals were to increase footfalls to the Kodak Express outlets in India and to consolidate user profile and behavior understanding from Kodak Express users.”

(Source: Mobile Marketer)

Indians more willing to try nextgen mobile services: KPMG

4 Jun 2009, 1434 hrs IST, PTI on www.economictimes.com

NEW DELHI: Indians are more willing to experiment with value-added services, including chatting, video gaming and watching live TV on mobile phones, as compared to their global counterparts, KPMG says.

Asian consumers, including those in India, seem the most willing to use their mobile phones for purchasing music, video games, and watching live TV, followed by the Middle East and Africa and Latin America, global consulting firm KPMG’s ‘Consumers and Convergence III’ global survey found.

However, the developed-market consumers of Europe and North America are apparently less willing.

The survey revealed that there exists a huge potential for mobile chat services, video gaming on mobile and watching live TV on mobile in India.

Globally, 18 per cent of respondents were very likely to use a mobile chat service in the next 6-12 months as against 34 per cent in India, showing growing demand for such services.

The survey revealed as much as 95 per cent Indian consumers were satisfied with their music-download experience on mobile phones as against 66 per cent respondents globally.

“While mobile additions exceed 10 million a month, average revenue per user’s (ARPU) continue to drop. Telecom players recognize rise in VAS revenues will be a key aspect of future growth and profitability,” KPMG India Head of information, communication & entertainment Rajesh Jain said.

About 86 per cent respondents in the country and in China indicated likelihood of watching live TV on mobile phones in the next 12 months, the survey added.

Players in value chain are innovating and focusing on the increasing market size for their products and services, Jain added.

KPMG surveyed over 4,000 consumers in 19 countries world wide, in order to understand the future for the market, revealing global trends and some regional differences.

In India, although the user-base of mobile gaming is smaller, a substantially higher proportion of 63 per cent was satisfied with the service, which reflects gaining acceptance and opportunity for mobile gaming companies as the segment moves beyond the early adopters.

Meanwhile, m-commerce applications continue to face challenges for gaining wider acceptance in the country.

KPMG’s survey revealed that there exists a huge potential for banks to grow their market with mobile phone users, as globally 53 per cent of consumers said they are comfortable with the idea of using a mobile phone for financial transactions.

About 64 per cent of Indian’s surveyed stated that they are “at least somewhat likely” to conduct banking through a mobile device in the next 12 months.

Further, 93 per cent respondents said clear pricing and 94 per cent felt download speed as an influencing factor for the purchase of video clips and mobile TV.