UK Carriers Collaborate on Targeting Consumer Mobile Ads

The GSM Association (GSMA) Monday announced that five European operators--Vodafone Group, Telefonica O2 Europe, T-Mobile International, FT-Orange Group and 3--have banded together to define common metrics and measurements for mobile advertising. The goal: share data among carriers to target consumers with relevant mobile ads.

The project, part of the GSMA's Mobile Advertising Programme announced this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, has been underway for several months.

The industry association has become the intermediary, helping carriers define the exact metrics that advertisers, agencies and online publishers expect from mobile advertisements. An undisclosed third-party company has been developing a computer module that integrates the information from each carrier into one database and analyzes the data.

So far, group efforts have been on Wireless Application Protocol browsing, which allows smart phones to access the Internet, but will eventually move toward advertising in messaging, videos and games. As they do, the model will become more precise and valuable to advertisers and agencies. "The value of the aggregated data will be far greater, but there's legal and contractual work required to make sure consumer data privacy is considered," says Henry Stevens, GSMA's director of media and entertainment.

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Armed with such data, Stevens says advertisers and agencies would likely allocate more funds into mobile advertising campaigns.

Research firm eMarketer projects that wrapping ads around mobile messages--including SMS, MMS, IMs and e-mail--will rise from $1.5 billion in 2006 to nearly $12 billion worldwide by 2011, about 11% of the mobile messaging ad market.

John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst for mobile at research firm eMarketer, believes market "intelligence" could drive adoption. "Carriers, in their gut, though not evident in public announcements, realize the growth of their industry can no longer be based solely on new subscribers and quality coverage," he says, noting that Wall Street analysts base carriers' stock valuations on growth. "If carriers don't do something to bring new money into the wireless ecosystem, then they become utility stocks. At that point, executives look at employees, wondering why keep top marketers around."

Carriers have tried selling digital videos and music with little success, Gauntt says, so the new money must come from advertising. Industry collaboration could make it work. The critical "way-under-the-ocean type of trend, the stuff that would cause an el niño effect in the wireless industry," has begun to occur in Brazil Russia, India and China.

"Global brands know mobile will reach the burgeoning middle class in China and India with interactive campaigns," Gauntt adds. "Mega brands--the P&Gs and the Goodyear tires of the world--they will go mobile, and carriers better be leading them or they might be steamrolled. Brands won't wait for carriers to create interoperability."

Stevens says GSMA executives have contacted the Mobile Marketing Association, the industry trade group in the U.S., to create a similar model in the United States, but it's unclear as to the progress being made. AT&T, Verizon and MMA spokespeople didn't confirm by press time.

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