Mobile advertising attracts more strong brands

Vodafone gets several new advertisers for the mobile advertising service

Since September this year, over twenty advertisers have tried Vodafone's new advertising channel. Initial successes of campaigns have also attracted such brands as Microsoft, Pepsi, and Jobs.cz. Indirect sales channels are now also generating sales of mobile advertisements.

Mobile advertising has appealed to companies in several varying sectors: finance and insurance (Direct pojišťovna, Komerční banka, AIG, ING, Wüstenrot), consumer goods (Grand Optical, Pepsi, Baťa, Hartmann, Wrigley, Sony), the automotive industry (Jaguár, Barum Continental), travel (Asiana), employment portals (Práce.cz, Jobs.cz), the entertainment industry (Blue Sky Film Distribution), mobile content (Mobie TV), IT (Microsoft), and energy (ČEZ).

"Since the start of the 'Student SMS Grátis' service, we have gained one advertiser with a strong brand after another on the basis of very successful campaigns," says Emil Kováč, Senior Manager of Mobile Advertising, adding, "Since media budgets are planned at this time of the year, we expect further interest of advertisers by the end of 2007."

The most successful mobile advertising campaign has been that of Mobie TV (a provider of downloadable content), which saw visits to its WAP pages increase by 50%.

Based on the interest in mobile advertising and the expansion of the distribution network, Vodafone has also started to negotiate sales through third parties. Mobile advertising will thus also be offered by media agencies Fresh Company s.r.o., Crazy Tomato s.r.o., AM:PM s.r.o, MIA 2007 a.s., SOLMONTE MEDIA, Micromedia, and Mediatel.

Mobile advertising is a new phenomenon in the advertising market as it provides benefits for all participating parties. The advertiser can target customers precisely and get very close to them (through their mobile phones), and measure responses to their campaigns exactly. Vodafone customers get free mobile services for solicited advertisements according to requested demographic criteria. Only customers who register for the service receive advertisements.