Nearly a quarter of all cell phone users in the U.S. say they've seen an advertisement on their phones in the past 30 days, according to a report from Nielsen Mobile, which tracks these trends.
About half of those who saw advertising on their mobile phones in the past month responded to an ad, the report said. In the fourth quarter, there was a big jump in the number or people reporting that they had spotted advertisements on their mobile phones. In fact, this figure rose 38 percent to 58 million users who said they saw advertising on their cell phone, compared with only 42 million who said they saw advertising on their phones in the second quarter of 2007. Nielsen surveyed 22,000 active mobile data users in its fourth-quarter survey.
Mobile operators and content providers have been talking about the promise of mobile advertising for more than a year. The hope is that advertising can help boost revenue for both operators and content providers. Consumer advocates also hope it will mean more content for users at a lower cost.
But service providers have been cautious about adding advertising too quickly, because they are afraid that bombarding customers with ads will result in a backlash. But the Nielsen report offers some encouraging news that should help ease these worries.
According to the report, almost a third of people who use data services such as text messaging or Web surfing say they don't mind advertising so long as it lowers the cost of their overall bill. And roughly 13 percent said they were in favor of advertising if it improved content. And 14 percent of those responding said they didn't mind ads if they were relevant to their interests.
Big Internet companies, such as Microsoft and Google, are already adapting their advertising products to work on mobile devices. In December, Microsoft launched mini banner ads optimized for cell phone browsers and screen size when people visit mobile MSN portal. And in September, Google launched AdSense for Mobile, which will allow marketers to place contextual ads on sites viewed via mobile devices.
In a bit of a shocker, the U.K.'s five biggest mobile operators have formed a working group to collaborate on a common mobile advertising system. This endeavor could, of course, go absolutely nowhere, but the fact that it's even being considered is an exceptional move for an industry not known for collaboration.
Of course, the operators aren't holding hands for the sake of friendship. It's all about the money. From the Guardian:
Now the international operations of Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange and 3 have formed a working group to define a common mobile advertising audience measurement system, similar to what already exists for other mediums such as TV and press.
"This initiative represents a great opportunity to reach out to the media buying world in order to secure more mobile budget from big brand spenders," said Neil Andrews, head of portal at 3.
Funny, that. Sometimes cooperation is necessary to individually make more money. That's the story of open source. Nice to see the mobile world using its collective brain in a similar fashion.
BARCELONA, Spain--Mobile Internet search and advertising start-up JumpTap said Monday that it will provide search and advertising services for seven TeliaSonera mobile carriers in Europe.
Under the terms of the deal, JumpTap will provide search and advertising technology for TeliaSonera's operators in Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia, and Lithuania.
JumpTap is what is known as a "white label" technology provider. It develops the technology and mobile operators license that technology and use it to provide a service with their own brand on it.
Mobile search and advertising are relatively small markets today, but experts expect spending to pick up within the next few years as more mobile users figure out how to access the Internet from their handsets. Market research firm Gartner predicts that mobile advertising will grow from less than a $1 billion in revenue worldwide in 2007 to about $11 billion in revenue in 2011.
This is a major deal for JumpTap, which already has deals with 16 carriers, including Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, AT&T and Telefonica.
Still, JumpTap and other white label search and advertising providers, such as Medio, are going head-to-head in this market against Google. Even though, some critics say that Google's success in mobile isn't guaranteed, the company is in a strong position, since it is the most well known search and advertising company on the desktop Web. And since many people around the world associate Internet search with Google, white label providers and the carriers that use them might have a hard time getting consumers to use their search tools.
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