Media Analysis: Mobile finally at tipping point

via wireless devices. The study of 10,000 mobile phone users around the
world reveals that just 47% of the time they spend using their handset
is for phone calls. Nearly 90% of those surveyed use their phone to take
photos, while 28% download video clips.

This shift in mobile use is opening doors for advertisers, according to
Tom Smith, EMEA research manager at Universal McCann. 'Marketers can now
realistically take advantage of wireless devices to foster positive
relationships with consumers,' he says.

Mobile marketing has been slow to take off in the UK, with technological
restraints and a lack of consumer acceptance limiting advertisers to
simple SMS promotions. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) values the
mobile marketing sector at just £50m, compared with £2bn for
internet advertising and more than £3bn for TV. This is changing,
however, with sophisticated mobile handsets and low-cost wireless
internet access allowing brands to be more creative in the way they
target consumers.

'The potential for using mobile to engage with consumers is huge,' says
Ian James, head of digital media at Bacardi Global Brands. 'Like all
advertisers, we need to think carefully about what we can do in this
space to add value.'

In a significant step for the sector, Nokia last week bought mobile
marketing provider Enpocket to boost its wireless advertising business.
The acquisition will enable the world's biggest handset maker to provide
clients with the technology and services to plan, create and measure
mobile ad campaigns on a global scale. 'This game-changing move will
give us the chance to strengthen the mobile advertising market and make
it easier for the commercial ecosystem to develop,' says Tero Ojanpera,
chief technology officer at Nokia.

The deal also brings Nokia into closer competition with Vodafone, which
has partnered with Yahoo! to offer savings on services including games,
mobile TV and picture messaging to consumers who opt in to targeted
display ads. 'The UK's biggest brands are starting to dedicate research
and development budgets to mobile marketing,' says Blake Chandlee,
commercial director at Yahoo! UK & Ireland. 'We're confident that mobile
display advertising will be a strong business area for us in 2008.'

T-Mobile and 3 are also working hard to strengthen their fledgling
commercial offerings. Last month, T-Mobile made its first foray into
advertiser-funded programming with a free-to-view video service backed
by brands including Lynx, Nivea and Emap's Heat magazine. The company
partnered with Rhythm New Media to enable its customers to download
news, entertainment, celebrity gossip and film clips for free in
exchange for watching TV-style ads before and after each video. 'Mobile
video advertising is becoming popular with brands as they seek to reach
time-poor consumers in a cost-effective way,' says Owen Hanks, UK media
sales director at Rhythm New Media. 'We can measure spontaneous and
prompted awareness and brand message recall.'

While mobile display advertising is finding its feet, sponsored search
is well on its way to becoming big business. As the cost of wireless
internet access falls, more consumers are using their mobile to search
for information on the move.

Google last week moved to capitalise on this by rolling out AdSense, a
sponsored search service that enables brands to run contextual ads on
websites, to sites created specifically for wireless devices. The search
giant is hoping to extend its dominance of the £1.2bn paid-search
sector onto mobile, potentially a highly lucrative area given that there
are three times more wireless devices than PCs globally.

'Mobile is becoming a key gateway for consumers to access information,'
says David Thacker, group product manager at Google. 'As technology
improves and mobile internet uptake increases, advertising budgets will
follow.'

Wireless devices' growing sophistication is also allowing brands to
experiment with location-based campaigns and rich-media ads. Earlier
this month music label Parlophone became one of the first brands to run
an initiative using Quick Response technology, which allows consumers to
take a picture of a TV screen or billboard to be automatically directed
to a branded mobile website.

Other emerging opportunities include Bluetooth marketing, which enables
brands to send messages to people with Bluetooth-enabled handsets within
a radius of 100m. 'Marketers have been incredibly conservative when it
comes to mobile,' says Paul Seaton, managing director of Marvellous
Mobile. 'This is changing with the introduction of cost-effective
technology allowing them to leverage the medium properly.'

Mobile marketing remains a largely unproven sector despite these
innovations; brands are only just beginning to experiment with
advertising via wireless devices and budgets are small. Nonetheless,
media owners, mobile networks and handset makers are investing heavily
in developing opportunities that look set to drive the industry forward.