Mobile Marketing: TV gets personal

that makes me optimistic about the future of TV viewing on mobiles.

And, it seems, I'm not the only one backing this revolution. Channel 4
recently announced that it sees mobile TV news services as an important
part of leveraging its £100 million five-year contract extension
with ITN and other ventures into mobile TV include showing entire
Hollyoaks episodes on mobile the day after TV transmission.

Last October, Motorola and MTV announced the launch of a series of
mobisodes made especially for global distribution on mobile phones
(www.headandbody.com).

Significantly, MTV put all the production values into the eight
mobisodes that they would usually put into TV content. This strikes me
as pretty smart since, if successful, mobisode concepts could make the
leap to TV.

Mobile, rather like the web, could start to also act as a low-risk
research and development space for programme-makers.

Personally, I can very easily imagine various scenarios where viewing
programmes or edited footage on the mobile would make absolute
sense.

I may not watch a 30-minute news bulletin, but I certainly would tune in
for breaking news if I was out and about and would even happily be
prompted by a text for certain issues that interest me.

I even think there is a market for simply concurrent streaming of what's
on TV at the time. Train journeys can be boring and what better than to
watch Match of the Day while stranded at Crewe station on a Saturday
night.

Or perhaps dedicated EastEnders watchers would be interested to receive
an exclusive three-minute "soap bubble" clip of Grant explaining why he
ripped that bloke's head off in last night's episode.

So, assuming (and it's a big assumption) the technology to deliver TV
via mobile works perfectly every time and assuming we can imagine
programming that makes sense on this most personal of media channels,
two further questions arise. Will enough people want to watch this
stuff, and who will pay for it, viewers or advertisers?

According to Telephia, which monitors mobile performance in the US, some
three million wireless subscribers in the US streamed TV or played video
content on their mobile devices in the final quarter of 2005. Though we
shouldn't mistake this for being just mobile phones, the figures still
indicate a demand for TV viewing on the move. The same study showed that
18- to 24-year-olds are the biggest users of mobile TV and men are more
likely to stream TV and play video content on their wireless devices and
mobiles than women.

This kind of feedback will be needed to make the case to potential
advertisers and their funding will be vital. Of course, some content
will be of high enough quality, have real exclusivity or, frankly, be
porn, and subscriptions will be where the money is made. But there is a
cost of creating and delivering TV content for mobile or simply
repurposing existing content.

So, is there room for advertisers? In the UK, mobile TV is still in the
experimental stages. Sky is "broadcasting" to Vodafone Live subscribers
who are willing to pay extra every month. Orange has been offering
"Orange TV" on some handsets and the Virgin/ntl group will see mobile TV
as a key area for commercial exploitation. Again, the opportunities and
pitfalls are starting to be seen already in the US.

Anheuser-Busch announced a deal with MobiTV that will see its ads put in
front of the mobile TV network's one million subscribers. The package
includes ESPN, Fox, ABC and MSNBC programming on Sprint, Cingular and
Alltel phones. Ads will be run at a rate of 18 an hour across MobiTV's
30 channels. However, despite the stated audience of 21- to
35-year-olds, Anheuser-Busch is being accused of marketing beer to
underage drinkers.

And how should advertisers get their message through on mobile TV?
Five-second "blipverts" run during programming? Product placement in
mobisodes?

Or the sponsorship route with accompanying break-bumpers?

These models have their drawbacks, since the viewer is likely to be
watching no more than perhaps ten minutes at a time or may even be
watching illicitly at their workplace - they won't appreciate precious
viewing time being lost to ads. But, in whatever circumstance they are
watching, I believe great content will be developed for mobile TV, the
technology will get there and people will want to watch it.

The challenge to advertisers will be to understand fully the mindset of
the mobile TV viewer and deliver a sympathetic advertising
experience.

After all, think back all those years ago to that torch under the
bedclothes and how shocked you were when your mum interrupted
you ...

- Charlie Dobres is the founder of i-level.