As businesses begin to recognize the potential of mobile advertising, the need for specific guidelines in this area is becoming starkly apparent: standards are needed to gain the confidence of advertisers and ad agencies and to establish the mobile handset as a viable alternative media channel.

Eran Hertzmann, AVP for Mobile Advertising at Mobixell, has been a key contributor to the ad standards within the OMA and MMA working groups. Eran explains who is working on standards, what is the current status, and shares his views on why they are essential for market growth. more»

ArMobi (Kiev, Ukraine) – a mobile advertising and marketing company with one of the largest ad networks in the CIS.   more>>

iconmobil (Berlin, LA, London, Sydney, Tokyo) – a leading international mobile enabler agency and technology supplier, partially owned by WPP.   more>>

Treemo (Seattle, USA) – a real-time mobile social networking platform that powers promotions and advertising for brands.   more>>

Wirenode (Prague, Czech Republic) – a mobile marketing platform that contains simple-to-use tools for creating mobile websites.   more>>

iconmobile is one of the leading international design agencies and technology suppliers in the mobile world. Iconmobile has set new standards for cell phone advertising and marketing for business services, consumer products and the entertainment industry.

Utilizing the most advanced tracking routines and user interface design, iconmobile delivers location-based branded content to the mobile Internet.

In March 2007 British communications conglomerate WPP Group PLC acquired a 40 percent stake in iconmobile, which is headquartered in Berlin with offices in Los Angeles, London, Sydney and Tokyo.

Wirenode is a mobile marketing platform. It contains simple-to-use tools for
creating mobile websites (with multiple pages, images, colors, mobile surveys,
feedback mechanism, etc), so even the non technical person can create them.

Created websites can be displayed on all mobile phones. The platform optimizes
the output to fit particular phone screen on the fly.

Free version of the service is used by individuals, for their personal mobile
websites. Premium version is used by marketing agencies and mobile operators for
creating landing pages and mobile portals for mobile marketing purposes.

ArMobi is one of the first companies in the CIS, specializing in mobile advertising and mobile marketing. The company has been developing in this field since 2005.

Today ArMobi owns the largest service network in the CIS – MobileAds.ru. Daily advertising capacity reaches 4 million graphical banners and text links displayed on more than 4 thousand popular Russian WAP-sites and portals. ArMobi is also the first in the CIS to offer its clients “Click-to-Call” capability in their banner ads.

MobileAds is designed for quick and simple advertising on mobile Internet sites, with the possibility of accurate online statistics and targeting by country and the mobile operators to help effectively manage the campaign.

Treemo provides a real-time mobile social networking platform that
powers promotions and advertising for brands. With the Treemo platform
users and advertisers can share images and videos via mobile phone and
keep in constant contact with the platforms sms alerting and discovery
capabilities.

When car manufacturer Jaguar launched their new XF luxury sedan in the US market, they decided to do it with a major mobile advertising campaign.
Read about the results! more»

Ending several months of rumors and speculation, mobile measurement company M:Metrics has agreed to be acquired by internet measurement company comScore for a reported $44.3 million plus options on 50,000 shares of comScore. more»

A recent article published in the Los Angeles Times discusses how a host of new services targeted at teens are having a big success. Whether they be magazines sending fashion tips, horoscopes, dating advise or brand information, it seems that today’s teens accept mobile advertising. more»

Vodafone has announced that it has agreed to buy ZYB for 31.5 million Euros. The Danish company operates a social networking and online management tool that allows mobile phone users to share their contact, calendar and location information as well as providing network back up capbility. more»

Opera Software, publisher of the Opera Mini browser, has released its first “State of Mobile Web” report covering the first quarter of 2008. One of the most interesting facts in the report is that social networks account for 40% of worldwide mobile web traffic, while accounting for over 60% in the US, South Africa and Indonesia. more»

Microsoft has announced that it has rebranded its advertising business under the new name of Microsoft Advertising. The move is a clear sign that Microsoft is taking the fight to Google and its other rivals in mobile and internet advertising. The new brand will incorporate many of the companies that Microsoft has purchased in recent times. more»

A new SMS based service is being trialled at over 100 Home Depot stores in the Florida region. The system allows potential customers to view instructional videos on their phone for products they are interested in buying. more»

“If we want to accelerate the growth of mobile advertising into a multi-billion dollar industry, we need to recognise that the advertising itself must take a back seat.”

Thomas Curwen, Director of Planning at Publicis, explains his view of what the industry must do to make mobile advertising grow. more»

At the Mobile Entertainment Market (MEM) in Cannes recently, Jim Cook from MobiAD News had the chance to lead a discussion on how brands and publishers currently view the mobile advertising opportunity. Here’s what they had to say. more»

Microsoft has announced plans to expand its mobile offering by placing mobile display advertising on the Windows Live Hotmail, and on Windows Live Messenger. more»

Customers of Virgin Mobile’s Sugar Mama program now have a new way to earn airtime. Normally, the service provides free airtime when a customer listens to ads on their phone. But now, using a new Facebook application, users can have their Facebook Friends earn free minutes for them by listening to the advertisements on their PC. more»

Two recent news stories indicate that location based advertising is becoming more and more of a reality. Skyhook Wireless, Loopt and CBS Mobile have made announcements in the past months. more»

Flirtomatic, the mobile and online flirting service, has announced that it has served its billionth mobile advertisement. This comes less than a year after serving its first. During Q1 2008, ad revenue increased by 31% compared to the previous quarter and ad impressions grew by 27%. more»

A new report published by Screen Digest predicts that mobile media ad spending in the US will increase from $88 million in 2008 to $700 million over the next 4 years. The report, titled “Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities: The Market for Advertising on TV, Video and Games“, also predicts that more developed mobile markets, such as Japan and South Korea, would have higher ad revenues than the US for mobile TV, gaming, UGC and VoD services. more»

SK group, parent company of Korean mobile operator SK Telecom, have announced that they have set up a new marketing subsidiary to be known as SK Marketing & Company. They will offer businesses the chance to make the most of SK’s consumer database and knowledge of consumer’s habits. more»

Turkcell, the Turkish mobile operator, has launched a new mobile advertising platform called “TonlaKazan” (“Tone&Win”). The new service allows Turkcell customers to select a branded ring back tone, and then gain airtime credits when callers listen to the ringback tone. more»

The Mobile Entertainment Forum awarded the MEFFY’s last week in their annual get together in Cannes. Over 200 entries from 21 countries were submitted this year, and mobile advertising companies were well represented among the winners. See the complete list of winners. more»

Mobile advertising leads the way for social networks

1 May 2008 – Flirtomatic highlights the success of mobile advertising with its billionth mobile advert

Less than a year ago, Flirtomatic, the mobile and online flirting service served its first text and banner ad. Today it announced the placement of its billionth mobile advert.

Flirtomatic, the UK’s only social network dedicated to mobile, serves over 56 million text and banner ads each week and has seen quick and steady growth over the last year – with ad revenue growth of 31% in Q1 2008 over the previous quarter and a 27% growth in ad impressions in the last month.

Flirtomatic has a number of consistent advertisers on the site including O2, Orange, Vodafone, Yahoo, Samsung and MSN. Its range of mobile advertising services can target specific pages and channels of the Flirtomatic mobile site as well as user targeting through gender, age and location by postcode.

Matt Dicks, Head of Sales and Marketing at Flirtomatic commented, “Traditionally, the majority of advertisers are content or gambling services, who are well established off-portal services who fully understand the mobile acquisition model.

“What we are seeing now, is the trend changing very slightly and more brands are testing mobile advertising. With the increase in users, the advertising model for mobile is likely to change, moving away from standard banners and text advertising to a more integrated and targeted system as consumers begin to engage more and become familiar with the technology.” adds Dicks.

As more brands begin testing mobile advertising, the single biggest restriction to its success, is the lack of a mobile specific website or a suitable mobile centric retail promotion. Flirtomatic overcame this by offering brand marketers a mobile destination. For example, a branded profile page, promoting products, delivering brand awareness, driving the number of clicks or footfall to venues or stores through mobile ticketing and coupons.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic commented, “It is wonderful to see how successful our mobile advertising has been. Being in the position to place our billionth ad in less than a year of launch we have exceeded all expectations we had. We hope to continue building this and are aiming to announce a series of these deals over the coming months in conjunction with our Ad sales networks.”

Flirtomatic’s announcement follows a recent partnership with LBi Netrank who is working to identify areas of the site that need to be adapted to improve its mobile search traffic. Through LBi’s work, Flirtomatic expect to see more than 100,000 unique mobile users in the next month, exceeding all previous targets.

Flirtomatic also recently confirmed its first on-portal deal with Orange which will see it promoted on the operator’s mobile and online channels.

About Flirtomatic
Launched in 2006, Flirtomatic has quickly developed flirting as a new entertainment category. Operating an uninterrupted service across the web and mobile, Flirtomatic enables users to flirt, meet new people and have fun online.

The addictive nature of the service generates phenomenally high levels of interaction. August 2007 saw Flirtomatic reach more than 100 million WAP page impressions, whilst September 2007 surpassed 110 million WAP page impressions, highlighting the high levels of interaction generated by the addictive nature of the service. Flirtomatic offers brands a range of marketing opportunities to tap into this intimacy with their customer base.

Sony Pictures Television has announced that its Minisode Network is now available on Sprint TV. The multi-platform video network features four to six minute versions of popular television shows. Sony Pictures has also announced that Honda will be the launch sponsor for the ad-supported network. This follows a successful trial as sponsor of the Minisode Network on MySpace and Crackle.com. more»

DoubleClick has announced that its mobile advertising delivery system, DoubleClick Mobile, is to integrate with other mobile ad networks including AdMob, Google’s AdSense for Mobile , Millennial Media’s premium MBrand and Decktrade Networks. The aim of this upgrade will be enable publishers to easily fill more of their available inventory. more»

National Hockey League team the Pittsburgh Penguins have had great success in connecting with its student fan base using its text-messaging program. It all started in 2006 when in order to fill empty seats, they decided to text local students with offers of severely discounted tickets. more»

Mobile entertainment community Limbo has released their Mobile Advertising Report for Q1 2008. Based on a survey of 1,000 adults, this study indicates that WAP usage is growing, and WAP users are not as young as you might think. You can check bubdesk for more information. Download the study. more»

CBS Corporation is one of the world’s largest media companies, incorporating such well known media brands as CBS TV Network, CW, Showtime, Simon & Schuster and CBS Radio. CBS Mobile, a division of CBS Interactive Inc., is one of the world’s largest mobile media companies.

Jeff Sellinger recently took over the role of EVP-GM of CBS Mobile, and he was kind enough to spend some time with MobiAD News to provide an in-depth look at CBS Mobile and how they are approaching mobile advertising. more»

BuzzCity has revealed the statistics for its myGamma Global Mobile Advertising Index. myGamma is an ad-supported mobile social network service that is very popular in many of the markets outside of N. America and Europe. Download the full advertising index. more»

Airvoice Infocomm , a company in India, has launched a new service called HapAd that allows mobile phone users to receive direct rewards for listening to adverts. Just before making a call the user has the choice as to whether or not he wishes to listen to a twenty second audio ad and be paid for it. more»

HipCricket has launched a Hispanic mobile marketing network. It is made up of various Hispanic media properties and will enable brand marketers to deliver highly targeted mobile marketing programs directly to the handsets of opted-in mobile users who are part of the $860 billion Hispanic consumer market more»

Google has announced that it is launching graphical display ads for mobile phones. The ads will be displayed depending on keywords that appear on the mobile website in a similar fashion to their current text-based ads. more»