6 – 7 November, 2013
Istanbul, Turkey

The biggest global ad spenders, digital, tech and telco experts, entrepreneurs and startups from all over the world gather at the 5th edition of the biggest ever Webit Congress in Istanbul.
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A recent report by research firm Wireless Intelligence has found that half of all mobile connections worldwide would run on 3G or 4G networks by 2017.

This would represent a doubling of today’s figure (1.7 billion) and would represent around 4.25 billion out of the 8.5 billion connections anticipated in 2017. more»

Based on documents filed by the Europeans Commission for Consultation, three of the UK’s largest mobile networks have cast aside their differences to form a mobile advertising network.

O2, Vodafone and Everything Everywhere (created in 2010 by the merge of Orange UK and T-Mobile) will create a joint venture to offer brands the ability to capitalize on the demographic targeting information that they possess, in order to place more highly targeted ads onto mobile devices. more»

With 2009 being undoubtedly the year of the mobile app, the search is on to find which technology will become mainstream in 2010.

One such technology is Mobile Widgets and a recent report from ARCchart takes a detailed look into the business case for Mobile Widgets from both a publisher and a mobile operator perspective. more»

Grameenphone case study:
An interview with Kazi Islam

At MobiAD News, we usually look primarily at the business impact of mobile marketing and mobile services. But there is another trend, perhaps even more important, which is the critical role that mobile can play in reaching the billions of people in emerging regions that are not yet connected via internet.

This week Ferhan and Jim Cook had the pleasure of speaking with Kazi Islam, CEO of Grameenphone IT about the amazing projects they are working on in Bangladesh. In this interview, Kazi talks about his vision of how mobile can be used to address issues such as health and education in emerging nations, as well as the important role that mobile advertising will play.

Kazi will also be a keynote speaker at MLOVE, taking place June 23-25 in Berlin. more»

Smart phones make it easy for ad networks to bypass the mobile operator. A major bonus for advertisers is that this eliminates the cost of sharing revenue with mobile operators, and a major bonus for technology providers is that it eliminates the effort to integrate with a mobile operator’s infrastructure.

However, there may be some key advertising benefits that only a mobile operator can provide. In this article, Mark Westling, Founder and CTO of Sigma Limited argues that there are several compelling reasons to include the operator as part of the value chain. more»

February 15 to 18, 2010
Barcelona, Spain

For four days, this beautiful Mediterranean city will become the place for mobile leaders to gather, collaborate, conduct business and experience VISION IN ACTION. more»

Vodafone was one of the first major mobile operators to commit serious resources to mobile advertising.

The industry has grown and changed a lot since then, and Vodafone’s strategy has also evolved, culminating with some major announcements recently about applications, network services, and Vodafone 360.

We took the opportunity of these announcements to visit Vodafone’s new offices in London to get some further detail on these plans as well as an update on Vodafone’s overall strategy towards mobile advertising and marketing. more»

Due to the rapid spread of new communication technologies, today’s teenagers are facing unique challenges in determining what’s acceptable in personal relationships and what’s not.

Verizon has linked up with the Ad Council to bring a public service campaign to teens in the US. The campaign is called “That’s Not Cool”, and is aimed a helping teens recognize and deal with “digital dating abuse”. more»

18 to 19 November, 2009
Hong Kong

The GSMA Mobile Asia Congress provides mobile industry executives worldwide an important opportunity to meet, to discuss and to debate industry trends and issues, and to network with peers, partners and prospects. more»

Telefonica Mobile Group has announced the launch of a new mobile marketing service built around the LiveScreen Media idle screen advertising platform from Celltick. more»

TeliaSonera and Ericsson have announced a new, personalized mobile advertising system to be launched in Sweden later in 2009.

The system will send “pod casts” out to consumers overnight to be viewed the next day. more»

Vodafone announced that it has completed the rollout of mobile advertising services to 18 countries in the past 18 months.

Citing strong revenue growth, Vodafone also announced they would continue expanding both the portfolio of mobile advertising services and their reach. more»

Amobee Media Systems has announced that they have launched mobile advertising for mobile giant Telefónica in Spain.

Telefónica is one of the world’s largest mobile operator groups, with close to 200 million mobile subscribers in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
more»

Vodafone has announced an aggressive plan to stimulate a new generation of mobile internet applications by providing internet service developers with a single point of access to Vodafone’s global customer base of 289 million subscribers.

Vodafone also announced plans to make available a series of network API’s which will provide controlled access to their billing system as well as customer location information.
more»

The Turkish mobile market is one of the most dynamic in the world: a population of over 70 million with mobile penetration growing from 52% in 2005 to 100% today.

Turkcell is the largest mobile operator in Turkey, with 37 million subs. They have been very innovative in the area of mobile advertising and marketing, with their “Tone and Win” service winning this year’s GSMA award for “Best Mobile Advertising Service“.

In this interview, Chief Value Added Services Officer Cenk Serdar talks about the Turkish market and why Turkcell has put mobile marketing at the center of their business. more»

Just one year after the GSMA launched their trial program aimed at generating cross-operator mobile advertising metrics, they have released some preliminary information from the collaborative effort. The joint project had all 5 UK operators (Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, O2) providing usage data to the GSMA (see the MobiAD article announcing the program GSMA and Mobile Operators Join To Measure Mobile Advertising). more»

Orange has released their latest Digital Media Index, a detailed report looking at usage patterns across Orange’s entertainment and communications services.

The index shows a strong increase is 3G subscribers, mobile search, and social networks, leading to a level of mobile data usage has almost doubled over the past quarter. (available for download) more»

Blyk launched their youth-oriented, ad-funded MVNO into the UK market just over a year ago with much fanfare. Since then it has generated a lot of discussion in the industry about the viability and potential success of the “Blyk Model”.

As a year has now passed, we took the opportunity to talk with Shaun Gregory, CEO of Blyk UK, to hear about their first year of operation, what they’ve learned, and to get some insight into the new products that Blyk is working on. more»

According to a report in NMA, mobile operator O2 has launched a global media sales division, known as the O2 Media Group. The purpose of the new group is to provide advertisers the ability to reach O2′s 18.7 million subscribers by placing integrated campaigns across mobile, email, online, in-store, direct and experiential channels. more»

Virgin Mobile USA, which over the summer absorbed the MVNO Helio, has introduced some interesting new features which will make it easier for their subscribers to participate in mobile social networks. more»

3UK has launched a new phone into the UK market, the INQ¹, which it calls the “world’s most advanced social networking phone”.

Features to access Facebook are integrated into the heart of the phone, as well as other communication and music services. more»

Getting something for free is always attractive for consumers, and it is the driver behind many of the ad-funded models we’re seeing these days.

One of the first mobile companies to give away free services in return for watching ads was Virgin Mobile US, with their SugarMama program. The youthful demographic of Virgin Mobile was the perfect group to offer free airtime in return for their subscribers’ attention.

We had a chance for an in-depth discussion with Scott Kelliher, Director of Mobile Advertising at Virgin Mobile US. Scott explained the details of the service, what works the best, and how customers feel about it. more»

Telefónica has launched a global mobile advertising alliance in partnership with Amobee Media Systems. The alliance will allow advertisers to show targeted ads of all types to Telefonica’s 170 million subscribers around the world. more»

MyScreen Mobile has announced that it has received a minority investment of $10 million from Orascom Telecom. The investment will give MyScreen Mobile exclusive access to Orascom’s 70 + million subscribers in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and its affiliates’ (Wind Italy and Wind Greece) 18 million subscribers. more»

US Cellular and JumpTap have announced a partnership that will see US Cellular use JumpTap’s white-label search and advertising solutions. The agreement will allow US Cellular customers to search for on and off deck content while JumpTap will have access to US Cellular’s data and usage information in order to deliver the most targeted ads possible. 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»

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»

Cellcom, one of Israel’s leading mobile operators, has announced that it has signed a multi-year contract with Media Layer to put ads on its mobile content services. This news is another sign that mobile operators are becoming more and more serious about mobile advertising, and are putting in place the systems required to serve ads. more»

In an article published in the Australian IT section, Vodafone Group chief Arun Sarin is quoted as saying that mobile advertising will see big growth within the next few years. He expects sales to top US$ 100 million within that time frame. more»

Boost Mobile , a life-style based MVNO owned by Sprint, has announced that it has launched a new mobile advertising platform for mobile phones. Acura and Fox Searchlight Pictures are among the first companies to advertise on Boost mobile’s new platform. Amobee will be Boost’s ad-selling and ad-serving partner. more»

The mobile market in South Africa is a challenging environment for mobile advertising, but also ripe with opportunity. Vodacom, the largest operator in South Africa, has very quickly established a very successful mobile advertising business. Read this in-depth discussion with Rick Joubert, head of mobile advertising & social media at Vodacom, and download a presentation from him “5 Principles for Mobile Operators, Some advice from an early mover”. more»

The subject of measurement for mobile advertising has been a hot topic, and everyone has a view. We gathered the opinions of several key players in the mobile advertising industry – media planners, ad agencies, mobile operators, and ad technology companies. Hear what they have to say. more»

Danny Kalish, CTO at Unipier discusses mobile operators’ need to adopt an approach that allows them to target specific users with relevant advertisements and at the same time manage the overall ad-related user experience including user privacy and charging aspects. more»

Laurent Herbillon explains the recent TF1
agreement and Bouygues’ strategy for
mobile advertising

Bouygues Telecom is one of the leading mobile operators in France. Laurent Herbillon is Director of Service Development and Innovation, and is responsible for mobile advertising activities within Bouygues. Laurent took some time with us to explain the overall mobile advertising strategy at Bouygues, as well as the details of some recent business developments. more»

Interview with Richard Saggers
Head of Mobile Advertising

In the previous MobiAD News newsletter, we ran Part One of our interview with Richard Saggers, where he discussed Vodafone’s view of the mobile advertising opportunity, their overall strategy, plus details of key partnerships with Yahoo! and Google (if you missed Part One, you can see it HERE). This is Part Two of the interview. more»