Sitting on a Gold Mine

It’s no secret that mobile advertising is the riddle that virtually every major digital player tries to solve. Mobile Advertising is expected to jump six-fold from $3.3B last year (2011) to $20.6B in 2015, according to Gartner. Although both companies reported a growth in mobile advertising this week, Facebook has admitted that while it has almost half a billion mobile device users, it still isn't sure whether it's mobile business model is working or  not, and Google hasn't blown anyone away with it's result so far either.

For mobile advertising to succeed, it needs to be optimized for small screens, and provide a highly contextual personalized mobile experience based on the customer’s past behavior and current intent. An ad which is too good for users to pass up.

If carriers want their fair share of the media pie, they need to fight against over-the–top players and leverage their unique valuable assets. Carriers can bring brands a more targeted audience and context relevancy, something missing from most mobile advertising initiatives.

Mobile carriers sit on a lucrative gold mine – they have access to their users preferences such as  Google searches, Facebook posts, Tweets, Call Detail Record’s (CDR’s), apps, etc., and can communicate with users over various medias (snail mail, calls, email, in-app advertising). Add this to the consumer’s preferences, billing relationship and a host of anonymized data on subscribers, and advertisers finally get a tool they can use in nearly every situation.

Mobile carriers can provide tailored offers triggered when relevant, for example when a consumer is near a store or e-commerce site they are offered a coupon and can pay via their mobile device. Carriers actually are the only ones that can link activities to a specific user and provide a closed loop.

The world’s largest carriers, AT&T, Telefonica, SingTel and others, have created new business units focusing on digital advertising. These carriers are realizing that mobile advertising represents the best opportunity for growth in their business in the face of rising infrastructure costs, churn and declining margins.

Will other carriers join? Who should and who shouldn’t? Which ecosystem, software and service solutions will best support mobile carriers for success?

-- Ilanit Zehut, Director of Business Development