Commercials on mobiles are a new rage

The value-added services industry is still fragmented and advertisement within it still remains a small revenue stream. Serious steps ,however, are being taken to increase this. One of these is the formation of mobile advertisement networks.

Mobile ad networks are just like ad networks on the internet. They comprise a publisher, an advertiser, agency and a technology platform provider. Consider the case of Mumbai-based mKhoj, a mobile ad network provider, which last week served its advertisement number one billion. On a monthly basis, the company serves 225 million ads on the mobile platform, has 300 partners and has worked with 42-50 brands. All the numbers have been achieved only in the last six months or so.

"These are certainly early days for a mobile ad network in India. Still, people do realise that because of the volumes this medium can generate, it is a huge opportunity," says Naveen Tewari, CEO, mKhoj.

mKhoj has developed its own technology platform that, in real time, detects the type of handset that the user has, the type of service provider, the operating system the phone uses, location of the user and what is the user surfing. Based on this the company shows relevant ad to the user.

Tewari notes that the opportunity is huge. Firms such as Mobile2Win, Mauj, and others having worked for brands and created content for the mobile platform are coming up with their own mobile ad networks. The number of Indians using their mobiles to logon to the internet has increased from 16 million in 2006 to 38 million in 2007 (both GSM and CDMA).

For instance, Mobile2win has started talks with potential partners for the network and is entering into tie-ups with publishers and advertisers. "We have worked with over 100 brands. By creating a mobile ad network we would be just moving up the value-chain. Currently we are concentrating on building a technology platform," said Rajiv Hiranandani, country head, Mobile2Win.

Some of the leading players on the internet are working towards getting the internet model on to the mobile platform. Some of the names that are targeting the mobile ad network space are Yahoo, Google, Nokia, AdMob, AOL and others. Of these, Yahoo has already announced the same for India as well.

Ritesh Nair, CEO, Interactive Avenues, says: "Over the last two years mobile advertisement has certainly increased. But providers should move beyond WAP and mobile internet-based advertisement. If the industry looks at other means as well like SMS, it is a huge opportunity."

The other reason why the advertisers are excited about this medium is the accuracy and reach of this medium. The medium has the ability to provide targeted advertisement, which is not possible in any other platform. Another advantage the medium offers is that is remains constantly with the consumer.