Arun Sarin: industry must come together to define mobile advertising standards

Vodafone sees huge mobile ads growth

THE chief executive of the world's biggest mobile phone group has identified mobile advertising as a key area of revenue growth and expects sales of more than $US100 million ($108 million) within a few years.

The biggest issue in the still-nascent market was with the advertisers understanding the value they could get from mobile advertising, Vodafone Group chief Arun Sarin told Media.

"They have seen things go from television to the internet, which is now pretty solid," he said.

"We have to be there first, otherwise somebody else is going to be serving these ads."

Mr Sarin said the industry must come together to define mobile advertising standards.

"When a chief marketing officer is wanting exposure to a certain customer group, for television 30-second advertising it is pretty specialised," he said.

"Internet - whether it's banners or whatever - it's pretty well sorted.

"For the mobile industry, Vodafone does it one way, all our competitors do it another way.

"I am saying, guys, let's get to there fast so we can present to the advertising (sector) a common face. If we do that it will be terrific thing," he said.

Vodafone Australia's marketing chief John Casey said the company (which is No.3 in size in the local market) was probably the most advanced in terms of its mobile advertising platform.

"Rather than waiting for the industry to collaborate on a set of standards, we have published our own set of standards," Mr Casey said. "As well, we have a rate card for the various properties in the mobile advertising areas, from sponsored content to sponsored talk and text to banner advertising on your mobile portal.

"We have been working directly with blue-chip brands such as Coca-Cola, 2Oth Century Fox, LG and Sony BMG."

Mr Casey said mobile advertising was still at the education and trial phase but some of the brands had become repeat customers.

Hutchison's 3 network, Vodafone's fast growing rival, also believed mobile advertising as an area of growth.

"We have already run a number of mobile advertising campaigns. That's given us a good feel of how responsive customers are," 3 mobile advertising manager Angus Beattie said.

"It's early days for mobile advertising and revenues will increase only if the personal, direct and interactive nature of the mobile is used properly, and if there is a value transaction.

"The Ford Ashes campaign, which offered customers free video calls, included 100 per cent advertiser exclusivity, portal sites, video highlights, mobile messaging promotion and bill inserts to the Planet 3 customer base.

"The campaign saw over one million customer interactions, a peak of 95,000 Cricket TV streams on the campaign's first day and 400,000 minutes of free video calls."