Do You Want Incoming-Call Ads on Your Mobile?
Your mother's calling - and there are shoes on sale.
A new study released this week in the UK found that 80% of respondents said they were "happy to have [15 second pre-roll] video ads if it meant they could watch free video" on their phones. Almost nothing's shocking in the wacky world of mobile advertising-to be, but one thing we found absolutely horrifying in the discussion around the study was this: incoming-call ads.
Who's Doing This?
A company called Gigafone appears to be pioneering the practice of showing users advertising when calls or SMS come in to a phone. The system is fully opt-in, users provide personal data about themselves and then the ads are targeted to them based on demographics and interests.
RSS readers can click here to see a poll about incoming-call mobile ads.
The benefits to consumers include more targeted ads, discounts and in some cases phone rate subsidies. It's a little reminiscent of the successful efforts by Blyk, a European company that shows ads in exchange for free minutes and text messages.
Consumer Reactions
Gigafone reports that a huge percentage of customers in test markets are satisfied with the system. People we asked, though, seemed to think that they should receive heavy subsidies for undergoing such an experience. No doubt mobile companies are unlikely to offer the amount of subsidies that customers would like - but we can imagine how this would go down. The practice of offering discounts on nearly everything at the grocery store in exchange for personal information and permission to track our shopping activities would provide an excellent model for this kind of mobile advertising.
Are grocery shoppers who participate in such schemes really getting discounts, or are the rare few who do not just paying a tax? We can imagine a de facto tax being levied against mobile consumers unwilling to have ads shown when their phones ring.
Even though it's opt-in, there are lots of consumer controls and it could help pay for phone service, we (this author at least) do not want commercials associated with the Pavlovian response of paying particular attention to our phones when they ring. There's just something disturbing about the idea.
A 15 second pre-roll ad before watching free video? That sounds annoying enough. A personalized ad when I pull my phone out of my pocket to answer it? No thanks.
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Mashall,
Good to kick this discussion off as this is a new area for both consumers and advertisers.
I've always been of the view that to get a benefit it has to be two-way.
With the Blyk model, people who are close to what they are doing have told me that Blyk subscribers can't get enough of the ads - because they ARE targeted AND relevant.
Personally I'm much happier to receive any sort of advertising that is targeted and relevant to me and that provides a benefit.
If I told you I loved seeing movies every week and one of the ads I received during an incoming call was a movie discount - hey I'd love that.
Advertisers are also scrambling to find new places to display relevant ads as consumers find ways to avoid advertising (think personal video recorders and popup-ad blockers on the web). With the mobile as a new advertising medium, the challenge becomes how to deliver a relevant ad on such a small screen.
When answering a call I'm actually interrupting what I was doing anyway to answer the call - so if a relevant and targeted ad turned up then you have a happy customer and more importantly – a happy advertiser as the ad is not wasted on someone not wanting to receive it.
I think it will be interesting to see how the Gigafone model transfers outside of initial markets such as Russia.
That was pretty awesome Post ! Looking for Similar kind of information !!
Call from: Susan
Make the move, 87% chance she is ready ( data provided by Facebook ).
Susan's has no events for tonight ( data provided by Google and Facebook ).
Click here to make reservation for two at Louise's. 30% off.
Call from: Susan
Make the move, 87% chance she is ready ( data provided by Facebook ).
Susan has no events for tonight ( data provided by Google and Facebook ).
Click here to make a reservation for two at Louise's. 30% off.
If the ads were really targeted (i.e., location aware, date/time aware, etc.) and I got the incoming call free, or some serious credit on outgoing calls, I'd think about it. If the ads were random, or even targeted but not that well, forget about it.
Question: what does the person calling you do for the 15 seconds you're seeing/hearing the ad?
John, I reyour question: "what does the person calling you do for the 15 seconds you're seeing/hearing the ad?"
I think you may be confusing pre-roll video ads with incoming call/sms ads.
For pre-roll, the user must wait the pre-roll time to see their chosen content (no waiting for anyone calling here as this is not done during a call) but with incoming call ads, the phone works as per normal.
Instead of seeing "John Biesnecker calling" the user would see "John Biesnecker calling" superimposed on the ad. If the caller answers in 1 sec, then they only will be looking at the screen for 1 sec, but post call they can look at the ads again and click through to a microsite about the product or claim the offer etc.
Therefore there is no delay or change of use, just a targeted ad that appears essentially in the background, but highly visible and unmissable when the call comes in.
The calling party will not know an ad has been served.
In the Russian experience I think after 4 calls in an hour no more ads are shown until the next hour has elapsed, but this is configurable.
Keep in mind that Andrew Grill is a self-proclaimed "mobile advertising evangelist", so it should not surprise anyone that he is so optimistic about this.
It is also not surprising that he is willing to accept anecdotal evidence that, "Blyk subscribers can't get enough of the ads" rather than statistical evidence from the U.K. Institute of Practitioners about such. From the July 28, 2008 edition of AdAge (pg 12):
"Sixty-two percent of cellphone users 15-24 say they ignore all commercial text messages they receive, and 60% agree they are intrusive."
Probably not an ROI our clients would accept. No wonder they are so skeptical about new initiatives with this crap being uttered.
Note to Andrew and his ilk: Quit fucking it up.
This idea would be successful if it can be non-intrusive. Users usually like non-intrusive ads and if they know where and when ads would appear. Like Google Ads on Google Search Engine, people know that there are relevant ads out there if they need them.
Thomas...brilliantly using bits of two data sources and mashing them up into an opinion...
"Sixty-two percent of cellphone users 15-24 say they ignore all commercial text messages they receive, and 60% agree they are intrusive."
Thats because they weren't based on permission and explicit preference.
I am one of Andrew's 'ilk' and one of the ways we could collectively 'fuck it up' as an industry is to publicly state an assumption that user opinion of spam are the same or similar to conversations with brands that they have personally invited.
Save this thread and return to it in a year or two..
You'll see :)
The visit was useful. Content was really very informative.
I find most incoming calls to be intrusive anyway. Tacking an obligatory 15seconds of video ads on to that would find me looking for an alternative, immediately. Ads are never targeted, and relevant enough to be of use - how can any system know what I want/am thinking of at any moment? Anything less than spot on is a waste of my time.
@jMac
I would hardly call a direct quotation brilliant, but if you insist :) Still can't figure out which "two data sources" were drawn from as I only used one.
Conversations are held between 2 or more people .
Having some promotion shoved in my face when a call from a friend comes in is very intrusive. An offer from Target when my mother calls to tell me my father has past away will not be taken well. When a call is incoming or outgoing, I want to partake in that and nothing else. There is no such thing as a non-intrusive ad unless you can get into the head of the consumer (i.e. tracking), which some would argue is intrusive in and of itself.
People too cheap to pay for their own cellphone service hardly sound like an ideal 'demographic', but I hope they produce an ROI for your clients. FYI, the quotation from the AdAge article came from the IPA, and you should check it out if you're a TouchPoints1 subscriber.
I used statistics from a survey, and your response is "trust me, check back in a year or two". That simply doesn't hold water with most clients, especially the large accounts. Perhaps you have data to back up your claims?
Before the last bubble burst people were getting paid to watch ads online. Many of the same arguments were put forth at that time. Very telling that we are seeing them come back now.
Thomas - the two data sources were the 'anecdote' and the practitioners report that I indeed read in detail.
As you are a stats man (like me) here are some for you:
http://tinyurl.com/5os7oe
Oh - by the way...thats not a survey - its reality, like as in actually happened.
What this shows is the effect of permission and preference.
I suspect you and I probably share similar views on things like this - I agree that what has gone before in years gone by may have let consumers down in terms of mobile marketing. But some companies are obviously showing the positive effects of knowing, understanding, asking and providing tangible value.
I am not making an argument for whether or not things 'hold water' for clients or whomever - I am not commenting on whether or not voice ads are a good concept or not - nor am I judging whether or not Gigafone will be a success.
Lets not try and solve problems with methods that were used to create them. If things didnt work before - fine, we learn and we move on. If things dont work again - we learn more and we move on further.
C'mon - lets not damn an entire channel due to history.
Let's not predict the worthiness of concepts based on past SPAM advertising on phones.
I concur with the results of any survey that shows that people largely hate it. Hell - I churned off a network simply because of it!
However, I have dedicated my career to finding positive and beneficial ways of b2c/b2b/p2p communications and I truly believe that advertisers need to find ways of being invited into conversations and arguably that may happen on the device people most use for conversations. In fact, I would place a hefty career-sized bet on it my friend.
Now - its not as simple as just sending stuff to people and intruding into their experiences - there are rules.
Lets read Tomi Ahonen's thoughts on this:
http://tinyurl.com/5h5w83
Not sure how many stats you can take but now we are talking about REALITY, you can find hundreds upon hundreds of actual cases of advertisers I am sure you would consider large enough, in the below 'Join The Conversation' by Joseph Jaffe:
http://tinyurl.com/5nsdgh
More stats I hear you say? Well read the below book for another few thousand for ya:
http://tinyurl.com/6n7cd9
The good news in all of this - Gigafone and otherwise - is that if you personally don't like it - dont use it. Opt-in is there to do just that. I conclude that the answer to the question at the top of this post is going to be different for each individual - and thats a good thing.
We are all entitled to our opinion and our preference - so long as the future of mobile marketing is based on that, we will increasingly sale into more pleasant waters where we move from finger pointing and profanity to joining together our collective expertise to make this stuff work better.
thanks you.
I'd compare the ads before watching video to the sponsorship on legitimate showings of tv series on the web. So for this particular part of advertising on mobile phones I find less evasive, and if they want to pay me for that all the better! I don't get paid to watch sponsorship adds on the internet that are required before my requested content streams...
As for the incoming calls that are advertisings. That seems a bit more invasive...and Big Brother like.