What advertising can do for mobile location based services

Perfecting Advertising in LBS

Optimising Advertising Fuelled Services: What Advertising can do for LBS.

Martin Wilson, CEO

About mobilePeople

Mobile People is the global leader in local mobile search and advertising solutions for directory publishers and media owners.

Today, the company is responsible for developing and operating mobile services for some of the worlds largest publishers.

They count; Eniro, Sensis, TDS, World Directories and Yell as just some of their customers.

– Privately held, founded in 2002, now 50+ people

– Products: integrated search, maps and advertising

– Launched with publishers in 12 markets (8 languages)

– Headquarter in Copenhagen (DK) with branch offices in London (UK), Melbourne (AUS) and Denver (US)

– Merging with Local Matters Inc. www.mobilepeople.com

Topics

• Future and the opportunity

• Monetising: timing and exposure

• Driving utility and appeal

• Location: overrated

• Consuming the offer

• Just in time marketing

Mobile environment

Reality of ‘mobile’

• device is very personal

• communication medium

• lifestyle orientated

• user is paying (or perceives to be)

• no-one ever reads a manual

• device is generally difficult to use (relatively poor interface)

Consumers when ‘mobile’

• typically want something

• immediacy is often critical

• patience and tolerance is far less

• relevance is key

• pulling information is not an issue

• actionable is a pre-requisite

Convergence: ‘personal’ and ‘local’

Mobile advertising opportunity

Monetising: timing

• Opportunity is real!– 330m mobile search users worldwide in 2007*– mobile search advertising revenues are estimated to be $63m in 2007*

• Consumers are reacting to mobile marketing– Campaign performance is often higher than fixed online environment

• Many have successful mobile advertising platforms– Admob Marketplace, Google Adsense, Nokia media network...

• A few have combined local and context serving capabilities– mobilePeople, Amdocs ...

*Source: eMarketer Inc. 2007

Monetising: exposure

• Commercial opportunity is based on activity– Primary request– Context linked or associated (ontology or historic)– Actionable outcome

• Three key commercial models will co-exist

– Presence (sponsorship or tenancy)– Prominence (prioritised results – Content, Keyword or Location related)– Performance (user actions – Call, Click, Book, Buy…)

• Inventory management – Self created (dedicated, batch migration)– Affiliated – Back-filled

Driving utility and appeal

• Basics are key– Performance and usability– Comprehensive content– Relevance and contextual information

• Features and functions enhance services and proven value– Features – search (who/what, where), results, details, map/route– Functions – call, book, buy, save, share

• Monetised offerings can and will add appeal– Prominence advertising – supports decision– Presence advertising – supports comparison– Performance advertising – supports actions

Location: overrated

• When is it relevant– Privacy is a consideration– Spam will always be unwelcome– Mobile internet is predominantly ‘pull’

• What does it offer– Opportunity to inspire– Distressed and limited inventory and unique dynamic offers– Reason to repeat visit

Consuming the offer

• Onward action is important– Consumers typically want something– Consumption is likely to be immediate

• Empower the decision process– Seek to differentiate (graphic, content, prominence)– Consumers have greater satisfaction if they choose

• Vouchers and coupons influence choice– Offers will support comparison– Type of offer will be important– Redemption needs to be simple and consistent

Just in time: impact

• Intercept marketing holds significant opportunity– Pre-qualified audience, extreme targeting– Dynamic and flexible communication– Actionable, and auditable outcome

• Successful application– Execution linked: directly, ontology or historic– Communication needs to be relevant– Post landing point is important

Considerations

Consumer perspective– huge audience to annoy– format and message is important– poor execution and reaction is likely to be adverse

Advertiser perspective– managing expectations, medium is largely unproven– execution challenges should not be under estimated– should not be in isolation, needs to be part of a campaign mix– demonstrating accountability is valuable

Summary

• Deliver for the mobile consumer and environment

• Air on side of caution when seeking to commercialise– Consider what will add value to the consumer– Recognise what will represent ROI for the advertiser

• Support the consumer in their onward action

Thank you

Martin Wilson, CEO

e: martin@indigo102.com