Mobile Ads "will be slow" On Take Up, Says Ad Group

[engine]

Executives from advertising and telecoms groups told the Reuters Technology, Media and Telecoms summit mobile advertising was inevitable and would become hard to resist.

But it was still at the experimental stage, and many brands and mobile operators were wary of alienating customers.

"It will be slow, it will take time but it will be there," Maurice Levy, chairman and chief executive of advertising group Publicis, told the summit in Paris.

"Why? Because it will be in the interest of the phone companies, consumers and advertisers. So it will be very difficult to resist."

Forecasts suggest the mobile ad market will generate revenue of $1 billion to $24 billion within the next 4 years.

Mobile Ads "will be slow" On Take Up, Says Ad Group [uk.reuters.com]

[vincevincevince]

and many brands and mobile operators were wary of alienating customers

Exactly right. I'm alienated just by the thought of it. I don't get adverts streaming down my landline and there's no way I'd take well to the concept on a mobile.

Because it will be in the interest of the phone companies, consumers and advertisers.

It is in no way in the interest of the poor consumer to see any more adverts. What is in the interest of consumers however is better regulation in this sector and true competition with equal access across networks.

[kaz]

It is in no way in the interest of the poor consumer to see any more adverts.

Well, at least some don't think so if you read the article -

Blyk, has signed 100,000 clients in the UK with its offer of some free calls and text messages in return for accepting ads.

What I don't understand is why is the perspective that the ads go with the providers like tmobile. When i use cable (such as comcast or brighthouse) I pay for a service without ads. Why is this being approached differently with mobile? shouldn't the sites/publishers be the basis of the revenue model. What am I missing?

[newviewit]

Mobile ads have enormous potential... I remember reading an article where someone installed bluetooth readers at entrances to stores and recorded basic information from these mobile phones for market research. If you get around the whole invasion of personal privacy you can probably see that geo/gps ads have lots of potential for local advertising. It would be interesting to see what would happen if mobile phone companies started inserting active RFID chips in phones that could be read by ad displays around the cities and push customized ads to whoever was in the vicinity.

Ads on text messages are a little more tricky because people already pay for text with no ads...already ingrained in customers minds and this would take one hell of an incentive to get customers to switch (like Blynk giving free service but I don't see their service as the solution)

I see mobile ads really taking off in the US when 3g gets widely used and the ads will be steaming in from the mobile internet (look at Japan for an existing case study...it's already there).