GSMA tries to grab mobile ad initiative

"To realise this potential, the mobile industry, the advertising industry and the content industry need to come together to better define what advertising should look like on a mobile phone and how its effectiveness should be measured," said Bill Gajda, chief commercial officer with the GSMA.

"As part of this initiative, the GSMA wants to establish standards that include metrics for measuring the effectiveness of mobile adverts".

The trouble is that the companies tasked with sorting out this major leap forward include all the old stalwarts like AT&T, 3, KTF, Orange, Smart Communications, T-Mobile and Telefonica O2 Europe.

Cue old cogs grinding very slowly towards an obvious goal.

Worse still, firms involved in collating exactly this kind of information seem to be missing a golden opportunity. Evan Neufeld, a senior analyst with M:metrics said, "Our data shows that consumers from the most sought-after demographics are incorporating the mobile web into the fabric of their daily lives."

No kidding.

Showing a tad more insight, John Penberthy-Smith, marketing director with 3 UK, claimed, "Mobile offers advertisers a new opportunity - the chance to deliver personalised advertising over the mobile to a hard-to-reach audience."

"Looking at the number of subscribers that currently access news and information services via their mobile phones, provides a clear indication of the potential market for mobile advertising across Europe," commented M:metrics' Paul Goode.

Apparently in Europe 20.1 per cent of mobile subscribers in Italy have accessed news or information via a browser, SMS or downloaded application. In second place comes the UK with 17.2 per cent.

Everybody knows that 2007 is the year of mobile advertising but nobody appears confident that they know exactly how the industry will progress from here. µ

L'INQS
M:metrics
GSMA