The Future Of Mobile Advertising

AnymotionCringe at the blatant commercialism if you will, but the Korean’s are ahead of most of the world on most mobile content matters, and I believe they’re ahead of the world on this one. In a nutshell, Samsung paid Korean teen idol Lee Hyo Lee to sing a song called Anymotion to promote its Anycall handsets. “We hope the lyrics will remind people of Anycall when they hear the word ‘any’ several times,” says Jong Hyun Kim, a manager at Samsung’s ad agency, Cheil Communications.
It’s not the first time singers have accepted money to endorse a product in music (in the US hip-hop scene mentioning a product is called a ‘Shout out’) and music commentators will probably have a lot to say about the relative pros and cons of the practice…but this blog is about mobile content. For mobile content this is a great thing, since it points to the best way to advertise on mobile phones.
“Since it made its debut, the music video has been downloaded 1.6 million times from Samsung’s Web site and fans have paid as much as $2 each to download 3.1 million copies of the song onto their phones. (“Anymotion” isn’t sold on CD.)”
This is an ad that people have paid to watch, and probably watch several times, and they don’t mind. The benefit for advertisers is clear — the people who view the ad actually pay attention, they have a good reaction to the brand and it’s possible for the advertiser to actually make a profit, although that’s not guaranteed. The benefit for the consumer is even clearer — they only get ads they want.
This strategy can be used to promote anything, and indeed has already been used to promote movies by selling trailers…stores have a good option in having an opt-in service for customers to receive details of their current specials on mobile phones. Not only do the stores get their brand in front of customers regularly with good reasons to shop their but big consumer brands are likely to pay the stores to offer a special on their product so they get advertising on the phone, in a similar way to how they pay to get good shelf space. And the consumer has to actively request the service, so they obviously want it…
Related stories:
Study: Gens X, Y Want Ad-Supported Music Via Mobile Phone
Futurologist Predicts Need For ‘Digital Bubble’
SmartVideo Brings Ad-Supported Music Videos To Mobiles

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