Cellphone Ads Are Easier Pitch in China

The WSJ has an article on the potential of mobile advertising in China, which reportedly seems to be following the Japanese market of a thriving mobile advertising and marketing sector rather than the US market, which is far more cautious about the approach. This would be unsurprising, considering there are 450 million mobile phones in China and for most users it is the main (or only) means of accessing digital content…consultancy BDA reports that the percentage of Chinese accessing the internet through their mobiles has doubled to 20 percent from 10 percent over the last two year. There are some skeptics who point out that the mobile marketing sector is still a tiny sliver of the overall marketing sector, but the industry seems bullish: “China’s largest mobile operator, China Mobile, has teamed with Japanese mobile advertising agency Fractalist. This past March, Focus Media Holding acquired mobile advertising firm Dotad Media Holdings for $30 million. That same month, Joshua Maa, a former executive at Chinese online-content company Tom Online, started a mobile advertising agency called Madhouse.”
An example of the figures generated by one companies most successful campaigns, for a new BMW series: “Mr. Turchetti’s company set up a mobile Web site where people could learn about the cars’ features, use software to customize a virtual car with the colors and features of their choice, and click to call the BMW call center and set up an appointment for a test drive. The site was advertised through banners and text links on wireless portals, and ended up generating two million page views from about 500,000 customers throughout China”.

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