Vodacom Starts Selling Mobile Ads

South Africa’s Vodacom has announced it is selling text adverts on its free callback service and banner ads on its mobile portal, which Romeo Kumalo, Vodacom South Africa’s commercial executive director, described as part of the company’s strategy to “diversify into a multimedia company”, reports All Africa. “The text ads will be sold on Please Call Me, its free call-back service claimed to generate up to 20 million messages a day and reaches both the lower and higher end of the market. Banner adverts will be sold on Vodacom4me and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) live!, which reportedly draw a total of 1.4 million users per month. The ads will offer consumers an optional click-through to a mobile website, allowing them to decide if they want to engage further with the brand.”

Vodacom estimates that spending on mobile media advertising in South Africa could reach 1.5 billion rand (US$222.4 million) by 2011. A 3-month trial with Nike resulted in more than 84,000 content downloads and 9,200 survey respones, ahead of Nike’s expectations.

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