Mobile Advertising in 2013

It is interesting to know that Google has pioneered Internet Advertising across the globe and its empire primarily gets to innovate and expand because of its thriving advertising business. The advertisements (ads in short) started in print medium long back and after evolution through different formats has moved into television domain. With the dawn of Internet followed by search and social media revolution, it made absolute sense to present the ads through this medium as well.

With the access to Internet changing from Desktops / Laptops to Mobile devices - smartphones and tablets - the need to shift the ads to this new form-factor of devices has become inevitable. The challenge in placing ads in mobile devices is the size of the device screens. With so little real-estate space on-screen to show the main content, there would be little left to display ads.

There are quite a few opportunities to tag along ads under 'Mobile' advertising:

1. Ads along with web content (news sites like Times Of India)
2. Ads interspersed along with the content (like in Facebook)
3. Ads in fixed position - typically bottom - in any mobile application including games and education content
4. Ads along with multimedia content (like in Youtube)
5. Classifieds Applications (like sulekha or yellowpages)
6. Deals Applications (Dealchaat)
7. Video Ads (what facebook plans to launch shortly)

8. Ads sent as direct sms messages or embedded into free sms messages
8. Location-based Ads

With more content being consumed on the mobile devices now, certainly there would be more scope for ads placement in the context of various mobile applications in future.

The Ad ecosystem typically consists of Advertisers (like HUL and MakeMyTrip) and Publishers (like Times Of India and Rediff) with Ad-Networks (AdMob from Google, InMobi) to bridge them. From the functionality perspective, not much has changed in the Internet ad-world for the last few years; but, there is significant improvement in the business models, reach or coverage and analytics on the ads showcased to provide performance reports.

With convergence of traditional media (print, television and radio), communications (telecom networks) and Internet, the scope for more ad-business in Mobile domain is only bound to increase in future.

I might buy more Noodles or Panneer in a neighbouring outlet soon, influenced by the contextual Ads on my Mobile :-)

Telecom Sector - 4 : Multi-media and Communications for Digital Consumer

India has seen adoption of mobiles like no where else in globe in the last decade. People from all walks of life and strata have adopted mobile phones for personal, professional and business purposes. The primary purpose of a mobile phone was to have telephone conversations. With mobile phones on both ends, people have resorted to short messages (SMS) as it was costing less and in vogue during those times. Mobile phone becoming one of the items carried all the time, people wanted more services than basic voice conversations and text messages. The ecosystem has developed so quickly that a plethora of services were released into the market in no time.

Ring-back tones : If I like a piece of music - filmy, pop, instrumental or vocal - or I capture a sound of my liking - wood cutting, baby giggling or someone snoring, I can keep that as a tune for others to listen when they call me. This is a fun way of making others listen to what I like. We can also see it as a way to share our joy with others through mobile communications. If I like someone else's ring-back tone, I can even copy that by sending an SMS to a specific number.

Ring tones : If I like any of the above multimedia content and I feel I should enjoy it personally, then I can set it as a ringtone on my mobile phone. I can even set a different ringtone for different callers with advanced phones. There were different types of ringtones that evolved along with advancement in mobile phones - monophonic, polyphonic and now MP3. If one consciously listens to the ring tones in a crowded place like bus stand, railway station, busy market or airport lounge, once cannot but go crazy with the variety around !

Wall Papers : With advancements in technology, mobile phone screens have become larger and supported color and multimedia capabilities. Belief, fondness and interest on various subjects - like bollywood, cricket, devotion, nature and politics - have always driven people to keep different wall-papers on their mobile phones. There was no dearth of this form of content in a largest movie producer country !

The above services need content development in different formats, massive storage on a centralized server for easy download and access to this content through a communication channel. Handful of business models have evolved around this domain. Telecom Operators have begun the trend and taken the lead to provide end-to-end services. One can download these different multimedia content through SMS and Web Channels. 3rd Party content providers have come into existence. Companies providing IT infrastructure, which is required to host all the content, have evolved. One97 and OnMobile are two such successful companies in this context. Companies like Rediff have also hosted different multimedia content supporting different telecom operators.

Outbound calls : Bill amount collection is an important task for any business and more so for capital intensive companies like Telecom Operators. Cheque drop boxes, company operated retail outlets, collections kiosks, online payments through credit / debit cards and banks have become a norm for all telecom operators. But still there are revenue leakages and there is a need to remind subscribers about bill payments. Usually text messages would be sent as reminders, but lately telecom companies have adopted making outbound calls to subscriber phones with replay of recorded message as reminder.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) : If a picture is worth thousand words, a video would be much better. Sending short clips of multimedia should have thus become a norm now. Though MMS service was introduced long back to exchange such short multimedia clips, it did not pick-up as it needs phones with similar capabilities and service on either ends. This is super-ceded by 'Videos for work and play' model mentioned down below.

Cameras, Pictures and Sharing : One of the key advancements in mobile phones was introduction of a camera. This has brought out photographer in every observer with a mobile phone. People shoot photos for various reasons - passion for photography, to capture moments during various occasions and even to remember parking lots. With availability of free services on the Internet like Flickr and Picasa Web, it does not cost a rupee to share the pictures with near and dear. With social networking sites like Google+, Facebook and Twitter, it takes hardly any time to share the cherished moments with near and dear.

Songs on-the-go : Indians being bollywood and regional movie lovers, listening to film songs is a passion. While different TV programs fulfill that purpose, the need to listen to the songs on the go - in the kitchen, while in gym, during a pleasure or professional trip, while waiting for a friend and during evening walks - is increasing. One can buysongs online in digital format from sites like Flipkart or listen to them for free from sites like Saavn. With increase in bandwidth availability from Phones, listening to streaming songs from sites like Saavn and Gaana should be very easy and convenient. Songs are free but I need to pay for the bandwidth usage. Again, without IT none of these things would have been possible !

Videos for work and play : Who wouldn't love to watch Videos? Sites like YouTube have made video upload or watching so very commonplace. If I want to share a video with my friends, family or colleagues, I can create one and upload into repositories like Youtube for everyone to watch. With mobile phones being omnipresent and data connectivity becoming affordable, people are uploading / watching such videos on the move. One can even watchIndian Films and TV shows on Youtube now !

Mobile phones are just end-points to consume various kinds of content and services available on the Internet through the wireless networks provided by telecom companies. The content and services provisioning at the back-end relies on the back-bone of Information Technology !

Are you consuming any more such multimedia services from your mobile?

Telecom Sector - 3 : How is India using SMS ?

With 23 telecom circles, 15 telecom operators and 900+ million mobile subscribers, India is the 2nd largest telecom industry across the Globe (in terms of subscribers). The profiles of the users consuming mobile services in rural and urban areas would be quite different. The type of mobile phones - basic, feature and smartphone - are also varying across the terrain of India from north to south and east to west. Irrespective of all these variations, one mode of communication which is widely used through mobiles is Short Messaging Service (SMS) by most of the Indians. This simple service, which relies on the back-bone of Information Technology (IT), is used in a variety of ways.

An Entrepreneur would need to know about these possibilities to see how to leverage SMS in his venture.

1. Web to Mobile through SMS : It is not necessary that one needs to send an SMS from mobile. We can send an SMS, that too free, from websites like Way2SMS. You just need to register with an Indian mobile number. You can add numbers to phone-book in this site and send messages to a group at-a-time as well. This site also offers the ability to get SMS alerts when a new mail is received in Gmail, Yahoo or MSN account. We just need to link Way2SMS and these mail accounts on their website for that. Apparently, there is an Android application as well, which can allow sending SMS for free across India. Just search for 'Free SMS India' in Google Play Store.

2. There are customer-facing IT applications across different verticals like Banking & Finance, E-Commerce and Retail. These systems need to be up and running all the time as down-time for even a few minutes could cause heavy losses. SMS can be leveraged for a variety of causes in this context, like:
• A mission critical server just went down?
• Particular flight is delayed and the customers need to be informed?
• An e-commerce store has just crashed?
• An alert when a credit-card of a customer is swiped at an outlet?
• Notifications about policy changes, product updates and regular account details

3. TV Reality shows have become popular in India in the first decade of this millennium. An important aspect of the program is voting for the candidate by the viewers of the program in TV. This 'Engagement Marketing' solution relies on SMS. Indian Idol, Dance India Dance, Sa Re Ga Ma and Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) are some of the cases in point.

4. Subscriptions - Mobile users on-the-go can subscribe to information related to news, astrology, cricket, bollywood and the like by sending an activation SMS. Once subscribed, the user would receive the text information on the subscribed topic at the pre-defined frequency. The user need to remember the number (Shortcode) to which the subscription SMS has to be sent with a Keyword.

5. If one has to subscribe to specific type of content (say cricket scores or news), one needs to know the corresponding 'shortcode' and 'keyword'. It might be difficult to remember many such codes and words. The easiest option would be to us an SMS Browser. Insta SMS from Indiatimes is one such browser. This browser provides access to the same information as in subscriptions but through a convenient and familiar menu-driven native application on a featured phone; request to the server and response from the server are through SMS messages, which doesn't really matter to the end-user.

6. Mobile Marketing is one channel which has been used extensively by not just small and medium enterprises but also large enterprises. How would they send out bulk messages, when there is a special offer, a contest or launch of a new product / service? This is supported through bulk SMS dispatch provided by 3rd parties running SMS gateways. These gateways expose an API that can be used for marketing from our IT applications. These 3rd parties would in-turn integrate with the SMS gateways of telecom operators. Unfortunately, the database of mobile numbers of a particular market segment are obtained illegally in many cases. That is the reason the telecom regulatory body introduced 'Do Not Disturb' feature, which does not seem to work in true sense.

7. Mobile Ticketing - Bus Ticket booking and Train Ticket booking sites on the Internet have adopted m-tickets, which are basically tickets dispatched to passengers as SMS on their mobiles. Passengers can actually show these mobile tickets to board the transport vehicle. This paper-less boarding is applicable in case of private buses and Indian Railways. Though a similar SMS message is available for flight bookings, an additional step of collecting the physical boarding pass cannot be avoided at present.

8. When there are so many possibilities with SMS, there should be a way to create an open ecosystem to develop custom SMS applications. That is precisely being done by SMS GupShup and TxtWeb. SMS Gupshup enables group chat while allowing creation and joining of new or pre-defined groups. They also seem to support (though there are any applications developed recently) 3rd party SMS application development. TxtWeb, another SMS application ecosystem player, allows publishing of content to the mobile phones through text-based sites at the back-end. They simplified the development of such 3rd party text-based sites.

9. Amidst all these possibilities let's not forget about the regular way of sending an SMS - mobile-to-mobile or rather person-to-person. Sending international SMS messages through applications like Jaxtr (by Hotmail fame Sabeer Bhartia) are reducing the cost to communicate across the borders.

 

Millions of SMS messages are created, shared with people, dispatched from machines and processed by message brokers at 3rd parties or telecom operators to make a difference to lives of people !

While some of the SMS services are free, some are charged at a very high price. Check for the prices before using any of them. Even with so many free SMS services, Telecom Operators are earning about 5% of their revenues through SMS ! With applications like 'WhatsApp', which allow sharing short text messages without relying on SMS, we need to see how the SMS ecosystem develops going forward.

Isn't it amazing how a simple text messaging service is used for such a wide-ranging impact? Are you aware of any other SMS services?

Telecom Sector - 2 : 10 different ways to pay the bill for 10% mobile subscribers

India's telecom sector is divided into 23 different circles for effective operations and management - like licensing and restricting number of operators. With the introduction of mobile services in 1995, there was no looking back on the growth of mobile subscribers - the latest count being around 900 million ! With the largest operator, Airtel, holding about 170+ million mobile subscribers, how would they ensure that all the customers pay for their service in time?

It should be interesting to note that 90%+ of mobile subscribers use pre-paid services. This ensures a stead flow of cash (up-front) for the operators for the services being offered. There are both online and offline mechanisms to re-charge one's prepaid mobile number. In the offline mode, the authorized agents can re-charge an amount for a specific mobile number. This is made so simple through SMS-based update that mom-n-pop stores in street corners can become the operator agents. Simple but effective use of technology that affects 600 million subscribers !

For the post-paid bill payment, there are umpteen options being provided by each operator.

1. Online bill payment using credit / debit card and internet banking on operator sites
2. Pay at the operator service centers
3. Drop a cheque at drop-boxes provided at specific outlets
4. Make payment through 3rd party online authorized agents like paytm
5. Pay through Bank ATMs
6. Pay using pre-paid cards like ITZ card
7. Pay through Internet Banking
8. Provide standing instructions for direct debit from your bank account
9. Don't stand in the queue but pay at the self-service kiosks at operator centers
10. Interactive voice response systems (IVR) offer another mechanism for bill payment

If you are not interested in any of the above, a 'collection agent' would be present at your door stop. To be fair to the operators, we must think that they are asking for money 'after-providing-service' in case of post-paid connections.

The heart of all these operations are the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Billing Systems from Information Technology (IT) perspective. Recording the call durations, locations, generating itemized billing based on circles and billing cycles, sending notices (SMS or e-mail) to all those millions of subscribers and tracking their payments through different channels is no mean task. The billions of rupees investment required for capital infrastructure would not be possible without appropriate IT systems in place.

We must acknowledge Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel for strategically outsourcing the entire IT operations in the beginning itself. Even the telecom infrastructure is outsourced by them and they focus on core competency of innovation and marketing. He pioneered that model which is replicated in one way or the other even in other sectors too.

Telecom Sector - 1 : Mobile Evolution in India

Every three out of four people in India has a mobile - or so does the numbers say. There are around 900 million mobile phone subscribers in India, which has a population of about 1200 million people. The active mobile subscribers are supposed to be somewhere around 600 million. Interestingly there are only around 40 million landline phone subscribers. The growth for landline connections has been negative for some quarters. (source TRAI)

Before 90's people had to apply for a landline phone connection and wait for months to get the connection approved. In late 90's, mobile revolution has changed this scenario completely. With the convenience of anywhere-anytime, people have taken to mobile phones like duck to water. Prices were slashed over a period of time - both the mobile handset and the outgoing call tariff. Roaming charges were reduced which made the businessmen adopt it even more.

The traditional use of a mobile phone is to make voice calls and send short messages. I find the following to be general purpose calls on mobile phone. This is just a fraction of the possibilities, anyway and no offense intended to anyone.

1. Short-and-sweet call : Make a 'Honey, I am coming home…' call while leaving office
2. Office Travel : 'Hello Murali, I would like to go to airport on 12th, Can you come at 6 AM on that day?'

3. Friendship : 'Hi buddy, want to catch-up at coffee day tomorrow? I am bored'

4. Cooking Advice: 'When should I add salt to this dish? Is it while boiling tamarind? Oh! No tamarind at all !'

5. Buying Advice : 'I am buying Samsung Phablet. I am in a shop right now. He is quoting Rs. x. should I got for it?'
6. Out-of-office : 'Sorry. I am on vacation right now. I would be joining back the office on next Monday. Can you please call me back then to sort out the problem?'

7. Occasion : 'WoW ! That's good news. Congratulations !'

8. Pocket Money : 'I need more money this month. We are going for a tour this semester'
9. Drivers have a mobile : 'Driver, bring the car to the portico. I will be there in 2 minutes'
10. Pesky Calls :'I don't need a credit card and I don't want to give any more charity. I have enough loans to clear !'

As someone said, Mr. Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel was smart enough to figure out that people love to talk and one can make money by giving them a personal microphone and speaker. And thus the telecom revolution has begun in India !

It has to be noted that there is no mobile revolution without evolution of information technology. The rapid evolution of simple mobile handset to feature phone, smartphone, phablet, tablet, notebook, ultra-book and so on is all because of evolution of chip technology. It is noteworthy to mention that more than 90% of mobile phones worldwide carry chips (processor hardware inside mobile handsets) based on ARM Holdings technology. Isn't it amazing ?