However a report said that the mobile advertising market would only develop
that quickly if phone carriers can
quickly develop standard mobile advertising formats and offer advertisers
well-defined user groups to whom they can send commercial messages.

Two of the main issues with mobile advertising are acceptance and formatting.
No-one would ordinarily welcome adverts pooping up on their mobiles, however
mobile phone users, particularly young people, who would be the prime target,
would accept adverts if it meant their mobile packages were subsidised or even
eliminated, and this is the certain way ahead as phone carriers and advertisers
work out deals.

In regard to formatting at the recent PrintEx show in Sydney Adobe told
Australian Printer that it had developed a technology that allowed it to format
any advert to any mobile phone screen automatically.

The potential is massive because of the exact targetting. According to the
SMH the worldwide head of content at Ericsson, Hubert Kjellberg, said mobile
advertising was generating huge interest globally because carriers held
detailed customer data which allowed them to target finely defined demographic
groups.

He said, "Unlike the internet, you have a really personalised device
only an individual can access. The real money will come when you have big ad
agencies placing advertising on the network. You have 2.5 billion GSM [network]
subscribers around the world and about 174 million 3G subscribers. You have the
ability, if the phone operators do this correctly, to reach almost anybody and
get depth as well."

By depth Kjellberg means the potential for advertisers and phone carriers to
collaborate in targeting groups such as teenage girls with commercial messages
that might help subsidise mobile phone packages to those users.

"The more specific the [consumer] segment, the more the money will
flow," Kjellberg said. "If a phone carrier can package information up
on their subscriber base in a detailed way – girls 15-19 for instance – that is
hugely attractive for an advertiser. .. They will pay very good money to get a
message to that group. And that money can then enable carriers to lower their
rates to … whatever the user segment might be.

"It's really about data and finding segments in your database that are
absolutely attractive to advertising agencies and advertisers. That's why
Google is so massively successful. Telecom operators can take that a step
further because they might know where users are and what their monthly phone
bills are."

Kjellberg said the emergence of virtual mobile phone operators in Europe,
which resell mobile network capacity under their own brands, have quickly
adopted advertiser-subsidised pricing packages to specific user groups.
"They're really looking into these types of models because they need help
in subsidising costs," he said.

But the massive growth projections for mobile advertising worldwide relies
heavily on phone carriers and the broader industry standardising advertising
formats which the advertising industry can easily buy and develop, Kjellberg
said.

"Today, media agencies don't really have a natural way to place ads on
mobile carrier networks, … but once that happens it will really take off,"
he said.

On Tuesday the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association's Mobile
Industry Group launched its guidelines for mobile display advertising formats
and plans further guidelines for text-based sponsored listings, video and
animated ads and mobile TV.

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