±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Over the past year, 3G services have brought the promise that brand marketing can reach mobile users in style. While marketing in this space is still reasonably scarce, the richness of the content being downloaded by early subscribers is painting an intriguing picture. Following the, so far, relative disappointment of MMS, 3G hopes to give brands access to elusive customers through interactive propositions built with high-quality video and audio, with more accurately targeted messages. So says the mobile industry.

"3G will mean richer, higher quality applications, as well as video, and that will make mobile a stronger marketing medium," says Dan Parker, chief operating officer at mobile marketing agency Sponge. "Those campaigns will be like asking what a web site will be; it can be so many different things. Right now, the canvas is mostly blank, the track record is near zero, and the opportunities and rewards for great creativity will be huge."

Last year, Apple quietly became the first brand to advertise on the 3 network, with a trial iPod ad running before and after a piece of music video content. Now, with a second ad on the cards and a popular line in content that ranges from music videos and TV clips to football highlights, 3 is throwing down the gauntlet to brands: create the content and we'll provide the platform. "For the first time in a long time, there is going to be a new visual medium," says Graeme Oxby, marketing director at 3. "The beauty of it is that you can incorporate the visual element with the interactive. As long as advertisers are able to deliver something relevant to our customers, we've got an audience that is ready and willing to download it."

Flytxt and Outrider recently announced the first full-blown campaign on the 3 network, on behalf of film distributor Redbus and Brit flick It's All Gone A Bit 'Pete Tong'. A banner on 3's homepage that clicks through to a mobile micro-site about the film, which in turn offers a downloadable trailer.

Marketing is starting to shape itself to the possibilities of 3G in the increased use of shortcodes to guide offline consumers to mobile sites.

When Peugeot launches its new 1007 model in June, the shortcode 81007 will feature across its TV and press campaign, supported by Marvellous Mobile and Vodafone's brand-focused marketing unit, Vodafone Target. Consumers will be able to request a test-drive or brochure via their mobile, and a version of the TV ad. Also, a series of short films about the car will be accessible from a mobile site for several weeks before the push. Likewise, tour operator Club 18-30 has built mobile sites for key, summer destinations and sends links to people who text the shortcode 81830 with a chosen destination.

Higher bandwidth

"At its starkest, the power of being able to text a shortcode and receive streaming video to your phone doesn't just have the potential to change the dynamics of brand communications - it will change them," says Jeremy Wright, co-founder of mobile content provider Enpocket.

For advertisers, 3G marketing allows them to develop existing mobile techniques and injects all the advantages of higher bandwidth. A key attribute of 3G is its ability to deliver high-quality MMS content, including streamed video. With 3G subscribers tuning into paid-for content from the likes of MTV and Disney, the possibility looms of having ads that top-and-tail 3G programming on a regular basis. "Ads can be streamed alongside any programme, video or clip to a pre-defined audience, much like you would find on commercial TV, without the expense or lack of focus," comments Graham Baines, managing director of mobile content creator Fonedream. "Mobile users can be directed to a web site or WAP site that is dedicated to that ad."

Search advertising and GPS-driven, location-based marketing are likewise awaiting the growth of the 3G customer base and infrastructure. "A lot of mobile marketing agencies out there are being really creative, but we haven't even started yet," says Ian Meakin, VP of marketing at mobile technology provider Volantis. "Things probably haven't even been invented yet that could be the norm in a few years."

Such creativity is already in evidence. Innovations like the Bango Spot, created by cross-operator content-platform Bango, make explicit links between above-the-line ads and mobile content (Revolution, October 2004, Trailblazer, p71). Each circular Spot acts as a 2D barcode that can be printed on ads, fliers or sites, and users of Symbian-equipped camera phones can scan it to access a corresponding mobile site in seconds.

Barry Houlihan, managing director of service provider Mobile Interactive Group, believes that 3G is the most significant development for brands since the introduction of mobile marketing: "Content events like Celebrity Big Brother have been a huge success for the content providers and production companies. To have involved a brand around these video services would have been a watershed development in the market, but we're not far from that point."

Specialists agree the immediate obstacle to mass-market 3G marketing is the fact that the user base is neither large nor sophisticated enough.

3 leads the field by some distance, with three million customers in the UK. Vodafone, which launched 3G in November, has yet to announce figures, though retail sources estimate it had 200,000 customers in mid-March.

Orange, too, launched 3G before Christmas and has yet to report back, while T-Mobile and O2 remain in the soft-launch phase.

The danger at this stage is that the medium could get weighed down with marketing before it has sufficient consumer content. "Until consumers actively embrace the services available through 3G, they are unlikely to be receptive to marketing that relies on the technology and will not stand for unsolicited communication," warns Ian Freeman, head of marketing at direct marketing specialist Broadsystem.

Open doors

"The most sensible step forward for 3G brands may be to marry marketing with an introduction to what 3G offers. Brands that sponsor 3G content by making it free to access will not only promote themselves as brands, but also promote 3G in general, which will open doors for more 3G marketing down the line."

The extra challenge of 3G marketing is to persuade mobile users to meet brands halfway. An SMS is a minor intrusion compared with a data-rich MMS or undesired ad that could alienate early 3G adopters. "For wireless ads to be deemed acceptable, customers must have the ability to say when and where, and under what circumstances they'll accept them," says Richard Jesty, senior consultant at Informa Telecoms & Media. "Observers agree that indiscriminate messaging to a mobile advertiser's user base could seriously damage the development of this potentially lucrative advertising market."

The task for brands now is to create content that stands alongside 'mobile episodes' of 24 for entertainment value. Oxby believes that the ball is in the advertiser's court. "We have proven to ourselves that customers will download videos on their mobiles. It's not too big a stretch to say that if you've got fantastic ad content, why wouldn't consumers be interested? If the quality of the content is right and relevant, we are confident that customers will download it. If it's just bog-standard ads, then of course they won't."

Ad agencies may begin to push mobile strategy proposals soon. In April, Andrew Robertson, chief executive of BBDO, the world's third-biggest ad agency, publicly identified the mobile as "the single most-important medium that people have". Meanwhile, WPP's group chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, made a formal call for a mobile marketing partner. The profile of the 3G challenge facing brands and agencies has never been higher, even if many are sceptical. "What is encouraging is that the people making those noises are very well-respected in the marketing industry," comments Richard Hurring, head of sales at Vodafone commercial partnerships. "The upper echelons of the marketing world are taking mobile seriously and seeing the value of the opportunity."

Maximise returns

Vodafone is careful to identify the possibilities of 3G as a natural evolution of the services it already offers. "We're talking to brands about 3G being a bandwidth increase beyond current capabilities, which will add to their existing portfolio of mobile services," says Hurring.

"There is an awful lot of activity among 2G and 2.5G technologies for mainstream brands."

The operator is intent on building its 3G base before it tries to divert brands into the space and has yet to run any third-party marketing on its 3G network. "We tend to urge a bit of caution," says Hurring. "In order to maximise the return on your investment, the kind of services we can now deliver over 2G and 2.5G are a better starting point. Our belief is that the bulk of mobile services for some time to come will be based on technology we have today. But the response you will get back will include a much richer media experience."

The closest glimpse of the future may be in Korea and Japan, where mobile advertising is taking off. AirCross, the mobile marketing division of South Korea's largest network operator, SK Telecom, has some 500 clients and, late last year, claimed 80 per cent of the country's mobile advertising market. According to the Informa report, Mobile Content & Services 2005, AirCross pushes multimedia ads to about one million users who have opted in, lured by reductions in their phone bills. It also has a database of four million SMS opt-ins, though multimedia is growing at a faster rate, having pulled in big advertisers such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes and BMW since its launch last year.

For now, the European 3G market is on the lower end of that curve. "The reality is that it is going to be a very incremental, slow process," says Fred Bolza, senior consultant at Capgemini Telecom Media & Entertainment.

"3G is going to cannibalise existing operator revenues, so they'll want to do this slowly. The 3G industry model hasn't shaped itself and it will take a while."

So, it's a waiting game with potentially fabulous rewards for brands, but there's plenty of groundwork to be done.

THE ROAD AHEAD FOR 3G

Brands face a number of obstacles before they can make their presence felt on 3G. The absence of accepted standards makes the mass rollout of content hard, and it needs to be encoded according to the handset type.

"We could demonstrate to a brand how the experience would sit and, ultimately, it would be down to them to create the experience," says Barry Houlihan, managing director of MIG. "Will brands have to create something bespoke for the handset? Potentially, yes. It might mean that when they shoot an ad for TV, they will also shoot a version specifically for mobile with different cameras."

Meanwhile, the promise of segmented ad campaigns will not be fulfilled overnight. "Segmentation is not really there at the moment," says Matt Hooper, vice-president of marketing and strategic alliances at Elata.

"TV advertising is mass-market, but advertisers know which people are watching TV, at what time of day, and that allows them to do very basic segmentation and adjust their advertising," he says. "Mobile operators have a view of who is doing what, at what time, but targeting them is very difficult because the medium is so different."

3G network operators in the UK include 3, Orange and Vodafone, while T-Mobile and O2 are doing soft-launches. The business model doesn't depend on advertising, so operators are likely to be highly selective in the partnerships they build and marketing they distribute.

"Operators do not lend themselves well to allowing brands access to their bases," says Houlihan. "I was at O2 for five years and there was scepticism about running campaigns. Mobile operators have to start talking about their successes a lot more, which means they need to make their business models more visible."