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These days consumers tend to be only one 'hot key' away from accessing their mobile operator's internet portal on their handsets.

These 'hot keys' are indicative of the way that the mobile internet has developed, with huge investment from the operators being matched, until recently, by the high levels of traffic using their mobile portals.

However, as advances in technology have allowed greater design freedom, better payment solutions and the use of more specific customer data to improve the mobile internet experience, brands such as MTV, Sky and The Sun have begun to develop their presence beyond the operators' portals.

This could one day throw the continued success of Vodafone Live!, Orange World and Planet 3, which have hitherto been effective revenue generators, into doubt, though at the moment the operators continue to hold all the cards. With a direct connection to their customers through the billing relationship, they have a head start when it comes to promoting both their portals and the mobile internet.

They are approaching the potential change in the market in the knowledge that, until now, they have been the only channel available to consumers wishing to access mobile content on their phones, meaning most of their customers are none the wiser about alternative ways of doing so.

In addition, content deals such as those struck by the Premier League to provide exclusive highlights via Vodafone Live! and 3 for the past two years have served to condition mobile users to make their operator the first port of call for content.

The operators' head start has also enabled them to forge relationships with brands, making a wholesale shift away from providing content via their portals less likely at the moment. 'Brands need an effective channel to promote their offering; the alternative is to use traditional media, which would interrupt the (immediacy of the) experience,' says Mark Joseph, 3's director of music and TV.

3, he explains, has good relationships with those content providers that operate their own off-portal sites, because these brands sell far more content through the 3 portal than they do direct to consumers.

The operator is now positioning itself as a media company rather than just a telecoms player and Joseph says that advertising is a key part of its strategy. He believes that off-portal players will continue to sell content and book advertising on operator portals, while offering a more diverse service through their own sites.

3 has already moved away from the early walled-garden approach of the operators to an open-access model, enabling consumers to visit other sites on the mobile internet through its search partner, Yahoo! It expects that further off-portal services will be launched that will both compete with and complement its own services.

Vodafone Live!, which launched four years ago, has also managed to establish itself within users' lifestyles. However, it now faces the prospect of losing users unless it evolves its business model.

Vodafone believes Live! will remain a big player in the mobile content retail space, but acknowledges that customer demands are changing and it may not be able to provide everything they want.

'Consumers are now asking to use online services on their phones,' says Al Russell, head of content for Vodafone UK. 'We will enable access to external brands where we feel that we are better off working with them, such as communities.'

The operator believes that, thanks to its experience, it will be able to not only offer brands the chance to advertise and sell content through its portal, but also help them set up off-portal services.

'We need to make sure those businesses yet to invest in mobile present clearly and effectively on phones, to help migrate web users to mobile use. We will help enable clients meet the challenge,' says Russell.

So, Vodafone is hopeful that as the mobile internet develops, its business opportunities will increase. Apart from continuing its portal-content retail business and offering 'enablement' services to brands that want to move onto the medium, it intends to be a big advertising player in the environment.

The possibilities, according to Russell, include setting up affiliate networks, running ad campaigns across Vodafone Live! and other sites, and helping media brands to offer more targeted advertising by using its customer data. However, Russell admits that these propositions will require greater consumer commitment to the mobile internet.

'The business opportunity for everyone is getting operators to make off-portal work more effectively. There are about 30 major off-portal sites at the moment, and many more adult-oriented sites. We would like to enable third parties to get onto the mobile web. If we don't drive revenue streams into off-portal, it will not flourish,' he says.

It is not surprising that operators are encouraging brands to develop their own services, because even when their customers are accessing content off-portal, in most cases they are still paying data charges to the network provider. However, such charges are a concern for brands launching off-portal services, as, at current levels, they present a barrier to surfing the mobile internet.

Music company Sony BMG UK has been pursuing a combined on- and off-portal strategy for its artists for the past 18 months, working with a mix of operators, content aggregators and direct-to-consumer propositions to get its content to market. It believes that the key to off-portal services is consumer confidence, which has to be bolstered by making changes to pricing levels and the services available via portals.

'As mobile search improves and there is some resolution over data charges - as we are seeing with T-Mobile's Web 'n' Walk offering - there will be increasing confidence among consumers that not everything has to go through the network operator,' says Jon Davis, director of new media at Sony BMG UK.

Data charges are currently hindering the content Sony BMG can offer on mobile, with consumers unwilling to pay for expensive content packages. If this is resolved, brands could offer more interesting and richer content via their own sites.

The strategy of working with all parts of the content chain on mobile has proved successful for the company, but the lure of a more direct relationship with the customer is driving its off-portal activity. Davis says that the model affords more control and allows a relationship between artist and consumer to develop, rather than simply being part of a wider music offering.

Sony BMG uses Bango as its third-party payment services provider. The rise of such companies, which offer a range of payment options to users within a WAP session, and thus ease the sale of content, is fuelling major brands' move to off-portal services.

Despite its burgeoning off-portal business strategy, Bango still believes the portals are the first place users look for content, and that they are good at showcasing rich media such as music and video. But the company also believes that these portals fall down when it comes to more niche content.

'There is a lack of real estate on portals. Brands want to run their own promotions, control their own content and pricing and use existing marketing to send people to the sites via short codes and WAP push. They want direct relationships with customers,' says Bango's marketing and communications director, Sarah Keefe.

She argues that as consumer use of the medium develops, portals will act as a launch pad for mobile internet sessions through search services, but users will start to go straight to specific sites. However, she adds that brands will still advertise on portals and license content to them to boost traffic.

Another of Bango's clients, Manchester United, says the ability to have its own mobile portal gives it more flexibility, even in the world of football, where rights deals restrict the content that can be shown.

'If you have a good relationship with the operator, that is fine, but adding concepts or changing prices can take months,' says Mike Dunphy, manager of MU Mobile.

He adds that the downside is having to make fans aware that there is more to mobile than operator portals. Manchester United's previous sponsor was Vodafone, meaning it has been difficult to convince supporters that they did not have to be with the operator to access the club's mobile content.

Dunphy says the ideal model for MU Mobile would be to operate a 'master' off-portal service, while also offering similar services on the operator portals.

As the off-portal movement gathers pace, one hurdle facing brands looking to take the plunge is the need to educate the public about their services. Cost is another issue, both in terms of data charges for consumers surfing the mobile internet and brands making their debut in the arena - and the operators are unlikely to risk revenue and customers by conceding any ground.

MOBILE PORTALS

Pros

- Portals are the most-populated services on the mobile internet and can be useful for driving traffic to other sites.

- They have a heritage of selling content to consumers.

- They have an existing relationship with consumers and are seen as a trusted source of information.

Cons

- Give brands less control over content and prices.

- Do not give brands a direct relationship with consumers.

- Not easy to weave branded content into other marketing.

CASE STUDY - PEPSI

Agency: Graphico

Background

Pepsi launched a global 'Download Christina' campaign, for which mobile was chosen as the key platform to deliver content including ads starring Christina Aguilera.

Target market: 18- to 24-year-olds.

Strategy

Pepsi has used mobile sites before and the global promotion was another chance to use the medium to create a one-to-one dialogue, collect consumers' data and strengthen its relationship with them. Graphico was tasked with creating all the 'Download Christina' digital executions as well as a dedicated mobile site that would integrate with the website and online advertising. The idea was to allow consumers to 'take Christina with them wherever they go' - in other words, on their mobile phones - thus developing the relationship between brand and consumer, rather than mobile operator and consumer.

Execution

A simple WAP push gave online users access to the Pepsi-branded mobile content, regardless of the user's location or network operator. The mobile internet site was optimised for almost all phones and carried the video of the original TV ad, a joint marketing effort with Sony Ericsson, in which Aguilera was 'downloaded' from phone to phone around the world. The site also featured the ad's sequel, a video of an interview with Aguilera, wallpapers, news and a link to the singer's official SonyBMG WAP site.

Results

Pepsi would not provide take-up figures for the activity. However, the promotion is live in more than a dozen territories and traffic to the mobile site has increased month on month since launch. The site has enabled Pepsi to talk directly with its customers on their mobiles, rather than through an operator's portal. The video of Aguilera has also been a massive hit worldwide, thanks to viral video sites such as YouTube and peer-to-peer distribution of the ad via email.

DATA FILE - PORTALS

- The major operator portals - Vodafone Live!, Orange World!, O2 Active!, Planet 3 and T-Zones - account for the vast majority of all mobile internet traffic.

- The walled-garden model of portals is changing to allow more access to the broader mobile internet for users. Mobile search partnerships, such as that between Vodafone and Google, are facilitating this.

- There are 4.3m Vodafone Live!-active devices in the UK.

- In the second quarter of 2006, 3 sold 3.6m full-track audio and video downloads.

- Over the same period, 1.5m games were downloaded from its portal Planet 3.