Blyk is a pan-European free mobile operator for young people, funded by advertising. Launching first in the UK market in mid-2007, with other markets to follow. They offer brands an opportunity for direct engagement with 16-24 year old audiences, offering real-time feedback.
Their claim is that the mobile advertising industry will be growing fast in the near future. Their tactic is to offer advertisers a â€one stop shop†for their mobile marketing activities: 1) a wide range of products 2) a rich consumer database for highly targeted messages 3) tools for campaign planning, tracking and follow up.
Blyk will be a so-called mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, meaning it will market service under its own brand but use the wireless network of an operator still to be named. MVNOs such as Virgin and easyMobile have proliferated in Europe, but nobody has done it as a free operator, which is the main difference here.
Their CEO is Pekka Ala-Pietilä, the former president of Nokia, and the roster of other Nokia veterans on the staff includes Marko Ahtisaari, who was previously director of design strategy for the Finnish mobile giant. If the company’s approach proves successful, industry watchers say, it could dramatically affect the mobile phone industry and pose a serious threat to existing operators. Ad-supported mobile service is not a completely new idea. In the U.S., for example, Xero Mobile is planning to offer low-cost mobile service to college students who agree to watch a certain number of ads. But Blyk co-founders Ala-Pietilä and veteran ad exec Antti Öhrling promise that their offering will be different. Instead of a reward system, the messages will be targeted to users and be integrated seamlessly with the handset.
“The fundamental principle is that advertising never interferes with primary function of the phone,” says Öhrling, chairman and CEO of Contra Advertising, which has offices in London and several other cities around the world. “If you do it in the right way, it’s not just how much [advertising] can you tolerate—it’s something people find useful and fun.” The adverts on Blyk are likely to run the full range from videos and interactive content aimed at top-end phones, to text and voice services for cheaper handsets.
Orange has been running adverts on its Orange World portal since September last year and early indications are that consumers are willing to interact with brands through their phones. It carried adverts from companies including Cadbury’s, Microsoft – for its Xbox games console – and Jaguar. Some of the adverts let customers download free content such as games, wallpapers and video.
In a survey of a thousand users, Orange found that up to 23% had purchased or were more likely to purchase the product advertised and more than half said they would be happy to see more advertising on their mobiles. That compares to a ratio of just one in ten for advertising on TV. Less than 6% of those surveyed said they disliked advertising on mobile phones. “The response from our customers has shown more than just an acceptance of mobile advertising, there’s actually a real appetite for it,” said Orange’s head of third party services, Steve Ricketts.
A fine line between informing and boring
Giving companies more opportunities to bombard people with ads and special offers may sound an unattractive proposition to anyone over the age of 30 but Blyk is targeted at a younger audience who often rely on their parents to finance their mobile phone habits. Those in this younger age group have grown up with advert-supported free services such as MySpace and Bebo on the internet. They appear much more willing to accept the trade-off between putting up with marketing and getting something for nothing. Whether their parents like it or not, they are also heavy mobile phone users, reliant on pre-pay tariffs to text and call their mates.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou is planning to start a new MVNO under the name of easyMobile.
Before every phone call Stelios wants to play an advertising message, which is not necessarily an easy business model, he admits. „To found a cheap MVNO is easy“, he says „but the trick is on the advertising side“. In his plans the advertising should be location based, at least on city level, and requires a lot of personalization. „A person that every thursday night orders at Pizza Hut could be played a Domino’s advertising“, he jokes. But to use all the personal data that’s necessary for such a service the new easyMobile needs ample permissions from its customers. „People are aware that they give away their data in exchange for free phone calls“, Stelios dismisses any doubts.Actually he is looking for the right advertising partner to provide the necessary technology and data. He even asked me for a recommendation. When I mentioned Google/Doubleclick he said „yes, but Google today is very much into everything.“
(source: goebel.net)