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In-Brief: Some highlights from two weeks of research and interviews around mobile advertising for a Wall Street Journal special report timed to CTIA.

What are the mobile advertising models/approaches that will fly and why? The jury is out on this one but my discussions with a number of companies/executives including Bango (Ray Anderson, CEO), Millennial Media (Paul Palmieri, CEO), Mobile Discovery (David Miller, CEO), NearbyNow (Scott Dunlap, CEO), NeoMedia Technologies (William “Chip” Hoffman, CEO), and ScanBuy (Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO), have allowed me to place some bets. It was a special pleasure to connect with eMarketer’s John du Pre Gauntt, who has just this week finished a must-read mobile advertising report, and Chetan Sharma (a long-time supporter of MSG and one of its very first contributors), who, together with Joe Herzog and Victor Melfi, has quite literally written the book on mobile advertising.

The just released book, Mobile Advertising: Supercharge your brand in the exploding wireless market, expertly outlines the opportunities and hurdles ahead of the industry as it seeks to deliver clear and scalable value to the emerging ecosystem. I just today conducted a podcast interview with Chetan, so please check back Monday. This week is dedicated to coverage from CeBIT (MSG is a media partner) and kicks off tomorrow with a podcast with Nuance, a provider of speech-enabled technologies and solutions for PNDs and mobile devices.

First, my thanks to everyone who reached out to me. Of course, space constraints mean much of the material I collected couldn’t be included in the article, but rest assured there are many more writing projects and columns in the pipeline. I’m also fortunate that Scott, Jonathan and John have either agreed to a podcast - or already recorded one with me. Again, please check back regularly - I have a wonderful line-up for the next weeks.

Which brings me to my discussion with Scott Dunlap and a few points/stats he revealed that I must share…

NearbyNow, online service that allows users throughout the U.S. to search all products, brands, and sales currently available at local shopping centers using the Internet or mobile phones, has had some surprising successes with mobile advertising, most likely because its approach is one of the only ones to marry advertising and location with a no-brainer interface (namely, text).

Scott told me that the real interest in advertising comes from people who start online and reserve a product at a local store, but then ask for a text message mobile claim check to be sent to them to remind them of the details so they can pick up the item that is waiting for them.

Connect the dots and this particular type of location PLUS mobile advertising scheme covers all the bases. It’s about presenting ads to a very niche audience in buy-mode. This is reflected in the CPMs, which are “about $500.” The CPM is high but so is the match, one reason why retailers get on board. It also helps that they don’t need a new creative (again, it’s just text) and can run an effective campaign for a relatively small amount of money.

Scott has some news for us soon (conveniently timed to his podcast later in March), but for now he can say that the company is taking steps to create a more holistic process linking Internet and mobile, as well as expand to outdoor ads and outdoor media - all the time remaining true to text as the interface. “More people know how to text message than download an app. Even the picture of a barcode requires your phone to have that software on it. But a simple text to say ‘I really like that product. Where can I find it’ is the simplest call-to-action.” Makes sense since Scott believes the purpose of mobile advertising is very much about lead generation. Indeed, if the end-game is about driving leads into stores, then NearbyNow is quite literally a company in the right place at the right time.

• Posted in
• Location-based services, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising, Local Search

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