In brief: The MSG special report on content/advertising personalization continues with ChangingWorlds, an Amdocs company, and includes a review of the company’s recent road test of personalized mobile advertising across more than 200,000 people over a four-month period.

In preparation for my own industry report on personalization and recommendation I have spent the last weeks interviewing a who’s who of industry players and their customers (mobile operators/service providers), companies that are connecting the bread crumb trail we leave behind (browsing behavior, personal preferences, purchasing patterns) with an aim to delivering the right content/ad to the right person. Even better it’s in the right context. We’re not there yet, but the race is on.

My research uncovered a slew of companies sharpening their focus on collecting/collating/combining subscriber intelligence – mostly in partnership with mobile operators — for the delivery of content and advertising individuals are likely to appreciate based on their interests and those of their community. This special report profiles the players at the top of my radar

ADMOB, GOOGLE & DATA

I’ll have my take on the Google acquisition of AdMob later this week (doing a few more calls with sources). But if Google snapping up AdMob is the equivalent of the “shot heard round the world” for mobile advertising, then expect the battle to be fought on the territory at the intersection between content and context (the space where players can offer/boost reach AND targeting) will have the competitive edge. Granted, Google benefits from AdMob’s ability to deliver improved targeting, its deep understanding of mobile and expertise in formats that go beyond banners, but the end-game is all about intelligence.

This insightful post from Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, an interactive marketing agency, sums it up best:

“With the acquisition of AdMob, Google now has access to usage data of many of the most popular mobile apps — especially the apps in the iTunes App Store. For iPhones. If Google is taking on Apple for mobile OS market share, they just scored a huge competitive advantage. Google will know more details than ever about how people are using iPhone apps, how they are engaging with advertising within those apps, and users loyalty to those apps.”

So, if mobile advertising is hot, then expect the mobile personalization space to sizzle.

AMDOCS CHANGINGWORLDS CORPORATE DNA

The timing couldn’t be better to continue MSG’s special podcast series on the top players in personalization. We kicked off with segments on Openwave and Bytemobile, and continue with Amdocs ChangingWorlds, an Irish provider of personalization technology that was recently acquired by Amdocs and is now part of Amdocs Interactive.

By way of background, Amdocs ChangingWorlds’ flagship offer is its ClixSmart platform – a solution designed to provide individual consumers with “proactive recommendation of content based on their preferences and context.” In a nutshell, ChangingWorlds’ ClixSmart platform includes a variety of solutions in areas such as content recommendation, mobile search and mobile advertising. Sitting at the core of this platform is a profiling and personalization engine that is capable of capturing subscriber intelligence by automatically monitoring the implicit behavior of how users use and navigate the mobile Web. The solution has been deployed by 50+ mobile operators around the world.

Data from Amdocs ChangingWorlds demonstrates that mobile operator customers that have deployed its personalization technology see an improvement in their bottom line and in the quality of the mobile Internet experience they provide. But it’s not just about delivering content people are likely to appreciate; it’s about the wider opportunities around enabling the delivery of more relevant mobile advertising.

PODCAST INTERVIEW

To this end Amdocs ChangingWorlds has developed Ad Personalizer, a solution that brings advertising into play, combining the company’s own Relevance Engine with the learned preferences of mobile users to identify, select and deliver more relevant advertising. But does it optimize inventory throughput and click-through rates (CTR)? I can’t judge from my vantage point (I’m hoping to get more from my interviews with mobile operators). But I can deep-dive into some stats and a study of relevance in mobile advertising to understand the technology and the results.

I caught up with Stephen Oman, Amdocs ChangingWorlds Worldwide Director Sales Engineering,to talk about the purpose of mobile advertising, the value of personalization and the impact of the open mobile Web (off-portal and the proliferation of app stores) on both. In part 1 of this two-part podcast series Stephen walks us through some surprising findings and key data points.

PROFILING: By looking at individual profiles and profiles of like-minded people Amdocs ChangingWorlds builds up a an Ad Signature, “a blueprint of an advertisement that describes the audience that is responsive to this particular advertisement based on who sees the ad, who clicks on the ad and who ignores the ad.” Because the system learns in real-time, it can change the ads shown people on the fly. “We take into consideration that user preferences change over time and this is where the artificial intelligence-based profiling really has its strength.” Picking up clues on what people like and dislike “we can determine which audience is right for the message.”

RESEARCH RESULTS: Stephen deep-dives in to the methodology and findings of a study looking at the behavior of 200,000 people over a four-month period. The data is more pertinent now than ever because it underlines the pivotal importance of personalization in the scheme of things. The takeaway: personalized targeted adverts are, on average, almost twice as effective as traditional ad targeting (according to where the individual lives, for example).

TELEFONICA O2 & VODAFONE: Stephen tells me both mobile operators reported a positive knock-on effect after implementing personalization. On-portal browsing showed an increase, as did the rate of opt-in to receive personalized services. In the case of Telefonica O2, “over 95 percent of mobile subscribers have opted in to receive these personalized services.”

My take: When it comes to turning mobile advertising into a viable business, relevancy (not reach) will likely separate the leaders from the also-rans. Targeting may not be a must-have of marketing messages on platforms such as the PC, but on our mobile phones (personal devices) the rules of engagement are shaping up to be quite different. My various mobile advertising research projects (which have included survey of real people) and my current ebook (where I interview players up and down the value chain) arrive at a similar conclusion: solutions that can connect the dots to deliver/draw our attention to content/apps/advertising that are in tune with our individual preferences will have a central role in the strategies pursued by mobile operators, mobile content/app retailers – and a slew of companies in between. The opportunity I hear less about is mobile CRM. It’s great to deliver a targeted message but the ability to adapt the message to an individual’s evolving tastes/preferences/desires is surely the approach that clinches the deal.

The MSG special report on personalization technologies continues next month with Part 2 of the interview with Stephen Oman.

After that we look at the all-new Novarra, a company that has cleverly and quietly aligned its server/micro-browser capabilities to focus on a much broader agenda. It’s all about providing operators, handset makers and Internet brands the technology and know-how to create new services and revenue streams (with the help of in-network intelligence, mobile Internet click-stream analytics and context information from Novarra).

Listen to the Amdocs ChangingWorlds podcast here. [16:05]

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Related posts:

SPECIAL REPORT: GETTING PERSONAL Openwave Adds Mobile Analytics; Are Gateway Providers The Ones To Watch? PLUS New Report/Project With GigaOM Pro

PODCAST: Bytemobile CMO Adrian Hall: Operators’ Can Win On Personalization; Does A Widget Bar Do One Better Than An App Store?

MSG DEBUT VIDEO: Xiam Talks Targeting & Filtering; Make Way For The Personalized Web!

GUEST COLUMN:Using Personalization To Pump Up The Volume & Increase The Value Of The Mobile Internet

Disclaimer: ChangingWorlds is not an MSG supporter.  However, MSG has published a by-lined thought leadership column authored by a ChangingWorlds senior executive. MSG has also participated in an invitation-only  thought leadership event organized by Amdocs.

Tags: Ad Personalizer, AdMob, Amdocs Interactive, behavioral targeting, changingworlds, Google, Mobile Advertising, mobile analytics, mobile CRM, Mobile Internet, Mobile Marketing, O2, Personalization, podcast, Recommendation, Telefonica, Vodafone

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Data Points, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Research, Personalization, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.