Mobile advertisement is going to break all conjectures in India

How do you see the role of mobile advertisement evolving in India?

Mobile advertisement is evolving in a prominent manner. India has one of the
world's lowest ARPUs and it will further go down in the next couple of years. To
control the damage, it is important that somebody should subsidize it. Somebody
has to increase ARPU and mobile advertisement is the way out. The concept of
mobile advertisement is going to break all conjectures in India. With this
concept, there would be many premium services that could be completely free in
the next couple of years.

What new services are you banking on?

We have been providing content such as ring tones, wallpapers and images.
But now we are planning to come out with an innovative advertising service
termed as Adringles. It is an advanced mobile advertising market place that
offers an unparalleled opportunity to advertisers to reach their target
consumers. Furthermore, we are providing SMS-based service called MoCoLife. It
is a comprehensive service which includes Web to mobile SMS and various
subscription-based services. We are also working on a multimedia-based search
service which will take few months to be commercially launched in the country.

Could you explain the working process of the Adringle service?

It uses the CRBT (caller ring back tune) and replaces the ring tone with an
advertisement jingle or message by the permission of the consumer. The caller
gets to listen to an advertisement each time it calls the person registered to
Adringles. In case the caller finds the advertised product interesting he can
express the same by pressing a specified key. An advertiser could reach out to
his potential consumer in an effective manner, and the consumer can get various
free offers such as free SMS, caller tunes or free talktime by subscribing to
this service.

How different is the concept of voice-based mobile advertisement in India?
What are your concerns regarding the same?

The concept is quite new in India. It is a different ball game altogether
when compared to text-based advertising. In India, SMS as an advertising medium
is still very limited. Also, getting news, jokes or some updates constitutes a
very small portion of the advertising space. Whereas in voice-based
advertisement, there are no such boundaries. It is not dependent on the language
or region in particular. However, to succeed in the Indian market, it requires
concept-based marketing.

Jatinder Singh

jatinders@cyberMedia.co.in