India: Ripe for Mobile Advertising
By Sandy Agarwal
Managing Director, Nokia Interactive Advertising, APAC
Board Member, MMA, APAC
India has the fastest growing middle class economy in the world, the fastest rate of adoption of mobile, and the highest interactive advertising growth rate, with interactive advertising spend projected to quadruple over the next four years. These factors have combined to make mobile advertising a perfect fit in the Indian market place, and advertisers are taking notice.
With the global advertising market expected to reach $531 billion by 2011, and the interactive market expected to reach $100 billion by 2010, advertisers are flocking to mobile due to the high reach and high click-through rates the medium can provide, and advertisers in India are no exception.
But in India, unlike in Europe, the brands, rather than the content providers, are driving mobile advertising – and it’s working. Brands across the country are pushing lead generation through the mobile handset.
For example, when one of the leading financial institutions in India made the decision to change its name, the company used mobile to help get the message out and generate leads.
This mobile program was unique because, for the first time, a mobile Internet site was integrated as part of a 360-degree national campaign that included television, radio, print, outdoor and online advertising.
The end-to-end program ran as a seven-day brand campaign on Airtel Live!, a key publisher on the Nokia Media Network. It incorporated a mobile Internet site that gave details about the bank, as well as a call-to-action that asked visitors to submit contact information to receive more information.
The campaign received an almost 5 percent average click-through rate and almost 10,000 leads generated over seven days. But really, that’s no surprise, when you consider the market.
In fact, the mobile penetration in India is five times that of landline and is also higher than that of the personal computer, raising the expectation that more people in the region will have their first Internet experience on a mobile handset.
Airtel is leading the way in this mobile marketplace. It was one of the first mobile operators in the world to embrace mobile advertising. Airtel says its mobile subscriber base totaled more than 64 million at the end of March 2008, allowing advertisers to reach a broad range of consumers.
Now other mobile operators have jumped on board as well, as this growing medium has created a flutter among advertisers – brands have noticed the growing numbers and, more importantly, the element of interactivity that mobile can bring.
Mobile as a medium is growing, and with cheaper multi-media handsets getting into the mix of that “perfect storm,” mobile Internet advertising is only going to continue to grow. Savvy brands are recognizing the huge untapped potential of this medium and are harnessing the storm to their advantage, reaching huge audiences in richer ways.