Artilium

Thursday, August 16, 2007

New MVNO Models - Advertising Takes Off

To become a successfully MVNO, it is important to differentiate from other MVNOs. Today, MVNO’s are really inventive and playing with different models. Before choosing the right model, MVNOs should really know on which market they want to focus. Looking to the market today, we see different targets:

• Focus on ethnical communities. This people are looking to cheap solutions to call to their motherland.
• Operational focus. People are not interested in the price, but are really looking to specific services.
• Focus on youth markets or special communities (like football clubs, …)
• Focus on low credit customers. Service is less import, but the price is really decisive.
• Focus on Brand names.

Last summer, Blyk started as a pan-European free mobile operator for young people. Blyk is funded by advertising. Advertisers like Coca Cola, Buena Vista, L’Oreal are already working together with Blyk.

Young people between 16 and 24 can get free minutes and SMS based on the number of advertisements they read. The advertising messages are send to the young people based on there interests. Everyone should fill in an enquiry form before becoming customer of Blyk. The benefit of this type of advertising is the real-time feedback you get from the young people. Mobile advertising can bring some unique strengths such as immediacy and personal engagement. As a result, mobile advertising is growing and the hot new medium to watch.

However, there also seem to be some barriers to be solved before mobile advertising can be really successfully. First at all there are some technical barriers like network speed, diversity of devices. On the other hand, we have also barriers like lack of education among the players, lack of standards and lack of established business models and practices. We look forward to see how the market will evolve on this advertising model.