Mobile advertising doesn't have to be an annoyance

Mobile advertising is expected to generate $895 million worldwide this year, though it is anticipated to grow to $14.6 billion in 2011, according to Gartner Inc. Still, no mobile phone users can reasonably feel enthusiast at the perspective of receiving ads on their mobile phone. So, here’s an interesting media, reaching consumers on the move, where they are and around the clock…but advertisers have to find the right solution to engage this target and they are working on that writes Ryan Kim in the San Francisco Chronicle : “Indeed, two-thirds of respondents in a Telephia survey recently said they considered mobile ads to be unacceptable. But a growing number of advertisers and content providers are undeterred: They believe they can make mobile advertising more palatable by serving it up with freebies and discounts for amenable cell phone users. Virgin Mobile, for example, is offering free voice minutes to subscribers who interact with ads. Zagat, the restaurant survey book, is providing free ad-supported content on mobile devices. Fans of the NFL and Major League Baseball can get team and player alerts from 4INFO through free text messages accompanied by a small ad. And Hands-On Mobile will announce this week that it's releasing seven of its games on Greystripe's ad-funded mobile gaming portal, GameJump. For consumers in this emerging environment, mobile advertising doesn't have to be an annoyance. Meanwhile, for advertisers, it's a way to actively engage customers with the potential for even higher response rates than on other platforms…It's one reason Google is investing heavily in mobile, even considering releasing its own cellular phone packed with a Google operating system. If the rumors of the Google phone do pan out, observers said, the search company's free approach could help propel the mobile ad-supported model, and perhaps even lead to lower cellular bills” ("Advertisers, service providers take aim at mobile phone users"http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/10/BUUOS19QM.DTL)