[3g-g]

So this is another thought on how to gain more revenue, it's not one I'm particulary bothered about, I tend not to use the operators main portals, usually navigating off to the BBC or similar, however, I'll reserve judgement 'till I actually see the ads. If they're all over the place and in the way I'll swiftly only be using Opera only!


Orange is claiming a first in the UK with the launch of interactive banner advertising on its WAP portal, Orange World.

Ads from companies such as Jaguar, Peugeot, Xboa and United international Pictures went live on the site yesterday. At the launch of the service, only four devices on Orange’s network will be able to access the adverts. The company is also planning to boost advertising revenues with the launch of a sponsored search tool, later this year.

Steve Ricketts, Third Party Relationship Manager at Orange, says that the devices have been chosen for their different display and functional characteristics, as the operator seeks to build up its metrics on user response to banner advertising. It will also be technically easier to transcode the adverts to the correct formats and sizes for a limited number of devices.

Ricketts said that mobile marketing until now has tended to “enrich” other forms of advert, such as an SMS or voice shortcode. This is the first time in the UK that on-portal banner advertising has been tried out, and he thinks it stands to bring new revenue streams into the industry.

“ARPU is well known as a term, but people are also now starting to talk about ARPO – average revenue per others.”

Mobile advertising is still a work in progress, though. Ricketts said that the operator wants to build up its knowledge of usage rates, click throughs, how and when adverts are accessed and responded too. The operator will also keep track of which types of user, bearer and devices are most and least active.

Orange is transcoding, reformatting and supplying on the fly all th materials itself, rather than working with a technology partner, although Ricketts said the operator is working with Screetonic, a French company which has worked with Orange France. The Orange Broadband team (Wanadoo) is also involved in online sales.

Ricketts said that in terms of content, it is important ads are made for mobile.

“These phones are smaller, screens are different, WAP usage differs from PC web browsing, all of these things mean we have to make sure mobile ads work effectively.”

Banner advertising, which relies on users browsing to a page and responding to an ad, is just one way mobile companies are thinking about unlocking mobile media revenues. Others include pushing messages using the idle screen and in-game or video advertising. Sponsored search is another possible area, and Ricketts confirmed Orange would have a sponsored search facility going live later this year.

http://pda.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news_story.ehtml?o=2395

[bsrjl1]

So if I'm paying per Mb for GPRS then I'm effectively going to be charged to view adverts?! I can understand 3 doing that as it's 'free to browse'. Nice one Orange.

[3GScottishUser]

Dont forget that you have the option with Orange to use Opera and set your own choice of portal as your homepage etc.

I sense a change coming as they really do have to encourage uptake and the 3 and Vodafone models where its free to get basic services appear the most workable.

[Ben]

Until Orange make Orange World free to browse I think having advertising banners is just rude. I'm with bsrjl1 here.

[solo12002]

FFS thats all we need from Orange:

1. Lets call price plams after a pet

2. Lets screw our users by cutting done the mins in plans and increasing cost

3. Lets screw them by shafting them to read spam adds as they suff our homescreen while they pay us.

[Ben]

But there's free broadband, so it's all ok... right? ;)

[Alio]

Banner type ads on your mobile was inevitable and is simply a matter of time before they become the norm for increasing revenue via the mobile media platform.......lets face it......it's currently an untapped marketing media waiting to explode.........advertisers can now see the potential as the mobile market and audience has increased 100 fold in a very short period of time.

From a business point of view it makes perfect sense as a new method of reaching thousands of existing customers and potentially another innovative way to attract new ones!

From the users point of view......yes I can see that some people may not want to see them on their phone screens/ favourite sites etc.
However at the end of the day it will still be down to user choice i,e. whether the user wants to click on a advert or not!

On the other hand the upside could proof beneficial to the user in the long term.......more money generated by mobile ads could in affect drive phone charges down!

[Ben]

at the end of the day it will still be down to user choice i,e. whether the user wants to click on a advert or not!
Unfortunately the user doesn't get the same choice as to whether or not they pay Orange the exuberant data charges for transfering the advert to the phone :( If Orange World was free, fine IMHO, but it's not :(

[Alio]

Unfortunately the user doesn't get the same choice as to whether or not they pay Orange the exuberant data charges for transfering the advert to the phone :( If Orange World was free, fine IMHO, but it's not :(

True!......however it all depends how orange intends to implement the advertising structure on it's service and also delivery of the advert itself to the user.

[solo12002]

" True!......however it all depends how orange intends to implement the advertising structure on it's service and also delivery of the advert itself to the user"

M sorry CRAP! the user who is paying orange for a service MUST have the right to decided for themselves if they want this crap sent to their mobile. Orange and the other networks have to understand that we pay them for a service not for them to decided what we can or can not see or have access to on our mobiles.

Would you sign up to powergen to be informed by them that you could only have power from xx to xx or BT who would then ring your house up with phone adds as and when they feel like it.

Currently ornage uses have to pay orange to look at their homescreen unlike some other networks, i find it BL@@dy cheeky for them to even think of sending users adds or other crap that they expect users to pay to look at.

Bottom line is we should not have to op out of geting prem rate text messages, calls from third party sellers with the TPS we should have to op into getting these, and those companies who ever they are should be fined large sums of money if these are sent to you with out op in

[Hands0n]

I understand the point but do not concur for the simple reason that we all do indeed have a choice of who to buy from.

I see Orange's wish to have this advertising banner on the phone being no different to Sky TV's incessent advertising three times in a 60 minute programme, the first within almost 5 minutes of the programme starting. It is very very annoying. But, and this is the rub, the customer has complete choice as to whether or not to buy that particular service.

For the very reason of not wanting to have Orange's homescreen shoved down my eye socket each and every time I use one of their handsets I choose not to buy Orange. I much prefer the current minimalist displays of T-Mobile and Vodafone. But, if these two companys start with the heavily branded homescreen then I'll either not be buying that specific handset or even their service at all.

We do "have the right to decide ....." and that decision has the ability to hit Orange right where it hurts most, in their pocket. But, and this is important, we must tell Orange exactly why we are leaving them - that their homescreen is unacceptable to us.

As to Solo12002's final paragraph - I am in 1,000% agreement there. All premium rate and marketing should be strictly on an Opt In basis only. I don't care if it'll ruin their advertising industry - the onus must be on the Customer to solicit their advertising, and that the advertiser are able to prove it. This was debated in Parliament at the time leading up to the premium rate services, but our wonderful government caved in to the advertisers lobby and made it an Opt Out, claiming that it would be an improved service level to the prospective customer (that'll be you and me ....).

I do think that registration with TPS should be a blanket Opt Out - again unless the sender can prove that the customer submitted a very specific Opt In, not even a referral from elsewhere would be acceptable. Very Draconian, I know, but time and again these companies have proven themselves to be utterly inept at self-policing and with a propensity to adopt policies that worked against the customer.

Come the revolution ...........................

[Alio]

" True!......however it all depends how orange intends to implement the advertising structure on it's service and also delivery of the advert itself to the user"

M sorry CRAP! the user who is paying orange for a service MUST have the right to decided for themselves if they want this crap sent to their mobile. Orange and the other networks have to understand that we pay them for a service not for them to decided what we can or can not see or have access to on our mobiles.

Ok.....for a start I wasn't talking about ads and crap being sent to the users phone in the form of mms/text/wap push, however this type of delivery option will be made available for the user to "CHOOSE" from "if they wish to go along and "request" to have further information sent to them.

This form of advertising and delivery is already being used as we all know with premium rate content type services.....and has been very successful! and I'm not stating that this is what orange will do to deliver the ads directly to the user, I'm simply stating the delivery methods that can be used and have been used to do this job.

However personally I'm not a big fan off it.......as some media companies have tricked users to sign up to services and then blasted the user with mms/text/wap push advert junk. Users have kicked up about this type of advertising abuse and media companies have to rethink this whole adverts to user thing!

I see the whole orange advertising thing working more like this:

1.You see a banner add image at the top of a page you are viewing on their service.
2. The ad image catches your eye, because it may be about something that interests you.
3. You either ignore the image/ad at the top of the page and continue browsing around regardless......or.......you freely decide to click on the image/ad........by doing this, you would be taken to a page which would tell you more information about the product/service that is being advertised.
4. You then "freely decide" what action you wish to take i,e. click to call about the product/service or have further information sent to you i,e to your phone in the form of mms/text/wap push delivery in which "yes" you may get charged for........however up to this point the whole process of getting you to this stage has relied on you the user freely choosing to do so!

I work in mobile web development/marketing, we currently operate a service in which users can create mobile websites that can be viewed in a web site format and also in a full colour xhtml/mobile format for the small screen......the service is free to the user......so for us to make money we are building in an advertising platform that will display adverts in this manner on the small screen, we see the future of mobile ads working well like this because it up to the user to decide the action they wish to take based on the advert/banner being shown to them.........in other words it's no different in clicking on a banner ad on a normal web site........it's your choice!


Would you sign up to powergen to be informed by them that you could only have power from xx to xx or BT who would then ring your house up with phone adds as and when they feel like it.

OK.....I think a better example would be this.......lets say you bought something from sky like a TV channel package, when you bought it, did it mention anything about the fact that you would be exposed to advertising......probably not, right!.......they said buy our great sky package and watch great TV programs........did they say or promote anything about the fact that you would also see a shed load of adverts while watching these great programs......."no"........you new that they would be there and you have the choice whether or not to expose yourself to them!
"Orange is simply doing the same but on mobile"


Currently ornage uses have to pay orange to look at their homescreen unlike some other networks, i find it BL@@dy cheeky for them to even think of sending users adds or other crap that they expect users to pay to look at.

Not sure I understand the first bit of the quote directly above? if you choose to be a orange customer and pay for an orange phone and their services......why is it cheeky for them to want you to use their home page to access the services that are available to you as a orange customer?



Bottom line is we should not have to op out of geting prem rate text messages, calls from third party sellers with the TPS we should have to op into getting these, and those companies who ever they are should be fined large sums of money if these are sent to you with out op in

I agree.....everything should be down to the users choice and not forced on them!:)

Hope that all made some sort of sense........Oh! and by the way......I don't work for orange, nor am I a big fan, but I am a customer of them.

[Hands0n]

@alio - I understand that Orange charge their customers for the data used to browse their homepages. Other networks, i.e. Vodafone and 3, make no charge until or unless you leave their homepages and go off elsewhere in the Internet.

Anyone who is going to charge me to (a) receive their ad banner and subsequently (b) to visit their homepage to find out more is not going to get a single shred of my business. Orange have, for me, shot themselves in the foot in many ways, this being but one!

I also think that it should be made very clear in large bold red letters on their website and their homepage that you, the customer, are being charged when using their mobile handset to view the mobile homepages portal. Especially if this is easy to inadvertently get into by pressing a softkey on the handset - unless there is an "Are you sure?" breakpoint before you start to incur data access charges.

I wonder what Ofcom would make of that if it were brought to their attention?

[Alio]

(Handson) @alio - I understand that Orange charge their customers for the data used to browse their homepages. Other networks, i.e. Vodafone and 3, make no charge until or unless you leave their homepages and go off elsewhere in the Internet.


I wasn't fully aware that this was in fact the case........I understand the gripe now being made if this is true.......about data having to be paid for when on orange's portal pages regardless! I assumed it was free to browse if you were a customer and you only paid when you left their site.

I think the main point I was trying to defend was not so much orange and how it charges it's users, but more the advertising concept of the banner ad structure and how advertising on mobile will become the norm and possibly a good thing for the user in the long run and as an additional method for networks to generate new revenue streams from businesses/corporate media.

So am I right in saying that if 3, and Vodafone start offering a similar banner ad campaigns over their portals and you stayed on their service when viewing an advert page, things would be ok with the user coz there portals are free to browse......yes?

Or are the majority of phone users just simply against any and all advertising on the small screen full stop?

Hey that would make a good poll! :)

[Hands0n]

This does appear to be very much an "Orange thing" vis a vis charging to view the mobile network's own portal (and hence incurring data charges for banner ads also).

I personally find banner ads a right chore and do not like them at all. However, I do accept the model and frequently skip off somewhere else if I find my screen filled up with dancing wotsits while I grope around for the information content that I am visiting their website for in the first place.

Regarding the 3 and Vodafone portals - these are [currently] free to browse, and that implies that any data that is delivered via the portal is inclusively free. Whether the Customer would like to have their small mobile phone screen cluttered up with banner ads is another thing altogether. I most certainly would not, but that is purely a matter of my own likes and dislikes.

A poll about Banner Advertising would not be a bad idea, given the discussion on this thread. Go for it :)