Creativity Software

AdvertWise Case Study

Mobile operator in the Middle East launches location based mobile advertising service

As with any mobile network operator (MNO) in the world, there is an increasing pressure to bring to market new services that allow them increase their ARPU from both their consumer and enterprise customer base.

As advertising agencies shift their budgets to media that gives them better visibility of the campaigns performance, and with an increasing penetration of mobile phones among consumers in the country (and worldwide), this brings a unique opportunity to mobile operators to deploy a hosted service that allows advertising agencies and other enterprises to run mobile marketing campaigns with a value add, i.e. make the campaigns location-based.

The main challenges are two, on one hand the use of a rich and flexible mobile marketing s/w platform that allows advertisers to create and manage their database of targeted consumers, based on rich user profiles to make it as effective as possible. On the other hand the enablement of the mobile marketing platform with location capabilities, so campaigns can be implemented based on the current location of consumers, which can potentially make them even more targeted.

Solution:

After reviewing offerings from various suppliers, the Middle Eastern MNO chooses Creativity Software’s AdvertWise solution.

They elements of the AdvertWise solution that have captivated the MNO are the direct push and direct response marketing facilities; mobile interactivity and customer service facilities; and the easy integration with multiple systems, whether CRM, analytical systems, transactional or billing logs and opt out channels.

For the enablement of the mobile marketing platform, the use of passive monitoring probes sitting between the network’s MSC and BSC’s (monitoring the A-link interfaces) has been implemented. This allows the system to know which mobile phones are being served by the different cells, hence knowing their approximate location. While this approach does not allow knowing the specific location of a mobile user (which a GPS handset would for example), the main benefit is that it doesn’t require any specialised handset or the installation of any s/w client on the phone. This enables the mobile operator to offer mobile advertisers a much higher total available market, as virtually any mobile phone can be targeted.