MobileActive’s 4th Screen Advertising Adds McDonalds as Client

February 16th, 2011 .

MobileActive Limited (ASX:MBA), Australia’s leading independent mobile phone content, interactive services and technology company, said its majority owned 4th Screen Advertising Australia (4th Screen Australia) has added McDonalds to its client roster.

The client roster has grown consistently with delivered mobile advertising campaigns including Qantas, 20th Century Fox, Telstra and Spreets.

Peter Birch, Managing Director of 4th Screen Australia, said: “Agencies are recognising our ad formats are bringing more brand advertisers onto the mobile web. We are ahead of the curve in design and execution.

“Given the nature of our high impact, rich media banners, we are experiencing very high click through performance over our expanding network of publishers. Across the board we are witnessing mobile out-perform traditional online campaigns in terms of ad retention, propensity to purchase and response.”

The 4th Screen proprietary mobile ad-serving platform Mpression is the driving force behind the mobile advertising offering. Its features include advanced targeting capabilities as well as rich media ad formats.

“We also have the combined experience and expertise of ourselves and 4th Screen based in the UK, having run volumes of campaigns to date. We are applying this knowledge and experience to meet the requirements of advertisers in Australia,” said Mr Birch.

MobileActive’s award winning mobile marketing expertise and 4th Screen’s market leading mobile ad-serving technology came together in November 2010 to create 4th Screen Advertising Australia.
The Mpression ad-serving platform offers advertisers access to a host of innovative rich media formats, including application sponsorship, interstitials, real-time dynamic ad insertion, and the exclusive iSlide creative treatment. The iSlide format is for iPhone applications, Android and mobile websites and can be viewed on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android devices and expands a regular banner to fill almost the whole screen, creating massive impact and huge engagement.
The 4th Screen Advertising Australia joint venture sits in MobileActive’s Business-to-Business division, Mobile Embrace, alongside the company’s Mobile Entertainment Retail (MER) and RingRing Studios (mobile content production, licensing and distribution) units.

4th Screen Advertising Australia complements the existing infrastructure Mobile Embrace offers to clients, including mobile internet and applications publishing, multichannel digital marketing solutions, M-commerce and billing, messaging solutions, interactive mobile platforms, branded mobile content and applications development, hosting and delivery, loyalty & reward and mobile membership.

Mobile Gaining Traction with Ad Agencies!

August 17th, 2010 .

A recent survey by media buying software company STRATA has shown that the growing popularity of smartphones is leading to an increased interest in mobile advertising from Advertising Agencies.

According to the survey, nearly one-third of advertisers say that mobile advertising is the focus of their interactive spend, up 107% compared to the first quarter of 2010…Read More

4th Screen Advertising Launches in the US with Shazam

August 3rd, 2010 .

4th Screen Advertising, the leading premium mobile advertising agency today announced that it is launching its business in the US, with Shazam, the world’s leading mobile music discovery provider as its foundation client. This launch extends the successful partnership that the two companies have enjoyed in Europe and enables 4th Screen to offer US-based clients innovative marketing campaigns around Shazam’s increasingly popular music discovery service…Read More

Android handsets grow: 4th Screen Advertising launches new Android SDK

July 14th, 2010 .

Last week Mashable published an article on comScore’s latest analysis of the U.S. mobile market, highlighting the fact that Android handset penetration has grown significantly in the period from February to May 2010, while all other major operating systems experienced a drop in their market share.

Here’s a quick overview of the stats.

android_handsets_grow

The Google powered OS is the only one of the bunch that has shown significant growth in the period under analysis. comScore stats on the UK / European market aren’t yet released but we can expect to see a similar pattern emerging.
As a result we’ve responded by updating our Android SDK. This means that it is now even easier to develop great bespoke rich media ad formats for the broadest possible smartphone base including iPhone, Blackberry etc.
Moreover, last month we announced the launch of our Engagement Platform to develop our own mobile advertising proposition in line with the advances in handset technology, mobile internet and application usage patterns.

The Engagement Platform is driving mobile advertising forward by delivering deep engagement tools, techniques and rich media ad formats that take advantage of the very thing that is driving this market forward, ie, smartphone technology. More than this when you couple the Engagement Platform with premium mobile inventory from great brands such as Vodafone, Shazam, The Guardian and Virgin Mobile and the more recently announced Global Radio and Vouchercloud, the mobile advertising opportunity is as potent, if not more so, than any other channel.
Specifically, the Engagement Platform includes:

• New software developer kits (SDKs) so that advertisers can take full advantage of 4th Screen’s advanced mobile ad formats such as the iSlide, video, intersticials, location, augmented reality and overlays - Now available on iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices
• A separate innovation hub to develop bespoke formats for individual applications and publishers
• Advanced data mining to offer real time campaign planning and segmentation as well as ongoing artificial intelligence to dynamically optimise campaign performance
• Engagement research and reporting as part of integrated mobile campaigns to show the value of mobile beyond the click
• A full suite of campaign planning tools so that advertisers and agencies can plan and create highly targeted campaigns based on audience profiles, location and time for example
• Access to 4th Screen’s premium global publisher network which includes a global inventory of premium publishers in Europe, North America, South Africa and Asia

So, if the future of smartphone technology is increasingly based on a much wider choice of handsets, then brands and agencies need to really get to grips with how engagement can work as a central component of any campaign and deliver advertising that has relevancy and user experience at its core, going well beyond the static banner/ blind ad-network model.

Vouchercloud offers in-app ad inventory

July 1st, 2010 .

By Ronan Shields - NMA

Mobile discount service Vouchercloud has launched an advertising service that enables brands to buy in-app inventory or sponsor app sections.

Vouchercloud developer Invitation Digital confirmed it will launch the ad model this week and roll it out across further mobile platforms shortly.

Douglas Templeton, co-founder and director of Invitation Digital, said, “We’re refining our strategy, making it easier for consumers to personalise the service, which will enable brands to target consumers more easily.”

Invitation Digital is negotiating with brands that have already issued vouchers via Vouchercloud, including Burger King, Gap and Odeon, to purchase the new ad inventory. However, Templeton didn’t say which companies were considering it.

The ads will be served by mobile sales house 4th Screen advertising. MD Mark Slade said, “This is a good way for brands to reach customers in a specific purchasing mindset and by location using the app’s GPS abilities.”

Invitation Digital will launch an Android version of Vouchercloud in July or August. It’s also planning an SMS service to will let brands access mobile users without smartphones.

Templeton said the Vouchercloud iPhone app has been downloaded 560,000 times since its February launch and generated 250,000 voucher redemptions by May.