Friday, 20 June 2008

Yahoo Signs Mobile Ad Deals in Asia

Internet behemoth Yahoo said Tuesday that it has entered into strategic mobile advertising partnerships with Maxis Communications Berhard in Malaysia and Idea Cellluar in India. The deal will see both mobile operators carry a variety of graphical advertisements, sold and served by Yahoo...

Internet behemoth Yahoo said Tuesday that it has entered into strategic mobile advertising partnerships with Maxis Communications Berhard in Malaysia and Idea Cellluar in India.

The deal will see both mobile operators carry a variety of graphical advertisements, sold and served by Yahoo.

Speaking at a press conference at CommunicAsia 2008 in Singapore this week, David Ko, managing director and vice president of Yahoo! Connected Life Asia Pacific estimated the global mobile advertising market to increase to 16.2 billion by 2011 from 1.5 billion in 2006.

Mobile advertising is revolutionizing the industry today by allowing advertisers to engage a highly targeted demographic regardless of whether the consumer is in the home, office, or on the go.

Still considered as a niche advertising platform, mobile advertising opens up the opportunity to adopt unique and innovative marketing campaigns through mobile graphical advertising and deliver tailor-made messages to consumers on their mobile devices.

Yahoo’s value proposition in this space is the wide pool of knowledge it collates from observing its consumers mobile internet usage habits on its oneSearch mobile search platform. Consumers who log onto Yahoo’s oneSearch service from their mobile phones will be able to receive advertisements related to their search.

“Advertisers and our mobile operator partners recognize the value and unique abilities of mobile advertising and are positioning it as a core part of their digital campaigns,” said Steve Boom, senior vice president, Yahoo! Connected Life in a statement.

“…we [Yahoo] are able to create targeted campaigns that not only harness the unique abilities of mobile, but also enhance the consumer’s mobile experience by delivering highly relevant and engaging experiences.”

The Sunnyvale, California based internet company already has similar tie-ups with AT&T in the US and T-Mobile and Vodafone in the UK.

The partnership with Idea Cellular and Maxis are the first of many more similar initiatives in Asia according to Yahoo.

In related news, Yahoo has also signed five new oneSearch partnerships with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (India), Hong Kong CSL, Smart Communications (Philippines), Digital Mobile Phils (Phillipines) and Vibo Telecom (Taiwan). This brings Yahoo’s total number of mobile search partnerships in Asia to 23.