Fox News Digital targets mobile advertising growth
How does Fox News enable a “Fox on the go” strategy? I spoke with Jeremy Steinberg, VP, Digital Media Sales & Business Development, Fox News, to find out.
Mobile advertising is “small today, huge tomorrow,” so predicts ABIresearch, a mobile devices and services research practice. The firm pegs total global 2006 advertising spend for marketing messages delivered via mobile phones at about $2 billion.
How “huge tomorrow”? The industry will experience double-digit growth rates, over the next five years, ABIresearch forecasts. One advertiser attraction of the mobile format is a “sensational performance” expectation, according to Ken Hyers of ABIresearch:
Mobile web as "rich platform for content and advertising" is also the conclusion of just released research from the Online Publishers Association. According to its "Going Mobile" report, “Consumers are watching mobile web ads and acting on them.” Key findings resulting from 6,000 interviews conducted in the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Germany:The typical click-through rate for a regular Internet banner ad is about 0.2%, while the rate for mobile banner ads is in the range of 2-3%.
76% of all consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe have access to the Web on their mobile device, and one third, 32%, use it,
Among those with mobile access, the U.K. leads in usage, 54%, followed by the U.S. and Italy, both at 41%,
Eighteen percent internationally expect to spend more time in 2007 on the mobile Web; the U.S. leads the way with 25%, followed by Italy, 22% and the U.K. 20%,
Of those without mobile Web access, 41% expect to have it on their next mobile device.
OPA president Pam Horan on the “passion for mobile content”:
It is particularly high among consumers of some key content types including weather, sports, news and stock quotes. It's revealing to see that PC Internet brands are transferring their equity to the mobile Web. Many consumers frequent the same sites on their Mobile Web that they visit on their PC.
Perhaps revealing, but not news to Fox News!
Steinberg told me Fox News has a three-prong mobile media strategy designed to enable “taking your Fox News with you wherever you go, even with the most basic of mobile phones”:
1) Mobile Internet
2) Audio Feeds
3) Made-for-Mobile Video
Fox News on the Mobile Internet: foxnews.mobi
Free to-the-consumer scaled down version of Foxnews.com optimized, by phone, for the latest Fox news on the go.
Live Audio Feeds of Fox News
Dial #FOXN on a mobile phone for a live audio feed of whatever is playing on TV at that particular moment. On Cingular, the service is $2.99 a month; Service available on other providers “for the listening soon.”
Made-For-Mobile Fox News Video
Sprint, video-ready phones: Live TV; FOX News Channel live on the phone.
Cingular Video, 3G phones: On Demand Clips; Fox News and opinion videos plus Fox made-for-mobile content.
Amp’d Mobile: Live TV; FOX News Channel live on the phone. On Demand Clips — Fox News and opinion videos plus Fox made-for-mobile content.
Steinberg is confident in the future growth opportunities in mobile advertising and is currently working with The Royal Bank of Scotland on a mobile banner campaign at foxnews.mobi.
To optimize fulfillment of advertiser campaigns at foxnews.mobi, Fox News is using Third Screen Media’s Web-based mobile ad management and delivery platform, MADX for Publishers.
According to Third Screen, MADX supports:
Inventory showcase for advertisers and agencies,
Rapid response to RFPs,
On-demand sales and inventory forecasting,
Maximization of revenue opportunities,
Automated campaign traffic and serving reports.
The Third Screen Media tag line is “Opportunity doesn’t knock, it rings.”
Opportunity is also ringing for Fox News Mobile, and its advertisers.