In the beginning of this week Yahoo! announced that they will offer graphical ads on T-Mobile’s Internet service, Web’n'walk.
Yahoo! has partnered with T-Mobile to offer exclusive graphical advertising on T-Mobile’s open Internet service Web’n'walk in the UK. They intend to launch the first mobile advertisements during the first half of 2008.

Phil Chapman, director, marketing, T-Mobile, said, “With conventional mobile marketing tools limiting the levels of interaction, banner advertising through the Internet on your mobile creates many opportunities for potential advertisers to adopt innovative marketing campaigns. We regard Yahoo! as a leader in display advertising, and with its deep understanding of the mobile space and the potential that mobile advertising can offer clients, we’re glad they are on board as our partners.”

Why is this announcement good? Well mobile Internet advertising seems to have a great potential in the future, since “Mobile Advertising in Europe” report by JupiterResearch revealed these facts:
* 64 per cent of marketers have planned to use banner advertising on mobile portals
* 68 per cent of marketers have planned to use banner ads on off-portal mobile Internet pages during the next 12 months.
* 58 per cent of marketers consider the mobile Internet to be the most service enabling future growth of mobile advertising

Great news for British marketers is that Yahoo! has also signed a similar deal with Vodafone, so soon Yahoo! can access to UK’s top two mobile operators.

Several times i have wrote that there are twice as much cell-phones than PC-s. Some brighter heads are also predicting that in the future mobile advertising will take a big share from internet advertising. It seems obvious - the number of cell-phones will increase faster, people have it all the time, easy to use device, well targeted target groups. It all seems so simple and beautiful, but what is the situation at the moment?
European research firm Vanson Bourne made a report on 50 global brands’ attitudes toward mobile marketing and these numbers don’t give any reasons to smile. It seems that companies have still some doubts and the main issue is how the potential customer will react, is it invading to peoples personal lives or not. Here are some key points:

* more than two-thirds of companies expected to spend up to 10% of their marketing budget on mobile messaging campaigns within two years
* 28% of brands were considering implementing SMS or MMS campaigns during the next 12 months
* 58% said that their mobile marketing campaign would use up to 15% of their total ad budget by 2012, 32% said this would happen in the next two years
* One third of all respondents said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to undertake a financial transaction
* 52% said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to request more information or a product sample
* 46% are concerned that mobile marketing is too intrusive
* 41% respondents were unsure that they could target campaigns specifically enough to avoid spamming problem
* 36% would require detailed information on how the user responded to the message
* 20% would want definite confirmation that the user’s handset had actually received the message

If we are looking what people are looking from google then it also describes the situation quite clearly. I can’t see any progress in past 3 years. According to the fact “twice as many cell-phones than computer” i would picture that the blue line should rise continuously, but in fact it has staid quite stagnant. So it seems to me that mobile marketing will stay as supportive action in marketing for some time, maybe Android will change something but we will see.

Consumer magazines have been realizing that mobile Web might be quite useful. The New York Times just launched a mobile real estate page and Playboy recently began offering non-nude mobile photos, along with some other Playboy-branded mobile content.

Experts say that mobile web is almost as sensational a the Internet 10 years ago, it is the Internet in peoples’ pocket. Mobile Internet comes complete with all the ads that consumers see on their desktops. Mobile sites provide a new platform for magazine brands to sell ad space. Unlike the paper, mobile magazine sites provide ad space that can be targeted to exact locations, respond to user requests, providing a dynamic ad platform.

Since phones are portable and personal devices, mobile ads can reach consumers quicker and more intensely than ads in other media. The frequency of return visitors to mobile sites outstrips Internet sites clearly. At the same time the Mobile Marketing Association keeps strict guidelines on phones, protecting them from spam. Consumers just have made clear how much they value their phone privacy.

The idea is not taking magazines to mobile, it is taking brands to mobile by taking the core user of each brand and translating it to mobile. Magazines are not reproducing the content, they are looking at what customer needs on the go. It is an effective way for marketing the brand and bandage people even more with the magazine.

What comes next?