Mobile Game Companies Targeting Advertising

Hands-On Mobile is the latest mobile game company to focus on in-game advertising and brand integration in mobile games and content. The company has created a new Media and Advertising Division, which will be run by John Rousseau, president and general manager of Hands-On Mobile Americas. According to CTIA the number of cell phone users in the U.S. tops 215 million. Globally, there are two billion mobile users. The audience grows at a rate of 1,000 new phones per minute, according to CTIA. 

Hands-On Mobile currently reaches one billion mobile phone users through its distribution network of more than 150 mobile network operators in more than 40 countries worldwide. This bandwidth provides brand marketers a vehicle for reaching broad or very specific market segments, including the elusive 18 to 34 year-old demographic.

By utilizing the very nature of the “always-on” mobile phone, mobile marketing campaigns can reach consumers anytime, anywhere through text message alerts, promotions, video, photo sharing, instant messaging, polling and audio. The idea behind this new initiative goes beyond just placing a brand in a game. There's the potential to integrate a brand into a consumer's phone through lifestyle applications, instant messaging, alerts, promotions and mobile coupon marketing vehicles.

"Leading brands are always looking for exciting and unique ways of reaching new customers while strengthening existing customer relationships,” said Hands-On Mobile’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Sacks. “In the 90’s, the Internet provided never before thought of marketing opportunities.  Now, mobile phones and consumer demand for information ‘on the go,’ are changing the playing field all over again. Mobile is the next logical evolution in the way that companies will reach their target customers. 

Hands-on Mobile’s Media and Advertising Division promises brands instant access to hundreds of millions of mobile customers throughout the world.” The Media and Advertising Division will function as a separate group from the company’s mobile gaming and lifestyle divisions. The mobile company already has deals with brands like Lego, Marvel Comics, Hasbro, CBS Sportsline, and World Poker Tour on the gaming side.

"The mobile phone offers high-reach advertising mechanisms such as text messaging and mobile video, with forty-three percent of mobile subscribers using text messaging monthly and mobile video adoption growing 37 percent quarter over quarter,” said Tamara Gaffney, Director of Product Management, Telephia. “Mobile advertising is well positioned for growth, but understanding audiences will be critical to marketers’ success.” Telephia (March-May 2006) reports that 102.4 million people currentl