Telcos know the potential in mobile advertising, but premium content is still key, notes Havas global managing director
With smartphones changing the game for advertisers and mobile marketing now seen as the "golden brush," Dominique Delport, the Global MD of Havas Media Group notes that companies like Facebook and Google still remain “a real duopoly” owning 90% of the mobile marketing space.
With telecommunications companies around the world now locked in an arms race to compete within and outside of the duopoly, producing content and reaping advertising revenue “telcos are just understanding that they sit on a huge data lake with first-party data that has incredible value, especially when we are moving to addressable media,” he says. "Advertising can now become really substantial. So, telcos are really interested in AR and want to propel the companies to the forefront of the advertising game."
In an interview today with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress 2017, Delport notes the importance of artificial intelligence as a means to gain the upper hand with mobile users. Delport cites Telefónica’s announcement at MWC heralding its new AURA platform, which the company describes as “the basis for a new relationship model with customers as an example. He believes AURA will make “cognitive sense” out of the flow of user data while giving users the means to control which data is used, the company says.
Augmented knowledge about mobile device users, including sharing of devices, will also help telcos understand “all these weak signals that will be activated for advertising purposes,” Delport says.
Surveying the landscape of major US players like AT&T and Verizon creating more content, he says it’s a clear sign that “convergence is back.” It’s a major reason why telcos induce users to sign up for bigger data packages so that they spend more time consuming content.
Responding to the desire for premium content, Vivendi Content in Latin America and Europe recently launched Studio+, which the company describes as “the first global premium short series offer for mobiles.” Delport, who is also chairman of Vivendi Content, describes the offering as ten minute episodes in a series of ten.
Delport notes that remain many weak signals that are being activated - including who in a household is using a device.
What works, he notes, remains premium, scripted content.