Gigafone launches Ochre a new digital advertising marketplace with nine partners

 In mobile

Full disclosure: Gigafone is a client and we are incredibly excited to announce a new digital advertising platform with some truly outstanding partners. 

The reason I am excited, is that as part of  my 2009 year of action, we’re helping to drive some of the change sorely needed in the mobile advertising space – namely

  • A truly open and agnostic digital marketplace
  • The ability to integrate user preferences and profile into digital advertising
  • The ability to accurately measure the effectiveness of advertising (what brands are screaming for)
  • The ability to take and measure every campaign run and make the next one even better
  • An integrated approach to buying, planning, delivering and measuring digital advertising
  • The tools a Planner needs to decide the best channels required to deliver a campaign (not JUST WAP banner ads)

I had an interesting discussion with a major consumer brand last week and they said:

“…big names keep coming in and promising click through rates of X and CPM’s of Y.  We don’t care about these measures – we want to improve brand perception and drive product purchase”. 

In summary – they don’t want to hear what we as an technology industry want to push onto brands – they want us to think like advertisers and help them sell more products.

In the words of the late, great David Ogilvy – “Sell or else”.  Advertising must help SELL products – not drive click-throughs.

The Gigafone Ochre product helps meet this objective, and you can read the release in full below.

If you are in Barcelona this week at Mobile World Congress, please stop by AV 16 on the main avenue – right opposite the large TV screen closest to the main fountain and say hi!

Mobile World Congress, Barcelona – 16th February 2009: Gigafone, the leading mobile marketing services group, today launches its new digital advertising solution Ochre.  Responding to market demand for an easier, more joined up approach to mobile advertising, Ochre is a vendor agnostic solution designed to provide brands, agencies and mobile operators with a holistic and simplified view of the advertising ecosystem. Launching with nine partners from across the advertising value chain – planning, creation, delivery and measurement, Ochre will tackle market fragmentation that is preventing the development of effective and creative digital campaigns.

As companies are seeking a more focused and effective use of their advertising spend, agencies and brands are looking to better their return of investment in new advertising media. While full of potential, today’s mobile campaigns are no more measureable or targeted than TV and online. To become more prominent in the marketing mix, mobile must be part of a seamless cross-platform advertising proposition. Currently, however, the four major parts of the mobile advertising ecosystem – campaign creation, planning, distribution and result measurement are fragmented.

“Today’s fragmented mobile advertising ecosystem creates a catch-22 for advertisers and agencies. Measurement and planning on mobile are difficult and this dramatically reduces the propensity for brands to invest in mobile advertising in a turbulent economic environment. While existing mobile advertising campaigns fail to break new ground, there is little to measure, distribute and plan,” said Gregory Khaldey, Chief Executive Officer and President of Gigafone.

The key to Ochre is allowing advertisers to choose the best mobile delivery channel for individual campaigns by utilising the intelligent analysis and reporting facility built into the solution based on previous campaigns. Ochre combines sophisticated booking and planning tools with user generated profiling and historical campaign analysis to allow advertisers to make an informed choice over which delivery mechanism will resonate best with the consumers they are looking to engage with. Gigafone has brought together mobile advertising innovators including Xtract, Vizimo, Palringo, Aditon, Yodel Digital, Icom Group, Liquid Air Lab, Sponge Group and OwnSkin as launch partners for the Ochre solution.

With demographic and purchasing characteristics changing on a campaign by campaign basis, Ochre has been built to cope with the complexity of mobile advertising.  Advertisers can now switch delivery channels at the click of a button, making sure content rich information gets to the right person at the right time, meaning consumers receive relevant and timely information about products that they are interested in and advertisers can reduce wastage generated from blanket campaigns. Ochre provides the transparency required to optimise advertising campaigns to ultimately improve return on investment. 

“Ochre will remove the barriers holding back growth in mobile advertising by removing risk from the mobile channel and fostering creativity,” said Gregory Khaldey, Chief Executive Officer and President of Gigafone. “With launch partners in planning, creation, distribution and measurement, Ochre enables brands and agencies to experiment with mobile and track the results. Brands and agencies can then use those results to plan their next campaign – perhaps with different creative and distribution channel. It really will end the fragmentation threatening to curtail mobile advertising’s potential – to the benefit of the entire ecosystem.”

Mick Rigby, Chairman of launch partner Yodel Digital, commented “We are drawn to the Ochre solution because we believe it will provide us with the sort of targeting and metrics that help us plan for our clients more effectively.  Combined with the broad range of delivery channels, we now have a wider range of potential inventory which will complement our existing campaigns running on traditional mobile advertising networks”.

Kerry Ritz, CEO of mobile messaging service Palringo said “The location and profile information of the Palringo user base will enable Gigafone and its Ochre solution to provide advertising that our users will find both relevant and useful.  Palringo inventory is a real alternative to the failed experiment of replicating the banner advertising of the web in the mobile environment.”

Launch partner Vizimo with its highly popular TV listings application offers the users a natural means to build up their viewing preferences and for Vizimo to recommend content.  Simon Steward, Vizimo’s CEO, said: “In conjunction with Vizimo, the Ochre solution will enable advertisers to effectively target people who watch TV, but without the inherent wastage of normal TV advertising.  Instead, content delivered will personalised and targeted, based on user preferences, and provide a high degree of measurability.”

Gigafone is recruiting additional partners to join the Ochre solution over the coming months, and is also working closely with leading brands and agencies to provide a tailored experience with a range of relevant delivery channels for all digital campaigns.

Gigafone will be exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 16 – 19 February 2009 at Stand AV 16, located on the main avenue. Further information is available from: www.gigafone.com.

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About Gigafone

Gigafone, the mobile marketing services group, enables operators to monetise mobile marketing.

Gigafone’s new Ochre digital marketing solution is a vendor agnostic offer designed to provide brands, agencies and mobile operators with a holistic and simplified view of the advertising ecosystem. Ochre tackles the fragmentation preventing the development of effective, creative mobile and digital campaigns.

Gigafone employs more than 100 mobile technology and marketing experts around the world with offices in Russia, Asia-Pacific and Europe. It is a member of the Mobile Marketing Association and an Associate Member of GSMA.

For further information, please see: www.gigafone.com .

About the Ochre Partners

Xtract refines social interaction, behaviour and demographic data to create accurate 3D user profiles for internet and mobile operator marketing become more personal, relevant and targeted.

Vizimo is a leader in the development of personalisation and discovery technology to help users navigate the overwhelming universe of content on TV, the web and mobile.

Palringo is a dynamic Instant Messaging service for mobile that lets uses exchange text, photos, and vocal IMs with groups or individuals combined with a smart location functionality

AditOn delivers non intrusive, relevant and engaging content, daily to the idle screen of users

Yodel Digital is the UK’s first independent mobile advertising planning and buying agency with a focus on delivering the most effective advertising and search campaigns in the mobile internet market space

Icom Group is a cutting edge media company developing products for mobile and web, centred on promoting festivals, events and exhibitions

Liquid Air Lab has developed its own advertising network and today is a leader in podcast and in-game mobile advertising

Sponge Group is the longest established mobile marketing agency in the UK and runs creative, high quality premium and non-premium mobile solutions to deliver targeted mobile advertising campaigns

OwnSkin is an online theme creator that allows consumers to personalise their mobile with their own theme and content

About 

Based in London, The Actionable Futurist and former Global Managing Partner at IBM, Andrew Grill is a popular and sought-after presenter and comementator on issues around digital disruption, workplace of the future and new technologies such as blockchain. Andrew is a multiple TEDx and International Keynote Speaker.