Understanding the present

The Asia Pacific region is a market of more than 2 Billion people and there are many countries within the region. The size and differences means that agencies do not have an easy time targeting and creating ads for this region. Therefore agencies typically deal with the fragmented region by having local offices in each country with some countries as the headquarters for certain regions. Different creatives and media strategy have to be crafted for different markets.

The AP region is of great interest to mobile advertisers because of the fast rising affluence of consumers and how widespread mobile devices are helping to bring the masses online. However agencies have to deal with the reality of fragmentation in the Asian market due to economic, technological and cultural differences. The countries are so different in nature that the same media strategy and creative execution will rarely work cross markets. Thus this article looks into how marketeers can understand and recognize mobile device penetration in AP countries and modify their mobile media and creation campaign strategy.

There is a easy way to segment the current OS penetration in the Asia region which can be divided into two main segments of the “Haves” and “Have Nots”.
In the “Have” segment, countries have high smartphone penetration and good 3G access networks. In the “Have Nots” regions, the countries have low smartphone penetration with low 3G access and the data typically looks like that of a “Have” country from 3 years ago before 3G data plans became affordable and smartphones with good internet browsers came onto the market.

Mobile OS market share derived browsing data

One can approximate smartphone penetration by the extent of economic development in country. This chart shows what mobile OSes are used to access the internet and it clearly shows the distinction between the countries that use smartphones and the countries that do not.

Currently in AP, there are 3 main OSes and they are

1. iOS in light blue,
2. Android in dark blue and
3. Symbian and others in Green.

Because mobile marketing is highly dependent on how consumers use their phones and what technology is available on their phone, understanding this chart will help you shape the media and creative that you will recommend to the client.

In the “Have” countries a brand can make apps and expect good downloads and reception. These are usually iOS and Android apps given the high penetration of these 2 mobile OS among the smartphone segment. Games and sponsored utilities apps are the most popular choices for apps as advertising/marketing vehicles. Good mobile browsers and In-app advertising also means that you can buy display advertising in volume with the expectation that your ads will reach most of the population and at high enough frequency. A brand can also take advantage of the latest rich media ad formats that are generally supported by smartphones which means that branding campaigns can be executed on mobile devices.

In the “Have Not” countries, mobile marketing is more limited in media and creative. They are usually simple text messaging and WAP sites. Because of the difficulty in supporting WAP site creation among the fragmentation of feature phones and inferior browser technology , site creation is more complicated. This means most mobile advertising is text messaging. Reach and cost is also an issue as SMS campaigns are much more expensive to implement than mobile display advertising. Therefore SMS is usually used as a activation medium to elicit direct response from consumers compared to being a branding channel. Some brands might even decide that mobile does not meet their objectives and therefore allocate the budget to TV where the reach and frequency is the highest as most consumers’ time is spent watching TV content.

Projecting the future

Mobile has made a phase change with the introduction of smartphones around end 2008 in the AP region. Looking at Singapore’s data from 3 years ago, we can try to project what is the most likely outcome in the next 12-18 months in the “Have Nots” countries.

Singapore's Mobile OS share of web page impression after the iPhone was released for about 6 months in Dec 2008.

After the launch of iPhone, we can immediately see Symbian’s share being eroded as iOS quickly rides to the top. The iPhone made it much more user friendly to browse the web and use apps. It led to a huge increase in the iPhone browsing traffic. For 18 months, there wasn’t much competition for the iPhone as it took more market share. Around mid 2010, operators started to push Android devices to consumers as the iPhone Alternative. The Galaxy S, launched as the spearhead of Android Phones, quickly became popularly with consumers.From then Android takes a huge leap and into its current second place position. As it stands, iOS and Android commands more than 50% of mobile traffic in Singapore.

The historical data has shown that it takes 18 months from the introduction of smartphones for a country to transition from a “Have Not” to a “Have” country. Thus the question is then given that smarpthone prices are constantly dropping and data networks are becoming more affordable in the “Have not’ countries, will the country make the leap into “Have” group in the next 18 months?

One can make a prediction by looking at smartphone adoption rate over the past year as Android devices make their way into the “Have Not” countries. In the case of Singapore, Smartphones marketshare increased from 0% to 15% in 6 months ad iOS overtook Symbian’s marketshare 6 months after launch. We will use these 2 indicators as guidelines for our projection.

Predictons

Linear projection showing which mobile smartphone OS will likely be the dominant OS in the country in the next 18 months.

Prediction of which countries will have more than 50% smartphone penetration in the next 18 months

From the guidelines above, one can predict that China(iOS), Philippines(Android), Vietnam(iOS) & Malaysia(Android) will cross over to the “Have” group soon. However two out of the three largest markets in AP (India and Indonesia) have shown small smartphone growth and are predicted to have little smartphone growth due to backward data networks and the lack of purchasing power among the masses.

Conclusion and recommendations

This article has laid out the current mobile landscape around us. Asia is a complicated place but the overall trends are that

1. Leading Mobile OSes are Symbian, iPhone and Android = Apps and websites should be built for these platforms
2. iPhone & Android are the handsets of the future = Marketers should be run experimental campaigns in the Have countries which can be extended the the general AP region when the “Have Not” countries move into the “Have” group.
3. Large markets like India and Indonesia are unlikely to be smartphone friendly = Feature phone marketing skills is still necessary
4. Apps and Rich Media Ads work well in Have regions, text messaging pretty much the only medium of mobile marketing in Have Not regions.

Introducing HTML5 WebSockets

WebSockets is a technique for two-way communication over one (TCP) socket, a type of PUSH technology. At the moment, it’s still being standardized by the W3C; however, the latest versions of Chrome and Safari have support for WebSockets.

From http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/start-using-html5-websockets-today/

Advantage of WebSockets

To summarize the numerous advantages of WebSockets, here’s one BIG key point.

Websockets can replace long-polling.

Here’s a simple situation to illustrate.

Context: Node A wants to ask his buddy Node B if he has 2 files.

In Long-polling, Node A takes 1kb to ask B the question and B replies with the answer and closes the connection at the cost of 1kb. That’s 2kb per transaction. Now Node B has a second file to send again and opens another transaction with Node A. Total cost of getting 2 files was 4kb.

In Websockets, Node A sends the same question to Node but the difference here is when Node B sends back file 1, it does not attached the marker to close the connection. Only when the final file is sent back then it’s tagged with the marker that closes the connection. So total data usage was only 3kb for the same amount of information.

2359 Media was featured in the article, “Start-up Paradise”, in the July 13th issue of Straits Times’ Digital Life paper. Alongside with an introduction to several start-ups in Singapore, the article talks about how our co-founders, Wong Hong Ting and Zhou Wen Han, started the company and landed our first major investor, SingTel.

Read the article to find out more.

The slick and refreshing outlook of the website provides a clearer navigation between various pages. A search box can also be found on the top right hand corner of the main page. The whole idea is to provide simple navigations within the whole website without cluttering the main page.

In addition, we have reshuffle the pages and information to help the users identify their required information more easily. Knowledge Centre and Media Centre have be included to share and equip users with industry knowledge that we have found and achieved.

We hope you like the new 2359 Media website!

The iAd, specifically created in HD for the iPad, showcases rich graphics alongside an exciting user interface that allows you to download cool wallpaper images, listen to and purchase the movie’s official soundtrack within the ad itself, as well as use the cinema locator to find the nearest theatre showing Tron Legacy. While all these are no longer new features to us, seeing and interacting with an iAd in HD on the iPad is a completely different experience.

Prior to this, mobile ads either had a really snazzy catchphrase or featured a really eye-catching image to get you to tap on it. And while it all boiled down to how relevant users found the product to be, rich media mobile ads now have the potential to garner clicks and impressions through sheer curiosity alone. In terms of mobile ad performance, it will very soon come down to one single factor – how the ad is presented.

In lieu of this, ad creators should consider how they could gain advantage by utilising a user-friendly platform that allows them to create ads within a tight deadline that doesn’t entail a long-drawn creation process or expert technical proficiency. Thankfully, for these purposes and more, there is MobDis.

As mentioned in earlier articles, MobDis is not only easy and quick to use, it is currently undergoing an upgrade that creates apps in HTML 5, giving it the ability to work across all major platforms. This means all forms of media, e.g. maps, video, audio etc., can be embedded with full functionality for greater audience engagement as compared to conventional mobile ads.

For the technically averse, there is the option of having 2359 Media’s team of effective, competent technical staff create an app or ad to one’s liking and specifications. As far as mobile ads go, the possibilities are limitless with MobDis where the restrictions are few and far between.

In any case, reach out to the millions of mobile device users out there today. Contact 2359 Media.

Therefore, there no longer seems to be a need to sell the idea of how promising rich media mobile ads can be. But let’s just throw in a few facts about mobile advertising in 2011 to wrap this up nicely before I draw your attention to something else in the ad. For starters, Eric Litman, CEO of Medialets, a rich media advertising and analytics platform for mobile, recently quoted unusually high rich media mobile ad engagement rates to support his predictions that rich media is the natural progression towards more engaging ads.

Going along the same lines, Srini Dharmaji, CEO of GoldSpot Media, a rich media and video advertising platform for mobile, cited higher CPMs (cost-per-thousand impressions) as a benefit of rich media mobile ads but also pointed out that longer lead time & lack of skills as barriers to the adoption of rich media mobile ads. This applies in particular to iAds due to tight controls implemented by Apple.

Considering the last point, it would be useful for ad creators to consider other platforms in the creation of their ads, such as 2359media’s MobDis platform. Essentially MobDis enables individuals with minimal technical knowledge to create mobile applications (and hence rich media mobile ads) through an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, which makes the ad creation process up to 20 times faster than traditional manual coding.

With that in mind, the next post will touch on one of my personal favourite iAds, and I implore you to put some thought into how you could be creating something like that.

Here at 2359 we are pretty sure you are at least half-sold on the idea of rich media mobile advertising, but in the event you need more reason – Introducing another very nicely designed iAd, Stella Artois’s Christmas iAd for the United Kingdom.

Essentially the iAd retains all the features of the Nissan iAd, but boasts an additional feature – location mapping. Using the GPS feature on the iPhone (or iPod Touch), the iAd allows the user to find the nearby bars that sell Stella Artois beer. Apart from this very useful feature (on a Friday evening at least), the iAd once again makes full use of iPhone/iPod Touch features via stunning graphics and everybody’s favourite tap/swipe/shake functions.

It may seem inconceivable now but as smartphones and other mobile devices become increasingly prevalent and begin to replace things like our credit cards & wallets, the smart-mobile device does seem to be the key medium for advertising in the near future. While nobody seems to have gotten the formula for successful mobile advertising yet, iAd will certainly prove to be something worth looking out for in time to come.

In our next post we will review yet another brilliant iAd and describe briefly how 2359 Media, can help you achieve your goals in rich media mobile advertising. Keep your eyes peeled.

For example, the Nissan Leaf iAd launched last July. A simple tap on the ad banner at the bottom of the screen brings up a full screen view of the ad, without the annoying browser pop-up that takes you out of the app. This in itself is probably iAd’s best selling point – it gives you a rich, interactive visual feast when you tap on the ad banner, and very politely brings you back to where you left off once you are done having fun.

Which is really the best thing about iAd if you do not agree with the previous point – fun. A quick view of the Nissan Leaf iAd shows you how much potential there is in these ads. A far cry from the conventional mobile ads that are mostly just static banners, tapping on an iAd banner brings you into a world of interactive fun where iPhone and iPod Touch functionality are fully utilised to engage the consumer. What starts off as a sci-fi movie trailer eventually brings you to the interactive part of the iAd experience where you get to tap, swipe, and shake your way around the ad through highly intuitive navigation controls. Apart from free downloadable content such as wallpapers, you even get to sign yourself up for a reservation via email.

If you haven’t seen it, go see it now and be enthralled.