While the iPhone OS was the leading smartphone platform on Millenial’s network, with 33 percent of smartphone share (ahead of BlackBerry’s 31 percent), Samsung was the top device maker, thanks to the predominance of featurephones. The company also said the US mobile web audience grew to 64.8 million users, and that its ad network reached nearly 80 percent of them.

The report also features a section on mobile app analytics, provided by Mobclix, which says that the iPhone App Store is the biggest on the block, with 115,000 apps, and also leads in downloads, with 100 million per month. Android Market is a distant second, with 20 million per month, and BlackBerry App World even further back in third, delivering 300,000 downloads per month.

Millienial adds that traffic to advertisers’ sites represented almost half of the mobile campaign destinations on its network in October, while app downloads accounted for about 30 percent. Source

The bottom line: Mobile web use – and the market for mobile ads – continues to grow. But don’t overlook smartphones, which still account for a huge chunk of the mobile web market.

—–
THE MOTOROLA DROID SOLD 250,000 UNITS IN ITS FIRST WEEK, according to GigaOM and based on a report from mobile analytics company Flurry. The new Android device, available only on Verizon Wireless in the US, has been well received by commentators, and now, apparently, by the market as well. Flurry says that the sales are more than four times those of T-Mobile’s MyTouch 3G in its first week of sales in August, but of course pale in comparison to the 1.6 million iPhone 3GS devices sold in its first week. Source

The bottom line: Is Motorola clawing its way back from the precipice? Could be – since software has long been its Achilles heel, turning to Android could turn out to be a smart choice, and one that saves the company.

—–

MORE THAN 3 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE UK HAVE REDEEMED A MOBILE COUPON, says Juniper Research in a new report. The analyst firm says that mobile coupons enjoy a redemption rate six times higher than traditional paper coupons, again highlighting the viability of mobile marketing to deliver results for advertisers and brands. Source

The bottom line: Mobile coupons seem like a no-brainer, if only because people are less likely to forget to bring their phone to a shop than a paper coupon! But combined with opt-in campaigns and any number of targeting techniques, they represent a valuable resource for retailers.

—–

THE NUMBER OF MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING USERS IN LATIN AMERICA AND AFRICA WILL INCREASE TENFOLD BY 2015, says a new report from analyst firm Frost & Sullivan and mobile social networking provider Colibria. F&S says the market will amount to 527 million users and be worth $2.4 billion in six years, reflecting the increased popularity of the services, but also the prevalence of mobile as an Internet channel in emerging markets. Source

The bottom line: It’s easy to predict the growth of mobile social networks, but anybody eyeing the space has to keep in mind how people in emerging markets use their mobiles and access the internet primarily through them.

Comscore says that the iPhone represents a third of those touchscreen devices, while the top ten list is filled with a number of touchscreen featurephones. Source

The bottom line: These numbers shouldn’t be too surprising, as smartphones continue to grow in popularity, and touchscreens make their way into the featurephone segment. Peggy adds: The touch web is here and will likely require content, experiences and mobile search tools to make the most out of it. Watch MSG for more on the touch paradigm and the potential business opportunities for companies that get it right.

—–

THE NUMBER OF NEW APPLICATIONS STARTED FOR THE ANDROID PLATFORM NEARLY DOUBLED IN OCTOBER, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry. The company, which tracks application and developer activity in app stores and across multiple platforms, says it’s seeing a lot of iPhone developers beginning to work on Android apps.

Android is gaining a lot of momentum as more devices hit the market – particularly in the US, where Verizon Wireless has made quite a splash with its marketing campaign for the Motorola Droid, and is also introducing the HTC Droid Eris. Meanwhile, T-Mobile USA recently announced it would introduce carrier billing and some other measures to try and increase its Android customers’ downloads. Source

The bottom line: Mobile developers will go to where the users are – if the developer and distribution experience is easy and rewarding. Apple and Android are leading the way, while others (notably Nokia’s Ovi and Symbian) still trail behind.

—–

THE VALUE OF COUPONS REDEEMED VIA MOBILE WILL HIT $6 BILLION WORLDWIDE BY 2014, says Juniper Research. In a new report about mobile coupons and NFC-enabled “smart posters”, the firm says that ARPU from offers from NFC coupons and smart posters will exceed ARPU generated by NFC payments in 5 years.

Juniper says, though, there are some potential stumbling blocks: consumer apathy, lack of willingness to change and consumers having to learn a new payment method. Source

The bottom line: Another confirmation that the mobile device is destined to be a payment device we use at the point of impulse – once we overcome the hurdles, of course. Peggy adds: Look for an in-depth look at this topic and more in the Netsize Guide 2010, a must-read mobile industry almanac available for free download beginning February 2010.

On the heels of the extremely popular posts on Blyk and MSG’s exclusive interview with Pekka Ala-Pietila, CEO and Co-founder of Blyk, the timing is perfect to deep-dive into Orange UK’s mobile advertising aspirations now that it has formally folded Blyk’s MVNO activities into its wider strategy.

The first service that draws from Blyk’s mobile advertising model – an approach built from the ground up to encourage a dialogue between brands and people that want to her their message by delivering people relevant advertising in tune with their preferences and profiles – is Orange Monkey.

The first Pay As You Go (PAYG) package for the U.K. market offers free music to customers when they top up their mobile. (Although PaidContent suggests the service is not about free music since the tunes you get to listen to (not own) when you top up add up to about 600 minutes each month. This translates into GBP2.14 ($3.53) for customers regularly paying GBP30 ($49.23) in phone credits. But that may just be picking nits since people are getting music at no extra cost.)

More about Monkey: it provides exclusive music, pre-release tracks and other content from Universal Music’s catalogue and relies on British broadcaster Channel 4 to get the word out to the target demographic (16-34 year-olds with mass market phones) via the Channel 4 portfolio including 4Music, billed the most watched music channel in the U.K. A clever twist and nod to the power of multi-channel promotion: The 4Music team will be the editorial voice of the official Monkey website which will carry news, artist features, playlists, exclusive content and competitions. (Check out the Orange site for more details and a video demo of the service.)

The promotion is about building buzz, loyalty and community. So, where does/will Blyk’s mobile advertising approach come in?

The focus on engagement and social networks is baked into the offer. As well as free music, Monkey offers customers free texts, allows for playlists to be shared on social networks, and it “delivers great offers from relevant brands direct to their mobile.”

Prior to the Monkey launch I was pre-briefed by Marc Overton, Orange VP of Wholesale, Business Development & Partnerships, who walked me through the concept and – more importantly – where brands and Blyk fit in the scheme of things.

AN EXCERPT OF OUR Q&A

Q: To backtrack for a moment, Orange essentially owns Blyk and the capabilities it has built to deliver targeted information and ads. What is the plan here?

A: We have been keen to get this [Blyk's end-to-end capability] as a core part of the Orange organization. We already have mobile advertising and cross-platform capability, and for us, this allows us to have fundamentally different relationship with our customers. It’s not about ad hoc adverts or repurposing display adverts; this is about targeting and tailored information delivered in a timely fashion as part of a broader proposition that has great benefits.

Q: Blyk has run over 2,500 campaigns. What sets the stage for what we might see from Orange?

A: The Lucozade campaign stands out. It gave out vouchers and consumers could redeem them for a free bottle of Lucozade. The response rates were overpowering just based on a [Blyk] subscriber base of 200,000. If we can start delivering that to our subscriber base of 16 million, then we can generate results and create something quite special. (By way of background, the Lucozade Energy campaign, documented in this case study, delivered vouchers via a bespoke WAP site Blyk members could visit to read about the promotion. A click on a link on the site sent an SMS voucher sent to their handset. Voucher requests from the Blyk activity accounted for 35 percent of total requests for 1 percent of the media spend.)

To do this you need the ability to design an end-to end creative campaign that delivers campaign and targeted to consumers. It’s something that isn’t easy to do. To do it ourselves means we would be sitting here in a year to 18 months having a similar conversation. It [the partnership with Blyk] gets us to market ahead of the rest of the competition in the U.K., and gives us the experts [Blyk support] that have been doing it and establishing the category so we can have these conversations [with brands] and off the back of it we can do develop some unique and unrivaled propositions.

Q: Such as?

A: Keep in mind that we have also signed a strategic partnership with Barclays in the U.K. to develop mobile payments and that will come online in the next year to 8 months. Linking mobile payments with mobile messaging – being able to tell people about relevant offers and where to redeem those offers – is going to be an exciting proposition, particularly combined with location services.

At a larger level, it’s about us as an operator having a deeper relationship with our customers and giving them assistance beyond telling them what their bill looks like. We are the place they can come to for great offers and benefits that they wouldn’t know existed if we didn’t have this [advertising] ability.

From an awareness level – telling customers about new products coming to market and get that community, dialogue and click-through going on between customers and brands – we are looking to target different segments with different types of messaging and campaigns. It’s a bit of a journey, but we’re confident we’ll get the right mix.

Q: What does this push look like on a practical level? Who is in charge of what and what is my relationship – as a brand or advertiser – with Orange?

A: Orange will do the ad sales, supported in this by Blyk. I see this as a team effort and the way we work together and reward each other is based on that team working. It is without a doubt a different skills set that Blyk has built, and there is a credibility and value to having Blyk support our ad sales force.

Q: You mention other segments and I left us hanging in our last post with the observation that operators can use the Blyk approach to target more than youth. What are your plans in this direction? Will we see a Blyk-like offer for customers over the age of 24?

A: Absolutely. We’re keen to offer this capability to all our customer segments. The model will likely change depending on the segment and type of customer, so it is our intent to have this as a core capability for our media business. We’re not restricting it just to the youth market and not just to consumers; it will be business professionals as well. In our view, Blyk has created a highly intimate way for a mobile operator to communicate with its customers, and it shouldn’t just be restricted to young people.

Q: Would it be a messaging option you offer to brands? Or would you use this to promote your own offers and perhaps also do your part to solve the content discovery dilemma: surfacing all the apps and content people can’t find and buy because mobile search doesn’t cut it yet?

A: It’s a conversation and we could us it to draw customers’ attention to a variety of offers, including our own [two-for-one price movie deal] Orange Wednesdays. We could also use it to launch propositions for [content/app] partners, or simply package it up for advertisers. Filling up the pipeline won’t be a problem.

Q: Earlier you referred to Orange as a ‘media company.’ That’s very different thinking for a mobile operator. Can you elaborate on this strategy and how it ties back in with the group and what I imagine would be your big-picture goal to offer brands a cross-media approach?

A: You’re right about the cross-media possibilities. That’s the group ambition and one that brings together other [group] capabilities such as our heritage as an Internet provider and portal provider with Wanadoo, our content production facilities in Spain and our mobile ad sales force in the U.K. We have capabilities – from a media perspective – that other operators don’t have. It’s a core part of our strategy to leverage these assets and capabilities and relationships into the media world. We’re doing a launch in a couple of weeks and talking to the media agencies about our ambitions in this space. We can brief you on this, if you like. This is a serious part of our business and the upcoming announcements demonstrate this.

Q: Sure thing –let’s connect then!

MONKEY BUSINESS

Since Marc couldn’t go into the specifics of the Monkey launch, I checked back in with Mat Sears, Orange Head Corporate & Consumer Communications, to fill in the gaps around the service and find out how it’s done to date.

Predictably, Mat couldn’t provide stats on a service that only launched July 30th. However, he did say the offer is “flying off the shelves.” Will advertising follow? Orange is getting in gear, and MMS and SMS ads (again, following the Blyk blueprint) are next on the agenda. The focus is on lifestyle companies around music (clothes, cosmetics, soft drinks), rather than other music labels or individual artists (extending their message to the community through a dialogue), although we may also see some campaigns to promote music and related events.

WHAT WORKS?

My take: Orange ranks high in my book as a mobile operator making the inevitable shift from access company (telco) to audience company (media player). It was one of the first operators out of the gates with a comprehensive mobile advertising offer, opening its Orange World portal to advertisers back in August 2006. Incorporating Blyk’s operations is a logical step in the strategy and choosing to focus on segments beyond youth makes hard business sense. I wonder if Orange will crack the code and grab the attention of the prosumers or any of the other potentially lucrative segments Novarra outlined it is path-breaking report. (Look for more on Novarra, next in the series Getting Personal, a special MSG report on personalization technologies.)

While it’s a smart move for Orange to target other segments, it begs the question: how should Orange tweak the Blyk blueprint to achieve its business objectives?

Free content/services works with cash-strapped youth. But how do you get the attention of affluent mobile professionals or life-stressed muli-taskers? (And let’s not forget the same dilemma faces Blyk copy-cat service providers such as Croatia’s ad-funded MVNO Tomato Plus and Gigafone, a mobile marketing services group that borrowed more than a page from Blyk’s founding concept.)

Happy coincidence that I was thinking this through when I bumped and connected with Alan Moore, an esteemed colleague and renowned social media/engagement marketing  pundit you’ll see a lot more of on MSG. (In fact you can get in the mood for our regular laid-back, hands-on look at what YOU need to know about social media marketing by checking out my two-part interview with him on behalf of bnetTV here.)

So, what are the do’s and don’ts for Orange (and really any company serious about advertising) moving forward?

1)   Think beyond offers that are about content and apps. Youth may like them, but the real value may lie in the mashups that bring it all together (with calendars, contact books, communities, you name it!) to simplify/enhance our lives on mobile.

2)    Don’t get hung up on free. As Alan pointed out in an invigorating rant on Skype, and again in his must-read post, Spotify is a case book example of how functionality (allowing people to do something with the content they get for free and share the end-results with the people who matter to them most) beats out freebee. As Alan puts it: “Last.FM or Spotify have understood that “FREE” is not the kicker, it’s the quality of the service that ‘enables’ its users in a rich variety of ways. Playlists, recommendations, personalization, discovery, contextualization, location, sharing are again part of this new vocabulary.”

3)    Think big – and think networked. Enabling people to interact with content on their terms is they way things are. Get it right and reach will follow.

Regular readers will recall that MSG was commissioned to conduct Mobile Advertising UK, a research project research endorsed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), to expertly document the state of the mobile advertising industry in the U.K. and identify growth opportunities in the emerging mobile advertising marketplace. The report – which combines valuable consumer insights gathered by ÆNEAS Strategy Consulting and Management (coordinated by my esteemed colleagues Tarik Fawzi and Atva van Zanten) and qualitative research based on 20+ interviews with operators, enablers, agencies, and brands contributed by MSG – will be formally released in July.

In the meantime, allow me to share some of the key findings and data points based on an online survey of 1,000+ UK mobile users. (And please follow along in the complete presentation below via SlideShare, and listen in to this audio interview via The Really Mobile Project, where I put some of the stats into perspective.)

At a glance:

• Today the mobile advertising market in the U.K. totals nearly GBP 30 million ($48 million).
• Mobile advertising accounts for only 0.16 percent of the total advertising market – which is where Internet advertising was in 1998.
• ÆNEAS Strategy forecasts that mobile advertising will see accelerated growth in four years and so account for a significant portion of advertising spending. Drivers include: A calculated growth rate of 99 percent in 2008 vs. 2007; the overall shift towards digital advertising; and increased demand for targeting, reach, and a medium that -like no other – allows advertisers to identify and track unique visitors. (For more on this unique capability and the benefits I encourage you to read my own road test of mobile analytics solutions.)
• Only 32 percent of those surveyed have a positive attitude about receiving advertising on their mobile phone. However, 64 percent said they would accept advertising is they are properly incentivized, and 70 percent said they would accept mobile advertising if they are incentivized AND in control.
• The majority of those surveyed felt 5 advertising messages per day was the limit of what they would accept.

Unsurprisingly, youth are most familiar with mobile advertising channels (specifically rich media such as MMS and in-game advertising (approaches we know from the likes of Unkasoft). What’s more a whopping 84 percent of youth surveyed has a positive attitude toward mobile advertising if incentivized. The bottom line: Acceptance of mobile advertising is right up there with TV and other more traditional media IF we can get our head around what incentives to offer and develop the mechanisms that put people in control.

No clue on the right incentives, but it’s not a given that companies need to offer cash to capture people’s attention. In the fireside chat I recorded with Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy UK Vice Chairman, we discuss the value of branded utilities and life-simplifying services. Will people accept advertising if the pay-off is less stress/more convenience? It sure looks that way!

Rory Sutherland audio interview

A highlight for both me and the audience was the entertaining and educational fireside chat with Rory, whose interest in -well – us and the finer points of behavioral psychology brought much-needed balance and big-picture vision to the discussion. As he points out in this recent opinion column in New Media Age: The job at hand is to use ideas to turn human understanding into business advantage. During our interview he made it clear that mobile is a medium perfectly suited to achieve just this goal. (Listen to the audio interview here. It’s 28:40 – but time flies when you’re having fun – and this sheer genius!

A few excerpts that made us think:

YES WE CAN!: Mobile can change people’s behavior – primarily because it takes the heavy-lifting out of doing things we might not do otherwise. Case in point: Charity. A moment of “epiphany” for Rory was the huge response to SMS campaigns asking for donations, although we have assumed that youth is not a demographic to give so generously. As he put it: “If this technology can change behavior that significantly, then who cares how good it is at advertising. Advertising is about changing opinions as a half-way house to changing their behavior.” The bottom line: If you can change people’s behavior from the get-go with mobile, then it deserves a top-notch spot in our campaigns.

LIFE-SIMPLYING: Rory’s message: Don’t dismiss branded utility because it’s unglamorous. Being brandedly useful is key. (And here is an example from Rory’s Twitter feed that illustrates this approach. The IBM Scout is a branded app that helps people get the most out of the Wimbledon 2009 Championships, providing live coverage of just about everything.

COUCH POTATOES: Let’s face it – many of us are. Rory figured this out when he was watching a line of cars at a drive-in ordering fast-food. Not one got out of the car to order at the counter – even though it was empty. Connect the dots, and it’s clear we are all a bit lazy. Apply this observation on basic human behavior to mobile and you have a powerful combination indeed! We will likely reach to the medium at hand (the personal device we have with us at all times) because it’s more convenient. “Channel preference almost trumps brand preference.” Some people may prefer Pizza Hut, but if they can order from Dominos by text, then they will likely switch for this reason. The bottom line: “Modality and modal preferences seem in a weird way to trump other things.”

WHAT’S THE POINT?: We have lost sight of what mobile can do. (A point that also came out in the research I conducted.) We’re hung up on old models and enamored of new technology, and we are missing some big opportunities. Imagine using text campaigns to encourage impulse savings instead of impulse buying. Or how about a brand that simply harnesses mobile to improve listening? As Rory pointed out: “Advertising is talking and listening. That’s a perfectly reasonable form of marketing, and mobile brilliant and you can do it in real-time.”

METRICS: We have become prisoners of our own metrics. To show us how ridiculous our obsession has become, Rory compares media buyers to alcoholics. “Alcoholics buy booze on a single metric: How much alcohol do I get per pound (GBP), and this is how media buyers buy media.”

MOBILE MATTERS:  “Mobile has been the medium of first resort and dangerous to neglect it which is probably why Google has been scared. Search has been the first place you go on the Web and mobile preempts this in some respects.”

By way of background, Rory’s bio:

Born in Usk, Monmouthshire in 1965, Rory read Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before joining Ogilvy as a Graduate Trainee in 1988. After 18 months spent as the world’s worst account handler (as a desperate remedial measure he was once booked onto a time management course, but got the date wrong) Rory became a copywriter in June 1990. He has worked on Amex, BT, Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, BUPA, easyJet, Unilever, winning a few awards along the way. He was appointed Creative Director of OgilvyOne in 1997 and ECD in 1998. In 2005 he was appointed Vice Chairman on the Ogilvy Group in the UK in recognition of his improved timekeeping.

By an amazing stroke of luck (his brother is an academic) Rory first used the Internet in 1987. Hence he had the advantage in 1994 of knowing what it was and what it might do a few years ahead of many colleagues. Most people would have combined this knowledge of marketing and technology to make a fortune; not Rory. Instead he became the first Briton to have his credit card details stolen online, thereby losing £22.45.

In his spare time, Rory collects self-aggrandizing job titles. He was President of the Direct Jury at Cannes in 2007, and was elected President of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in 2009. He is also the Technology Correspondent of the Spectator, the world’s oldest English language magazine. At quiet moments in the proceedings over the next few days you may like to pay a furtive visit to his blog at http://snipr.com/da9bq

Rory is married with twin daughters of 7 (Hetty and Millie) and lives in the former home of Napoleon III in Brasted in Kent. Unfortunately in the attic.

Listen to the podcast here.

Another surprise, numerous requests during the launch party for me to autograph copies. We captured it all on film, conducting interviews with a who’s who of attendees including Blinck, Irdeto, T-Mobile Hungary, Universal McCann, Velti, YouTube, and Zed. A special treat for me:  Connecting with Thomas Husson, Forrester Senior Analyst, and a colleague whom I highly respect.

Thanks again to Stan Chesnais, Netsize CEO, and Alexander Vlasblom, Netsize Group Marketing Communications Director, and the Netsize team for making the evening possible and teaming up with MSG to plan the next step.

The aim is to make the Netsize Guide a completely interactive experience, and so encourage a lively discussion about the book, and with the 34 C-Level executives that kindly granted me interviews. I’ll have more details soon, so please check back regularly – and download your guide for free here.

Many of you have asked me why I am convinced this year’s Netsize Guide sets the bar. The reason is simple. In line with last year’s Netsize Guide (which I also wrote), this new edition draws from news, reports, and exclusive interviews to document the on-going impact of mobile on industry sectors ranging from content to commerce. But this year I had the green light to take it a bold step further.

Rather than try to identify the next big thing, I went for a big picture view of where mobile is now and where it is going.

In line with this  focus I emphasize the people-side of the equation, and examine the pivotal importance of relevancy and targeting in everything from mobile advertising to mobile gaming. I also explored how the rise of the mobile Web is blurring the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds, allowing us to live work and play in a state of hyper-connectedness. From contactless payment services, to interactive mobile advertising campaigns that hyperlink real-world items and experiences using cameraphones, coupons or 2D barcodes, I have recounted the examples and collected the interviews that give a glimpse of the future.

Enjoy!