Believe it or not, there’s money to be made in ringback tone advertising. Sure I’ve heard that those annoying messages you hear while the phone you’re calling is still in use work for some companies, but I never envisioned it to be a multi-hundred million dollar business. As a matter of fact, Juniper Research predicts that ringback tone advertising will hit $780 million annually by 2015. Guess I’m in the “haters” group this time…
Anyway, the ad format in which consumers opt-in to receive airtime or credit in return for allowing branded content as their ringback tone has already been successfully implemented in a number of markets, proving popular both with mobile users and leading brands. Moreover, it is said that some campaigns run on ringback tone advertising were currently generating substantial response rates. As an example, Juniper talks about Pepsi’s campaign on Turkcell’s TonlaKazan service that generated more than 25 million calls from 5 million users.
Meanwhile, there is expected to be a gradual transition of service users across from paid-for ringback tone to capitalize on free airtime offers…
Juniper’s report author Dr Windsor Holden, however, points out that both the operators and brands must ensure that the advertising is contextual and “does not jar with those listening”…
The story of ringback tone advertising is just one of the segments of the research company’s report titled “Mobile Advertising Strategies: Opportunities, Business Models & Forecasts 2010-2015,” which is described in full details on their website.