Reaching the Pockets of Customers using SMS 2.0
What if marketers want to reach their customers in a more personalized way? Internet penetration in India is lower compared to that of mobile phones. And Affle has found its niche in providing upgraded SMS service with personalized content, context sensitive text advertisements and search options. Affle has partnered with Airtel to provide this service in India. Surprisingly, Airtel does not charge its customers for this upgraded service. This service provides enhanced SMS service by adding colors and emoticons. Users can also personalize the types of content (like News, Jokes, Movie updates, Cricket, Astrology etc.) they would like to see while reading, typing or sending the messages.
Customers have to pay if they would like to read more content, download ringtones or wallpapers, get live score or stock price etc. User can update content/ad preferences as required. They can also disable the option if they don’t want to see ads/contents. Here the ads/content are non-intrusive, unlike pop-up/interactive ads on a website. They are personalized and context sensitive. The advertisers are sure to get the attention of the mobile users. Hence more return on their advertising dollars. Airtel/Affle has partnered with companies like Aviva, Cricinfo, HSBC, Levis, Nokia, MakeMyTrip, IndiaTimes etc to provide content and advertisements. Read more in Airtel’s site and on Affle’s site.
Affle is a UK based company. They have their R&D center in Singapore and they plan to open one in India this year. This year they have plans to enter new markets Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. Affle completed its trial run of this service in India and Singapore in June, 2007 last year. Affle also has a solution called Coufon to enable access to discounts and promotions on mobile phones.
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