Exclusive | Mobile advertising has a positive road ahead: M-AdCall's Jay Jain

As mobile usage in India grown consistently, it is interesting to also observe the changing dynamics of mobile advertising around the world and India. Incidentally, the Indian mobile advertising market is estimated to reach Rs 2,800 Crore by 2016 from a mere Rs 180 crore according to estimates by Avendus Capital, a Mumbai-based financial advisory firm.

M-AdCall, leading players in Mobile Advertising in India and first ever pre-roll rich video ad platform that brings full video advertisement experience to mobile screens. Recently, with an aim to bring in a revolution in the Indian Mobile Advertising Industry, the company introduceed a new innovative mobile advertising services like m-AdCall, m-Ad AppTouch, m-Ad InApp.

The fact that the number of mobile phone users in India now total over 933 million, leaves no room for skepticism concerning the potential of mobile phones as an advertising medium. Furthermore, as huge as 117M users in 2013; to grow 45% in 2014 people hooked on to their smart phones, gives the advertisers immense scope to try stuff that’s new and of appeal.

M-AdCall’s products have been launched on Micromax devices as a preloaded service that benefits customers with rewards. It will soon be rolled out across all Smartphone. The services are also currently running on Tata Docomo, Idea and MTS networks and will be extended to other operators very soon.

Adgully caught up with Jay Jain, Director & Co- Founder, M-AdCall to talk about the plans and the trends in the mobile advertising space.

He feels that the growing penetration of mobile advertising is propelled by the rapid uptake of smartphones, ( 117 million in 2013 )  the much higher view time that consumers spend on their handheld devices as opposed to Television screens and the immediacy and responsiveness that mobile advertising provides.

As we all know mobile advertising is becoming the most preferred medium by the Advertisers, elaborating on the same, he said, “It is a strong growing medium for most brands. But still attracts smaller ad spends compared with other media. Given the booming penetration of smartphones, it should probably attract a significantly higher spend. Of course, for products/services that stress on downloads or on mobile usage, Mobile is the preferred medium.”

Close to one million ‘opt-in ‘customers have already availed of this experience with the existing already successful m-AdCall mobile advertising service ‘ which is estimated to be 4-5 Mn users & 1 Mn unique users/ month by De 2014.

Well as mentioned above the way mobile advertising is being preferred and is being prominent about the brands, does Mobile Advertising will dominate the Social Networks in India, answering that Jain said, “Surely social networks will be dominated by Mobile. Globally more than 80% Facebook users are on mobile and 25 % exclusively on mobile. In India the prominence of mobiles will be much higher with internet access itself being mobile driven (of the 240 million internet users on 2014, 75% are expected to access this from mobiles).

m-AdCall is totally different from the typical forced-upon phone calls, boring SMSs, and interrupting display ads, which had made mobile advertising myopic and nothing more than an intrusion, but also is in sync with viability and affordability of communication.

On expansion plans, Jain said, “Already we have over 1.2 million users who have downloaded the service and more than half a million using it regularly. Our expansion aims at reaching 10 million users and creating a dominant advertising channel. We are self funded and have invested heavily last year and continue to do so. For our expanded customer base and further technology investment we will take up external funding at the right time.”

The products and services are being promoted strongly through TV commercials with their alliance partners and also with mobile led promotions. When asked why a brand should in-corporate these services; m-AdCall, m-Ad AppTouch and m-Ad InApp and what benefit the Advertisers, Marketers and the Brands would get out of it, Jain said, “Our services provide the power of video advertising with the interactivity of mobile. They create opportunities for deeper and continued engagement with brands. Moreover the customers have opted in and are willingly choosing to see the brand communication, which makes for a much better audience. Between the products, m- Ad Call delivers a video ad prior to a phone call and an actionable landing page after the call. m-Ad Apptouch creates communication opportunities when a customer is set to interact with apps of his choice . So they could be social apps for instance, when the customer knows he is in a relaxed frame of mind.”

“Brands are seeing different values and benefits in our ad service. Many are finding value in the deeper and more wholesome brand engagement that m- Ad call services provide. This is through Video message, interactive landing page and even continued ad engagement through brand coupons and other rewards. Others like Star Tv or a recent campaign of Mardaangi have used the service to build their content promos with viewers,” he added.

On asking about, the future of Mobile Advertising Jain stressed upon the fact that the future of mobile advertising seems to be very positive in India. “With the huge and growing base of Smartphones and mobile internet connectivity, we will see the emergence of new advertising, channels and business models on Mobile devices. m- Ad call is one such new and powerful business model that is already here and rapidly emerging,” Jain said.

Quite honestly, not many of us would mind earning a few extra minutes of talk time, gifts, coupons, & premium content by viewing a few advertisements, which otherwise might be forced upon us while watching our favorite Television show.

M-AdCall has pioneered a unique ecosystem where advertisers, mobile operators and OEMs are mutually benefitting each other. The strength of their alliance lies in their expertise, focused approach and symbiotic partnership all along the way.