‘So how big is it?’ – The challenges and opportunities of measuring off-deck by Micha

[Amethon]

In my previous blog article, I mentioned mobile banner ads as one of the key forms of Mobile Advertising. What I forgot to mention was that it be a key driver in the growth of mobile internet outside the Operator’s portal, known as off-deck.

As mobile operators open up the walled garden and allow their subscribers to browse any site on the internet, we are seeing all of the major internet publishers scramble to ‘mobilise’ their existing content assets providing a much larger range of content and services to the mobile subscriber compared to their operator’s portal. The question is, are subscribers actually going off-deck and where exactly are they going?

This question is not asked out of curiosity but because understanding the size and extent of off-decl mobile browsing is fundamental to growing our industry. It starts with the content and media owners who gauge their investment in mobile based on its perceived effectiveness as a delivery channel to consumers. It then drives agencies and brands to pay content and media owners to host mobile advertising or sponsor services on the assumption that they can engage potential customers. You only have to look at the structured approach to television ratings to realize how independent and transparent measurement drives investment in both the content itself (TV shows and movies) and the associated advertising.

Measurement can also assist us as an industry to identify areas for improvement to drive uptake and usage of the mobile internet even higher. In particular, it can help to uncover the problems and barriers to mobile browsing which can be addressed through consumer or industry education campaigns.

So it is pretty clear that being able to measure off-deck browsing activity is fundamentally important for our industry – the next question is how do we do it?

The answer is that it is much easier than for the internet or even TV, and the results of this measurement is potentially much more accurate and informative.

All off-deck and on-deck mobile browsing in Australia goes through four points, the networks of our mobile operators (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Hutchison), compared with the hundreds of ISP’s and millions of televisions measured by internet and TV ratings. Both internet and television measurement rely on representative samples to develop industry statistics, however by measuring at these four points, we are able to see and measure every mobile browsing event in the country.

The personal nature of a mobile phone also increases the validity and accuracy of this type of measurement. Whereas all family members might use a given PC or watch the same television, each mobile phone invariably corresponds to an individual subscriber.

Furthermore, every operator has extensive demographic and segmentation information on their customer base, especially post-paid subscribers. Information gathered during signup of the subscriber typically includes gender, age, address and employment status. Combined with their usage patterns, each mobile subscriber can be categorised within the operator’s specific segmentation model which may include types such as early adopters, mature achievers or young sociables.

All this sounds fantastic but what do we need to do to make this happen?

The Mobile Industry Development group within Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) has established a Mobile Measurement initiative to further explore these possibilities and work with the operators and the rest of the industry to realise this opportunity. It will also focus on ensuring that the privacy and rights of consumers are protected given the sensitive nature of this information. Technically there are a number of options including aggregating statistics already gathered by the operators or deploying specific platforms such as Amethon’s Portal Analytics solution. It is early days for the mobile internet and our Mobile Measurement initiative but stay tuned for more information on both!

In conclusion, the mobile industry has the potential to provide measurements and statistics to media publishers, content owners, advertisers and brands with greater completeness, accuracy and relevance than any other communications channel. This will drive both investment in our industry as well as improvement to the services and products being offered to consumers, which are exactly the sorts of outcomes that the AIMIA Mobile Industry Group is seeking.




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