Irish mobile marketing firm Púca has launched a new platform for delivering advertising on the mobile internet and has already implemented campaigns for Reebok, Halifax, MovieStar.ie and Warner Music.
The launch of PúcaTarget comes just as Vodafone and other mobile operators are moving away from the "walled garden" approach of limiting internet access from mobile phones. Vodafone recently launched a full mobile internet service on the back of a relationship with internet brands such as Google, eBay, YouTube and MySpace.
The new Púca platform allows advertisers to place targeted ads on relevant mobile internet sites.
According to Shane Kavanagh, marketing and communications manager with Púca, one of the key features of PúcaTarget is that it ensures the right size advertisement is served up depending on the phone that is being used to access the web page.
Púca used research from the Mobile Marketing Association on the capability of current phones on the market and now serves up four different advertisement sizes which Mr Kavanagh says covers "almost every phone on the market".
He says that advertising on the mobile internet is still in its infancy and is predominantly about placing banner advertisements on the top of web pages. "No one is using skyscrapers, pop-ups, islands or any of the other formats used on the web," says Mr Kavanagh.
Púca has launched the service for its clients in Ireland and China. He says the success rates of the campaigns, measured by the number of click-throughs in relation to the number of times the advertisement has been viewed, are extremely high, although he says he can't provide specific data for commercial reasons.
Púca also creates the landing pages that users arrive at when they click through from the advertisements.
Mr Kavanagh agrees that some users may be resistant to advertising on the mobile internet given the higher access charges compared with that from a PC. "People are paying for the service so it has to be advertising that's not of an invasive nature," he says.
