Ads on Calls...Bold new world

One of the many things on the perpetual “things to do” list is launch our forthcoming ad trial.

Jangl (as well as Jajah and Voodoovox) was covered by Fortune today. I did this interview back in early December in a very cold New York City. There's also a very-abbreviated version in the latest hard copy magazine.

It's true that Jangl is about to trial advertising again (we did this in mid-2006 with a partner property). We learned a lot back then, and have continued to learn via focus groups, consultation with many experts and vendors, and more.

Excerpt from the story:

Pioneers in the nascent in-call industry acknowledge that in-call marketing is pretty cutting edge. "We know this is kind of bold," says Jangl founder Michael Cerda. "But these are bold times." It is so cutting edge, in fact, that a lot of advertising agencies haven't even heard of in-call marketing, and those that have are somewhat skeptical. "The first question I would have is how is privacy being handled," says Angela Steele, a mobile marketing vice president at ad buyer Starcom USA. "People need to know that by using the service, that information can be used for advertising."

First off, most of the mobile ads people think about [when they think mobile ads] are WAP ads, analogous to web ads. There are certainly other opportunities around mobile ads, namely the in-call ads the story mentions, but also SMS ads.

So what have we learned? In order for any in-call advertising to be useful and usable, a few critical things apply. First, placement of an in-call ad is key. If placed up front, it has to replace (or overlay) the naturally-occurring connection time, or ringing, that takes place on every call – which means that it also has to be brief. Second, it has to be as relevant as possible. (I hate that damn Zales commercial but I love any Apple commercial).

The argument, by the way, that we would delay emergency calls to insert an ad misses a key point about Jangl: we aren’t a VoIP replacement for your phone, and thus would never be used to make an emergency call. Along these same lines -- and despite what many might think – Jangl is not about making cheaper phone calls.

From day one, we’ve been about using your regular mobile handset to talk and text with greater privacy, control and management capabilities than a regular phone and phone number afford you. Nothing about advertising changes that – on the contrary, the very fact that Jangl provides privacy, control and management makes advertising that much more relevant and appropriate.

As I’ve said, we’ve learned a lot already, and no doubt will learn more as we approach launch. The overarching thought here is that the customer is king – which is why we’ve spent so much time making sure we do this right.

Yes, Jangl is a bold company. Most start-ups are. Start-ups are built to do what more established companies don’t -- forge ahead into unknown waters – because they can, and should, bear the burden of greater risk/reward.

It was a real pleasure talking with Stephanie at Fortune. As anyone who’s been in this business already knows, she’s the epitome of professionalism.

Technorati Tags: ads on calls, fortune, jajah, jangl

Comments

[David Evans]

Thats great news Michael. I've been talking about in-call ads with a client interested in running their services over a voip connection. It will be interesting to see how targeted and invasive they are.

[Shai Berger]

Congrats on the coverage Michael.

Seems to me there remain two major untapped veins of ad space. And both are phone related. 1) Display ads on mobile phones and 2) Audio ads in the call.

Lots of start-ups are trying to figure out #1. Not so many focusing on #2. But, the funding of Pudding Media last week is definitely a sign that we're going to see a lot of activity in this space in '08. A few notes about that here: http://www.shaiberger.com/?p=50