Hungama Mobile, Amobee to offer ad platform

Amobee offers advertising across platforms like video, SMS and games, which will give Hungama Mobile’s advertisers more choice

Mobile VAS company Hungama Mobile has tied up with US-based Amobee Media Systems to offer a wider range of platforms for its advertisers.

Amobee enables contextual ads on SMS, MMS, videos, WAP portals and games. On the SMS platform, for instance, a relevant ad appears at the end of the text message. On the video platform, a short video ad plays while the video clip is downloading. The idea is to make these mobile services available to customers for free or at a lower rate, as they will be funded by the advertising.

Hungama Mobile, Amobee to offer ad platform

“Like Amobee, we are convinced in the ad-funded model to enhance consumption of mobile entertainment and indeed grow it from its current $23 billion (global) market size to $42 billion over the next three years,” said Neeraj Roy, managing director and CEO, Hungama Mobile, in a statement.

“Results have clearly shown that users consume considerably more content and communication in the Amobee ad-funded model than in the current ‘user pays’ world. In fact, our analysis suggests that this model has the potential to quadruple the current mobile gaming industry alone,” added Patrick Parodi, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Amobee.

Hungama Mobile already has a mobile advertising system in place through its SMS short code and WAP portal for clients like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Citibank. It also has partnerships with most of the mobile operators in the country.

As regulations are being laid for less-intrusive mobile advertising methods, developers are looking for the way out through ad platforms such as that of Amobee. Recently, Airtel announced a tie-up with SMS 2.0 for SMS advertising, Webaroo mobile announced SMS GupShup which is funded by advertising and Mobileworx announced ZestADZ, a similar advertising platform.

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