In 2007, precise and directed advertising has become an important topic in the online advertising industry, which is now more focused on orientation and pertinence. Hou Tao, Deputy Director of iResearch Industrial Research Department, suggested that relevance and precision are crucial to the future of online advertising.

The amalgamation of online advertising is set to be broadened and intensified. In terms of function, the roles of advertising, public relations, marketing and sales will become more integrated. The current presentation tactic of online advertising is to focus on the use of multimedia, such as audio and visual effects, and to build upon the unique strengths of print media and TV advertising. Strategically, there will be more integrated packages that tightly link and coordinate print, TV and online advertising to leverage the different publicity effects of the media.

Mobile phone advertising

According to estimates, in 2007, the number of new mobile phone users in China will reach 63 million. Up to June of last year, the number of mobile phone users in China was 426 million, exceeding the number of TV viewers and Internet users.

Numerous domestic and globally recognized brands, such as BMW, Li Ning, Softto, Mengniu, Lenovo, Coca Cola and BenQ, have stepped up their mobile phone advertising. This confirms the forecast of Andrew Robertson, CEO of the world's third largest advertising company, BBDO, who said, "The mobile phone and other wireless telecommunications equipment will become the main choice of media for advertising agencies."

Mobile phone advertising is considered to be one of the most precise advertising formats.

In China, one in every three people now has a mobile phone. With such an immense market, advertising agencies will certainly attempt to send product service and sales information to the target audience through mobile phone advertising.

A report from market research company Informa Telecoms & Media indicated that revenue from mobile phone advertising around the world would reach $11.35 billion by 2011.

In the short term, mobile phone advertising revenue will continue to be generated mostly from text message and multimedia short message service (SMS). Last year, of the $871 million total in mobile phone advertising revenue, 72 percent was generated via SMS. By 2011, however, the share of SMS advertising income is expected to drop to 24 percent.

Today, the quality of the mobile phone advertising sector in China can be described as mixed. Without exception, mobile phone users are frustrated by the constant stream of junk messages with inductive, deceptive and pornographic content. For this reason, the sending of bulk short messages without the consent of recipients has greatly affected the healthy development of the mobile phone advertising industry.

Mobile phone advertising will only develop further when these problems have been rectified, by both the government and operators. Analysys International senior media research analyst Fu Xinghua said that this fundamental problem could only be solved through the implementation of new legislation.

Overseas, because of the use of more advanced wireless telecommunications technologies, mobile phone advertising has entered a relatively mature phase. Not only are short messages used as a vehicle, but advertising can also be implemented in online TV, movies and games.

U.S. virtual network operator Virgin Mobile has launched a promotion event. Users only have to watch the mobile ads to get a few minutes of free TV or movie viewing time.

Compared with traditional TV broadcasts, the advantage of mobile phone TV service is that the mobile viewers are more patient than TV viewers watching commercials and will be more influenced by the ads. For example, after viewing the commercial of a certain brand of pizza, the mobile phone user might make a call to order a pizza right after. This saves them the time of looking for the mobile phone or other telecommunications devices. This simply illustrates the superiority of mobile phone advertising.

Many domestic enterprises are becoming excited and seeking out technologies and business models to enter this market. "Many more enterprises will join this industrial chain after 3G services start," an insider added.

Game-embedded advertising

Embedded advertising in online games is the latest emerging media.

Statistics from iResearch show, on average, online gamers spent up to two hours online everyday. This period of time is available for effective advertising. For most online gamers, the impact of the online gaming media exceeds traditional media such as TV and newspapers. However, the advertising expenditure targeting this group of people accounts for only 0.07 percent of the total traditional advertising expenditure.

Game-embedded advertising has long existed overseas-the famous Massive Co. embeds ads in single-machine games. In China, game-embedded advertising is more prevalent in the online gaming sector. For example, The Tang Episodes game integrates beef jerky products and the Car Racing game is packed with the logos of various brands.

Last year, there were 31.12 million online gamers in China, a year-on-year increase of 18.5 percent. The Chinese online gaming market has been recognized internationally as the market with the biggest potential.

Jason Kuperman, Managing Director of Agency.com China, indicated that advertising agencies have a keen interest in online game-embedded advertising and are strongly attracted to new media and new technology.

(Xinhua Finance)