Spending in Mobile Advertising is currently at a very low level in Austria. Establishing a new digital medium in this old-fashioned advertising market seemed to be somehow impossible. But a positive trend, however, is already perceptible and the market will rapidly grow in the next few months.

Austria is traditionally very conservative when it comes down to adding new ad channels to the established media mix. The main part of Austria’s advertising spending is taken up by classic media, such as print or TV. While the print volume accounts for 57%, online advertising only makes up about 3%. Because of its small market share Mobile Advertising currently is not reported at all.

It is therefore not surprising, that in other European countries like Great Britain or Germany, where the quota of online advertising accounts for more than 10%, digital media is at a far higher level than in Austria.

But Austria has begun to catch up.

Currently, where everybody is speaking of the economic crisis, even advertisers have to figure out how they could spend their advertising budget more efficiently. Because of the good measurability of digital media, it is a very good choice and more and more budget is spent in such campaigns.

Mobile Advertising benefits from this positive trend. Further on, there are many other reasons which speak for the use of mobile phones as an advertising media.

The mobile phone is most personal device and usually always carried around and always on. With more than three billion devices worldwide and an enormous penetration rate of 129 percent in Austria, mobile phones offer a huge range to reach potential customers. With Mobile Advertising it is also possible to carefully place advertisements. Thus, customers could be reached with the right message at the right time and place and campaign budgets could be used very efficiently. In addition, Mobile Advertising offers the possibility to interact with the customers. Due to its numerous advantages “the importance of Mobile Advertising as a medium will certainly increase in the future”, argues Christoph Seidl, Head of MediaCom Interactions.

Beside these advantages, Mobile Advertising still has to face the huge challenge of winning the Austrian advertisers’ approval. Therefore, measures have to be taken in order to increase their awareness. According to Roland Tauchner, Chairman of MMA Austria, the actual problem lies in the ignorance of advertisers and media agencies. “Convincing them is quite a challenge, therefore we will have to communicate a lot.”

In order to face the current problem and increasing Austria’s advertisers’ awareness for Mobile Advertising permanently, many measure have been taken.

First of all, the Mobile Marketing Association Austria does a lot of Market Education, e.g. MMA-events and -publications. Additionally Austria’s Mobile Advertising suppliers increasingly take advantage of the MMA guidelines. With new products on continuous bases and proper communication the Mobile Network Operators also do their part to develop the market. Finally, again initialized by MMA Austria, the local Mobile Advertising industry is currently working on the invention of independent measurement of mobile audience, which should be implemented to provide reliable data about the reach of mobile media.

All these activities have been leading to a continuous growth of Austria’s Mobile Advertising market and help to establish mobile media as an advertising medium, which is naturally added to advertising campaigns.

And the future trend for Mobile Advertising in Austria really looks good. According to expert’s estimation it will raise significantly. This year there is the potential for a growth of up to 80% of the sales volume. This growth will continue in 2010 and will level off at about 30% constant growth within the next few years.

Mobile Advertising will reach a quota of at about one to two percent in 2012 on Austria’s advertising market and therefore - despite the different market conditions - will soon be established as a serious advertising medium with significant market share.