By Cesar S. Cesar*

In some markets, competition is the keyword. Brands compete for consumer’s preference offering advantages, services, prices… Although in other markets competitors are put together in a network, mobile marketing is a good sample of this scenario. Investing in a mobile adnetwork is a bet in goals all companies in the world have in common: profit and growth.

Recent data from Brazilian National Agency of Telecommunications (Anatel) points that Brazil have reached 150 million cell phone devices by the end 2008. This number is bigger than the whole population of Europe’s greatest economies, like France or Germany, but it’s still stuck in some local peculiarities. Only 7% of these 150 million cell phone subscribers (around 11 million people) uses mobile internet regularly, compared to 40 million users through desktop computers. The perspectives are optimistic, especially when touch screen devices are brought together, but strategically, mobile marketing companies thought up something else to reach a meaningful audience.

You could ask yourself who are these people who surf and interact with mobile advertising in Brazil. As a person who works with internet and mobile for over 10 years, I would answer that they are highly waged adult trend setters. They are the target that every big company wants to reach. However, advertising on mobile is not enough to get in touch with these people. You also need to bring content and the most important: prove it’s worthy.

In mobile world, an adnetwork is a strategy to bond players and add value to a market. In Brazil, this model brought commercial integration and mobile advertising development since its implementation almost ten years ago when people were still handling their palmtops. Nevertheless mobile adnetworks gave a huge incentive to digital media, whereas advertisers still prefer public-access TV, newspapers and magazines (advertising budget at digital media – including internet - is still less than 5%!). The method has worked well for joining big content providers. The equation is simple: advertisers search for trends, relevant partners add value to mobile advertising space.

It’s been a successful approach, not only for Brazilian unique marketplace but also for already being positioned in a very promising movement for mobile advertising. This, however, isn’t an exclusive characteristic of Brazil. Worldwide, big companies like AdMob and MADS unveiled the secret of mobile advertising investing on partners, providers and advertising networks. The difference is that Brazilian model is unique since is based on brands’ value. More than CPM (Cost per Impression) or CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) campaigns they are sponsorships. More than a marketplace where the relation between advertisers and content providers are restrict to an online auction system, the Brazilian model inaugurated a market where the value of a content brand is associated to desires sold in the ads. When would you imagine big content providers like New York Times and Washington Post like partners? We have ours: Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo, two of the most important Brazilian newspapers, are brought together in a mobile news advertising product offering.

The results are better each day. In Brazil, building a mobile site is as inevitable today as was build an internet site 10 years ago. Thinking of scalability is also plannnig to attract advertisers into this new media. Worldwide it’s already millions of dollars and millions of users that surf, make contents and interact with mobile ads in these networks. AdMob’s December report, for instance, reach 6,3 billion requests. Of course Brazil is a growing market and there is a large path to walk, but certainly our way is being achieved uniting efforts and bringing results to all parts involved.

*Strategy and Marketing Director at Hands – pioneer mobile advertising company in Latin America - , expert in innovation, digital entrepreneur, author and speaker. For more info see http://www.linkedin.com/in/cesarscesar.