News tagged ‘advertising’

Recently Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse gave an interesting interview to GigaOm, where he revealed that iPad has caused the increase in demand for his company's 4G and 3G Overdrive wireless hotspots. As most consumers buy Wi-Fi iPads, devices like the Overdrive become more popular for those who want to be connected on the go.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Apple’s 2010 annual report was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Here some interesting facts:

• The Company had approximately 46,600 full-time employees (over 35% since last year's annual report) and 2,800 full-time temporary employees and contractors on its payroll;
• Apple's advertising budget for fiscal 2010 was $691 million, up 38% from last year's $501 million;
• Apple's revenues allowed the company to reduce its percentage of revenues spent on advertising from 1.37% to about 1.06%;
• The Company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in the first quarter of 2011;
• Expected that in future component cost and other cost increases.

Apple’s CEO was personally responsible for the recent canceling of a $10 million iAd campaign. Steve Jobs wasn’t satisfied with the direction Adidas was taking with its advertising concept. After third rejection of the campaign concept, Adidas pulled out of $10 million iAd deal.

The reason behind the cancellation was Steve Jobs being a “control freak”. Apple, unlike other mobile advertising providers, controls the entire advertising process with its iAd program. While Apple has insisted this has more to do with the quality of the end product, it has definitely caused some problems for advertisers.

Apple and its  iAds mobile advertising service are the target of a new lawsuit from a company that owns a patent related to location-based ads. Apple was named in the lawsuit from StreetSpace, along with Quattro Wireless, which is now being phased out in favor of iAds. Other defendants include Google, AdMob, Nokia, Navteq, Millenial Media and Jumptap.

StreetSpace is the creator of a remote Internet terminal the Web Station. Users can walk up to one of these terminals to access the Internet, and are delivered targeted advertisements in the process. The suit alleges that iAds service, launched on July 1, is in violation of StreetSpace patent because it delivers personalized advertisements based on a user's location, profile and usage history.

Related to that invention is U.S. Patent No. 6,847,969, which StreetSpace has alleged Apple is in violation of. Named "Method and System for Providing Personalized Online Services and Advertisements in Public Spaces," it was granted on Jan. 25, 2005.

According to the first-hand information in China, China Unicom is currently advertising services for jailbreaking when you buy the iPhone 4. Quite intriguing, right? Thanks to online services such as Jailbreakme.com, jailbreaking has become much easier and it seems that the Chinese carrier of cell phones can realize this service, turning it into a great marketing scheme.

According M.I.C. Gadget, the advertisement is as follows: "Support Service: Free SIM-trimming, jailbreaking, installing more than ten hot applications."

However, with jailbreaking, China Unicom also offers free cases for your iPhone 4 with purchase, so buyers will not have to use the Apple's case program.

NearFieldCommunications World reports that Apple has recently hired Benjamin Vigier as its new product manager for mobile commerce. Vigier is described as an expert in near field communications (NFC) having been in the field since 2004. Apple also has published a number of patent applications related to NFC technology. That means, that Apple’s mobile devises can be used as an electronic wallet and payment system.

Near Field Communications is short range wireless communication technology (~4 inches) that is used in mobile phones for a variety of applications including mobile ticketing, mobile payments, interactive advertising and more. The same site had previously reported that Apple has had prototype devices already outfitted with the required radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips.

Vigier joined Apple in July 2010. And now he is a product manager for mobile commerce.

First Apple’s iAd was Nissan Leaf ad. Users who viewed Nissan's Leaf electric car iAd spent 90 seconds with the interactive advertisement -- ten times longer than customers will spend with a traditional ad. Moreover, people are five times more likely to click on interactive advertisement than they are a traditional online display ad. One more proof of iAd success was made by Unilever, maker of Dove shower products, said its initial advertisement proved to be successful, with 20 percent of viewers checking the ad multiple times, and a percentage in the double digits seeking further information about the product. iAds are also popular among iPhone users,  because they don't have to leave their app and launch a browser to view them.

iAd success helps Apple to take up more than half of the mobile advertising market in 2010. And developers, too, have found success with the new iAd platform: Apple providing them a 60 percent cut of the advertising revenue.

Online advertising network Chitika published some statistics of what version of iOS is installed on users' iPhones. The results are quite interesting and predictable. The latest iPhone mobile operating system, iOS 4, is already accounting for one-half of all iPhone web traffic. These numbers are based on a statistically useful nine million iPhone page impressions.

Looking more deeply, iOS 4.0 – the version released on June 21st – has 44.5%. The latest version iOS 4.0.1 clocks in at only 5% of the market. This is understandable, since it was released less than a week ago:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today Advertising Age reported that Virgin plans to release its new magazine called "Maverick". It will be targeted on the international audience with covering such areas as travel, technology and entrepreneurism. But its main idea is that it will be fully digital, with no print version available anywhere. First of all the app for iPad will be developed, then the content will be brought to iPhone and Android. By making "Maverick" digital only Virgin hopes to substantially reduce costs.

Read the rest of this entry »

As expected iAds have arrived July 1. This advertisement for the Nissan Leaf is the first to make an appearance.

The initial launch of iAd rich media ads, featuring advertising from some of the world's leading brands, will begin July 1. At launch, we’ll roll out in North America and ramp up the number of ads served in the weeks and months ahead. For developers outside of North America, iAd will be rolled out in a few months.

Take a look: