The potential of mobile advertising has mainly revolved around mobile web and to some extent on the SMS channels. But VAS such as ring-back-tones (RBT) also provide a good medium for marketers to achieve their promotional objectives.

“Although ring-back tones have been repurposed by operators for almost a decade, it is only recently that marketers are able to take advantage of this opportunity. With more than 3 billion mobile phones in use worldwide, and approximately 12 billion inbound calls each day (according to Nielsen Mobile), RBTs offer a compelling new media platform for marketers today,” says Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, APAC, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) which has come up with a series of whitepapers highlighting the potential of RBTs as a mobile marketing tool.

Consider the case of Star Plus. The media firm wanted to initiate a build-up for its show, ‘Music Ka Maha Muqqabla’ before airing the show. It selected mobile marketing firm, StratosHear’s audio AdRBT which consisted of six creative by well known artists such as Mika Singh, Himesh Reshamiya, Shreya Ghoshal and Shaan. A consumer making call to an AdRBT subscriber got to hear one of the six creative. The creative were of 12 seconds duration.

The campaign ran on Dec 18, 20, 25 and 26 last year and covered Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The campaign succeeded in achieving promotional goals pertaining to viral effect, extensive reach and delivery assurance.

“The biggest advantage RBT advertising offers advertisers is the wide reach, far beyond the network and the opt-in subscribers,” comments Ofer Razon, Director of Marketing, Messaging & Mobile Advertising, Comverse.

In Asia, advertising on RBT has been offered by Turkcell Turkey (service name ‘Tonla Kazan’), KTF South Korea (service name ‘Save-Ring’), Vodafone Essar India (service name ‘adRBT’), Airtel India (service name ‘Hello Tunes Lite’) and China Mobile China (service name ‘Zhao Cai Ling’). “The biggest advantage RBT advertising offers advertisers is the wide reach, far beyond the network and the opt-in subscribers,” said Ofer Razon, Director of Marketing, Messaging & Mobile Advertising, Comverse.

With 20% of India’s 500 million subscribers using RBT there is significant potential for RBT as an avenue for mobile marketing, feels Vinay Kumar, Founding CEO, StratosHear.