Continuing the “ads on devices” theme, Tom Hume writes that 3G UK network operator, 3, are planning to become an advertising channel as part of their new strategy, in addition to the See Me TV move that Carlo reported yesterday.

The idea is to open up their 3.2 million users to targeted advertising, which might include Push as well as Pull.

Previous experiments with downloadable video ads for the iPod and cult film “It’s all gone Pete Tong” led to 100,000 and 160,000 downloads respectively. (By the way “Pete Tong” is Cockney Rhyming Slang for “wrong” - it wasn’t a documentary on the DJ, as some reported).

This represents about 3 - 5% of the user base, or even as high as 8% if there was no duplication between the two, which admittedly seems unlikely. However, it’s also worth nothing that the novelty effect will have inflated results and the more videos are available, the more competition there’ll be. So I’d expect average response rates to fall off pretty dramatically. Of course, skilled advertisers might still achieve even better numbers if the ads are truly great and have real viral potential.

This level of pull-based response is pretty impressive, even though, as I wrote earlier, the number of brands who can create this kind of work is going to be pretty limited. In particular, making ads exclusively for a channel that gets 100,000 views is going to severely restrict production costs, unless it can be proved that these 100,000 are super-sneezers. In other words, they go out and show it to all their friends, who transfer it to their phones (via an unrecordable channel like Bluetooth) and they go on to do the same with their friends.

Having said that, while it may pain ad agencies hugely, we don’t have to look at high production values to produce an effective ad, especially given the medium. How much do you think Ringtone Dancer or Numa Numa cost to make? I’m guessing nothing in either case, though admittedly, they weren’t hampered by a brief to sell product.

So much for pull based stuff, but 3 claim that they’re going to look at push based marketing too, or that’s what I take this to mean; “customers willing to receive communications that correspond with their interests could be targeted directly”.

This is a dangerous game to play if it’s not done incredibly well - it’s not something they should attempt half heartedly. Even assuming permission is granted, wrong targeting or poor timing of the message quickly turn it into Spam. And if they’re perceived to be spamming, permission is withdrawn permanently - there are no second chances in mobile marketing.

At the very least I hope they’ve read my White Paper on this area Drop me an email using the link on the top left, if you’d like a free copy.

Original story via The Guardian.