Yahoo! And Vodafone Unveil Significant Joint Venture

Yahoo! and Vodafone used the Media360 conference in Wales yesterday to announce a significant joint venture – “the biggest mobile opportunity in the UK” – which will launch in mid-June.

Using the Vodafone Live! portal, Yahoo! will now take responsibility for all advertising sales and adserving across the Vodafone portal incorporating a variety of mobile advertising formats; and will provide full campaign accountability.

The service will be available to 90% of Vodafone’s current customer base and on all new phones; and will benefit from improved back-end technology (rendering) and a simplified pricing structure, according to Stephen Noakes, the company’s chief marketing officer who led the presentation to Media360 delegates.

Blake Chandlee, director of UK Media Sales at Yahoo! UK & Ireland, said that lessons had been learnt and standards would be adopted at an early stage with a controlled and limited number of ad formats available, but admitted that it would take time to see which formats worked best.

By 2010 forecasters are expecting 50% of phone users to access the web this way (currently 27%) he said. The use of different business models including interruptive advertising was not ruled out. Noakes said that a survey showed a percentage of Vodafone customers would accept “interrupts” – in particular those who used their mobile frequently for seeking entertainment.

The partners believe the 100% plus coverage of mobiles in the UK market made this the natural starting point for this service, but the ambition was to roll it out globally if successful. By 2010 it is anticipated that mobile usage will outnumber PC usage by a factor of four to one.

Yahoo!: 020 7808 4200 www.yahoo.co.uk Vodafone: www.vodafone.co.uk