With basically everyone in South Africa having a Cellphone these days the best way to target the average consumer is through this device. A new offering, “Eyeballs Mobile” was recently launched and is a service that allows you to view opt in adverts when you send or receive either an sms or a phonecall. Of course this is a brilliant concept as it allows you to target users on the device they use the most. Watching adverts allows you to buy airtime, Mxit Moolah (I have no idea what that is since I’m not 15 I don’t use Mxit) and other products.
So what’s the catch? This is “The Outlet”, I have to complain about the product.
Let’s break down the issues here:
Firstly, the service only works on Symbian 60 phones. This is limited to the more expensive Nokia phones and some Samsung phones. This means a very small amount of the population can actually use this service. The type of people who can afford Symbian phones don’t necessarily need to play adverts on their phone for a small amount of money.
This brings us to my second point, the amount you get paid for the advert. My sources tell me that you get paid two South African cents per advert that you watch. However, there is some interesting mathematical issue we need to consider. You pay a certain data cost every time you download an advert. Now I know with MTN, every time I connect to the Internet on my cellphone I am charged one cent no matter what I download. Now if the average user is paying two South African rands per megabyte then an extra cent will give you about 20 kilobytes worth of data. Now assuming you’re getting an image then you might make that data limit but more importantly if you’re watching a video then it’s unlikely that they will manage to make the 5 kilobyte data limit. This logic leads me to believe that you’re actually paying to use the service and more importantly paying to view adverts. Maybe it’s just me but this is not an acceptable option!
From an advertisers point of view I wonder how relevant this is to them? Again, my sources tell me they pay 20 South African cents per advert but how do they know if anyone even looked at the advert? If someone did actually watch the advert rather than putting their phone down then how do they measure return on investment? All in all this seems like a highly dubious method of advertising.
Eyeballs is, much like their radio advert maturely mentions, “poo”.
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Thank you. I just don’t get it at all and there is all this hype….so my ear ’sees’ the ad? Yet another app to download. The measurement ROI factor is the biggest concern – there are far better ways to utilise the mobile medium. Yet another fad methinks. I feel the bigger issue is that marketers aren’t well educated on the possibilities mobile offers so they go with whatever ’seems’ to be a good bet.
Aha – brilliant so glad to see someone else scepticle about this application….. which apparantly cost bucket loads of money…?
The basic fundamentals to any mobile campaign are;
REACH
INTERACTION
MEASUREMENT
If your campaign cannot reach the people you are targeting then of what value is it?
Your campaign needs to be designed around interaction with your customer.
Your campaign needs to be measureable.
So here is my response to eyeballs:
•As soon as you have to install or download something onto the phone you have lost the game.
•History shows us that the application market has been going for about 10 years and has maybe seen a penetration rate of 0.02% of the capable handsets being targeted, so very few people actually install applications, only the tech savvy. (This is changing with the Iphone)
We are not saying all apps are bad, lets look at Mxit, IM is a great app that people are keen to install as this fixes a gap in the market that MTN, Vodacom, CellC always missed – cheap txt. So there was a demand and in reality Mxit is a work around. With today’s technology you can virtually do IM on Mobi-Sites so no need to install apps.
•High end phones, – maybe 3 million people have high end phones, of which 0.02% in reality will download the App, possibly more if they market correctly – but for the purpose of this argument we will assume 2% – therefore 60,000 people install the application.
•Vodacom have adme – (not an application but a mobisite) which is a similar concept and they are stuck at 100,000 registered – not necessarily active users
•If we assume the minimum advertising bundle of R24,000 at the (heavily discounted) rate of 12 cents, it means that 200,000 impressions will be served across a registered base of 60,000 handsets, HOWEVER – in reality it will be less because an advertiser will be profiling across 5 different demographics. Possibly 10,000 people will see 200,000 adverts……..hmmm
•We all know what applications are like on our already power hungry high end phones – run an application and expect to recharge your battery in an hour
•So running this application, which runs continuously in the background, is not feasible as it will frustrate the customer.
This application focuses advertising on key functional areas of the phone which;
•Sounds like a great idea, advertising on the phone when people use the phone the most i.e. calling, receiving a call, sms-ing, receiving an SMS.
•So let’s put this into perspective;
You receive a call, caller id identifies the caller so you know who is calling you, either you answer or leave it. BUT now the application serves an advert during the ring and you have don’t answer it because you are preoccupied with an advert?….
Eyeballs mention in their collateral “The ads reach the user at a time they are positively inclined (most people enjoy receiving calls and messages on their phones)” We believe that the subscriber will be exceptionally frustrated with an application like this. Having to carry a generator to power the phone.
•You get to receive a multimedia advert with pictures and animation while you make a call, as a subscriber we much prefer this idea because we find the number we want to call, press dial, then let our ears watch the advert, wow! How excited must an advertiser be when they find out ears can watch things too?
•This reminds us of the first video calling phone launched by Nokia, great idea, they put a camera on the phone, except the camera was put on the back and released to market! Do you see the problem? They ultimately had to market the phone as “see what I see…..”
•OK so let’s leave the Voice side alone so far – which, in our opinion is a very bad idea.
•Let’s focus on SMS. At least we know the SMS is read by the eyes – not ears. OK so the SMS comes in – you see the “1 new message” you get excited as you are expecting a great MMS advert ? , except you have to wait 5 (maybe more) seconds while the application inserts an advert into the opening of the SMS, as you wait you wonder why you are carrying a power generator with you ?
•Not so great either – let’s look at their last application. Sending an SMS – this sounds like a winner. We type the Text and insert our friends/colleagues name and hit send. The SMS is sent but the application then overlays another sticky advert that big advertising dollar paid for – for your pocket to now look at, amazing! Apparently not only do ears see, but pockets can read.
Utilization of the application then rewards you with EYEBALLS own loyalty points system
•We have another winner here too, people are going to sign up for this service as they are being incentivized to the max -they earn money every time they see the advert.
•Damn! sign us up baby, who wants to earn cash because there are only 10,000 of us getting 200,000 adverts per run at a minimum. We are going to be millionaires!
•Unfortunately, there is no way this can happen because the eyeball money or loyalty points have not yet been tied up to spend where the consumer wishes to spend it.
•How much are these loyalty points worth?
•How do we redeem these points? Eyeball say we can win anything from R1000 to R50,000 rand a month.
•So that’s where we will have to spend our money – we can buy plenty of chances only 10% of users will actually enter – which means we have 1 in 1000 chance to win R1000, Thus enticing us to enter all our earnings – for that slim chance. . . hmmmm
In the end who is the winner?
The share holders of Huge Group?
The advertiser? OR
Our ever faithful, application installer, generator carrier, ear-seeing, pocket-reading, customer ?
Jeez Hans, can’t really top that can I
Hi Saul/Melissa/Hans,
Thanks for both very lengthy posts! It does seem as if you guys are sincerely passionate about not using the app!
Either way, let me try and field some of your questions – hopefully you’ll have some answers and better understanding into the product.
Firstly, it seems as if none of the commentators actually installed and demo’d the Eyeballs application. Reason I’m arguing this is that if you had installed it, the comments such as “…my ear “sees” the ad” would not have come up – the end usability of the product is quite different from your perceived statements.
Regarding phone penetration – we’re working hard to support every phone possible. I’m sure you are familiar with the labyrinth that is developing for multiple phones. Developing for mainstream phones poise difficulties around security and other areas of risk. We’ve picked the most secure phones on the market that have an audit process at the manufacturer level before commercialization. We will be releasing ranges of phones as the market and phone mature.
Regarding the battery life argument – this may be a perception as the majority of phones we have deployed on are released from the manufacturer with a minimum of 133 processes on 166 threads running in the background. Eyeballs is running on 2 processes and 2 threads. The Eyeballs application doesn’t connect on every call, it does a sync once during the day where it sends/receives all the necessary data it needs. The rest for the time the GPRS activity is not used at all. You can check to see if your GPRS connects while sending/receiving. I have the Eyeballs application installed on my Nokia N95 and haven’t had any problems (and I’ve looked at battery life!). I’ve commented a bit further down on the data charges Saul mentions.
Once again, let me comment on the usability. When you receive an SMS, the advertisement is displayed before opening, not during (which once again makes me wonder – did you install the application?). Similarly, the display ad for sending an sms is also instant. I see enough of the ads for them to make an impact, yet at the same time they aren’t obtrusive to me as a user. Best of all the application does not affect my behavior or how I interact with my phone.
On to loyalty points – Eyeballs Paybacks are earned on 4 triggers: Making/Receiving a call or Sending/Receiving an SMS. You’re going to have to re-explain your argument to me here:
“Damn! sign us up baby, who wants to earn cash because there are only 10,000 of us getting 200,000 adverts per run at a minimum. We are going to be millionaires!”
Eyeballs Paybacks aren’t split out between all the people subscribed, you only view an add when you activate a “trigger”. So your minimum or maximum viewed adverts is determined by how many triggers you activate. You aren’t allocated a number of ads from a “pool” of ads. That would be weird.
The Eyeballs Paybacks loyalty system is very clear from the outset – Free pre-paid airtime, MXit Moola and other stuff (which we’re working on) – we’ve hooked up a deal where you can donate your Eyeballs Paybacks to the WWF (the panda one, not the beefcake one) and we’re working to give users more options all the time. We feel the incentive is quite clear from the outset – Eyeballs Paybacks = Redeemable points for Airtime, MXit Moola and other great things (which we’re working on). Which of course also means; Eyeballs Paybacks does not = Redeemable points for a free trip to Hawaii. (although if we could offer that… we would).
The competition you are referring to is called the Silver and Golden Eyeball Competition. These are special ads that are served to a selected user. If they then view the ad, the send us their info. Easy. The Silver Eyeball runs every day and is a prize of R1,000, the Golden Eyeball runs weekly and is R10,000 – which you can use to fund that trip to Hawaii. Users are entered automatically into the Silver and Golden Eyeball competition – no extra sign-up necessary.
Regarding data charges:
Advertisement sizes do not exceed 20kb and they are cached – your phone downloads the ads once per day (and not every time you make/receive a call or send/receive an SMS). Some ads are even smaller – 6kb!
Typically you’d only transfer about . .more 10kb’s for daily activity. If you are a heavy user, you’d probably spend about R4 a month – still a small amount for the Eyeballs Paybacks you’d receive by viewing that many ads.
People have been getting between R20 and R120 worth of Eyeballs Paybacks. Most of these are assisted by the Refer a Friend initiative (you get more points if you refer people, than if you’d just view ads normally).
That said, the Refer a Friend is our initial strategy to boost points (and naturally reach as well) for users. You’ll earn more paybacks by referring a friend than you’d get by viewing ads. This is our initial strategy, but it might change as the product matures. We’d love it if you could suggest a couple more options.
Once again, the important thing to remember here is that the incentive of free airtime is probably not nearly enough to entice either of you to use the app. We’re not hoping that you use it (although it would be great), but the couple of hundred thousand kids out there that need airtime do. We appreciate feedback from commentators such as yourself as it helps us improve and also work on the perception of the Eyeballs concept in the real world. I’ll be happy to provide any other feedback you request.