It was the Sun Wap Won it!
LONDON — 2007
Mediacells today announces The Sun's mobile portal as the winner of its monthly mobile services benchmarking study. ITV mobile wasn't far behind in the rankings but the surprisingly low-scores go to youth-demographic TV companies Channel 4 and MTV.
In January, Mediacells, the independent mobile tracking company, used the opportunity of the First Mobile Advertising Forum in London to assemble a team of industry experts who assessed four high-profile mobile websites using Mediacells' robust, DTI-approved scoring criteria.
The team, including delegates from Turner Broadcasting, Carphone Warehouse, T-Mobile and AOL made their assessment in a 'live and dangerous' environment.
Brad Rees, founder and managing director of Mediacells, says:
"Clarity on hidden mobile costs was key to The Sun's triumph in this month's benchmarking," said Brad Rees, founder and managing director of Mediacells, "especially as there is a real push by media owners at the moment to promote their content independently of the big mobile operator portals like Vodafone Live and T-Zones."
A consensus was reached in the forum that The Sun's site is the best example of how a traditional media owner can enhance a flagship brand by providing appropriate content for use in the mobile medium.
"In traditional tabloid style, the instructions and communications are crystal clear while at the same time providing depth of information – right down to mobile phone compatibility support – and, more importantly, alerting Sun readers to the unknown network data charges, which can rack up if you're not on a data tariff," continues Rees.
Channel 4's mobile site scored lowest in the Discovery and Communications category for failing to inform the user that, unless he is subscribed to a data bundle (a network tariff allowing free mobile websurfing) he will be charged a hefty rate for downloading a 'free' video.
In some cases, depending on the file size of the video, the 'free' video could be as expensive as £15.
The average cost of the 'free' video in question was £4 for Orange customers, £2.35 for Vodafone customers, £3 for O2 customers and a whopping £7.50 for unsuspecting T-Mobile customers.
The Mediacells benchmarking initiative comes at a time when between 15% and 21% of the UK mobile phone-owning population is accessing the mobile internet at least on a monthly basis.
Mediacells Benchmarking Criteria
- Discovery/Comms (How do I get to the content in the first place?)
- Navigation (How easy is it to access the content once I get there?)
- Optimisation (How suitable is the content for my device?)
- Ad Usage (How appropriate were the ads served up to me?)
- Brand effectiveness (How well did the site reflect the media owner's
brand, if applicable, or the brand (s) hosted by the media owner site?)
Mobile Device Selection Criteria
Mediacells chose the Sony Ericsson K800i to test mobile portal experience in the forum's workshop experiment, based on the following qualifications from mediacells.com:
- Blended EMEA Forecasts 500,000 – 1,000,000
- Demographic: Style Conscious (aged 18-34)
Source: Mediacells 2007, supplier of mobile sports content in the UK, partnering with all five major mobile networks in the UK and with a host of aggregators and print publishers.
Related Mediacells Statistics
- Between 70% & 80% of all active phones in Europe can send pictures
- 15% of Germans own a smartphone
- Italy has nearly 91% penetration of camera phones
Source: Mediacells January 2007 Monthly Market Report
For the full Benchmark Report contact press@mediacells.com
Contact: Brad Rees (00)44 (0)7957 614 333
Website: www.mediacells.com
Email: press@mediacells.com