Mobile marketing company Gigafone is launching its new mobile digital advertising platform Ochre at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Ochre will help brands with planning, creation, delivery and measurement of creative mobile digital campaigns.

"We've been talking to agencies and brands, asking them what issues they've been having with mobile advertising," said Andrew Grill, head of business development for Gigafone, London. "Many have told us that it's too hard to plan, book and manage, and that you can't measure it.

"Consumer brands' budgets are being squeezed, but at the same time they know that mobile is a great medium,"he said. "This is a platform-play, building a mobile advertising marketplace by bringing together a range of partners.

"Banner ads are not the answer long-term.

As companies are seeking a more focused and effective use of their advertising spend, agencies and brands need more reasons to invest in new advertising media.

While full of potential, today's mobile campaigns are no more measureable or targeted than television and online, according to Gigafone.

"We're planning buying delivering and measuring campaign, as well as building intelligence so we can measure every campaign accurately,"Mr. Grill said. "We help brands choose the most appropriate channel for their type of audience.

"Brands want reach, as many eyeballs as they can get, but we want to introduce relevancy as a metric, because we don't want advertising to be annoying to consumers,"he said.

"A successful campaign is not necessarily driving lots of click-throughs, it's more about brand awareness and buying propensity.

To become more prominent in the marketing mix, mobile must be part of a seamless cross-platform advertising proposition.

However, today the four major parts of the mobile advertising process -- campaign creation, planning, distribution and result measurement -- are fragmented.

This fragmented mobile advertising ecosystem creates a catch-22 for advertisers and agencies, according to Gigafone, because measurement and planning on mobile are difficult and this dramatically reduces the propensity for brands to invest in mobile advertising in a turbulent economic environment.

The key to Ochre will be to let advertisers choose the best mobile delivery channel for individual campaigns by using the analysis and reporting capabilities built into the platform based on previous campaigns.

Ochre combines booking and planning tools with user-generated profiling and historical campaign analysis to allow advertisers to make an informed choice about which delivery mechanism will resonate best with the consumers they are looking to engage with.

Howdy, partners
Gigafone has brought together mobile advertising companies such as Xtract, Vizimo, Palringo, Aditon, Yodel Digital, Icom Group, Liquid Air Lab and Sponge Group as launch partners for the Ochre platform.

Xtract refines social interaction, behavior and demographic data to create 3D consumer profiles. These profiles use data as a dynamic tool in the day-to-day marketing for targeting of campaigns and advertising.

Xtract's Social Links is an automated, self-learning service capable of analyzing billions of mobile transactions with actionable tools for carriers to define target groups for their marketing campaigns.

Launch partner Vizimo's ad inventory sits within its mobile TV listings application, which enables Vizimo to build up a profile of each consumer's viewing preferences.

Palringo is a social network with a smart voice IM client that works like a walkie talkie where consumers can see their friends on a map. If consumers provide information about where they are and what they are doing, that can be for targeting.

Yodel Digital and Sponge Group are using Ochre for mobile metrics.

Icom Group offers smart apps around festivals and exhibitions and a ski guide that can be personalized.

Liquid Air Lab specializes in in-game advertising. The company monetizes content with personalized advertising by asking consumers what they are interested in receiving.

Consumers get various benefits for receiving advertising.

With demographic and purchasing characteristics changing on a campaign basis, Ochre has been designed to reduce the risk of mobile advertising.

Advertisers can now switch delivery channels at the click of a button, making sure content and information gets to the right person at the right time, meaning consumers receive relevant and timely information about products that they are interested in and advertisers can reduce wastage generated from blanket campaigns.

Gigafone's goal is for Ochre to provide the transparency required to optimize advertising campaigns to improve return on investment.

Gigafone plans to recruit more partners to the platform over the coming months, and is working closely with leading brands and agencies to provide a tailored experience with a range of relevant delivery channels for all digital campaigns.

Gigafone will be exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Feb. 16 -- 19 at Stand AV 16, located on the main avenue.

"Everyone agrees that mobile will be the future due to the personal nature of the device, but there have been false starts and stumbling blocks,"Mr. Grill said. "Mobile operators have to be involved in everything we do, but at this point mobile advertising is not a major focus -- it's a nice-to-have, not a must-have, so there hasn't been much innovation.

"TV and the Internet both took a while to realize their full potential -- every time we introduce a new technology, it takes a while to find its footing,"he said. "Mobile is a very different medium, and mobile advertising is not always about reach, so a step-change is required by the industry.

"We need to get it right, because if mobile advertising becomes spam, it ruins it for everyone -- just look at email marketing.

For mobile marketing to reach the next level, the different players in the ecosystem must work together, and that obviously includes the carriers. All-you-can-eat data plans are a key first step to evolve the mobile advertising space.

"Carriers are a big part of the story, because brands don't want just Vodafone customers, they want everyone, and carriers need to facilitate that,"Mr. Grill said. "The competitive nature of carriers is preventing that, because they don't think broadly, they just think about their own consumer base.

"It will remain fragmented while each area of the industry remains on its own,"he said. "Let's get together under one umbrella and work towards a common goal and recruit others.