Mobile interactivity and advertising provider SinglePoint has debuted the SingleBrand Ad Marketplace.

The company claims that it is the first real-time mobile advertising marketplace for SMS and MMS ad campaigns generated by popular interactive TV shows on major networks, such as CBS Corp., NBC Universal and Viacom. The platform lets advertisers and brands browse available inventory, buy ads, submit creative and monitor campaign results, all via the Web.

"Our strategy is to create opportunities for our clients, media companies and TV broadcasters, creating a place where their inventory of advertising messages would be visible," said Rich Begert, president/CEO of SinglePoint, Bellevue, WA.

"Because of the uniqueness of interactive TV and messages generated based on broadcasters inviting consumers to participate, media companies can say, 'Here is the inventory of messages I have with, say, Heroes, and here are the number of messages I plan to be generating this season, which will reach such-and-such demographics,'" he said.

"Advertisers can look at the demographic they're targeting and put in an offer to place advertisements on those messages."

SinglePoint's publishing clients include NBC Universal, with brands such as the USA Network, the Sci-Fi Channel, MSNBC and CSNBC, ESPN/Disney and Viacom, with brands such as MTV, VH1, Spike TV and Comedy Central.

SinglePoint has run mobile marketing campaigns for shows such as Survivor, Top Chef, Project Runway and Deal or No Deal.

For the latter, SinglePoint launched a mobile version of the "Beat the Banker" game. Consumers could download the game in return for participate in the show's mobile sweepstakes.

Brands that have served mobile advertising with one of SinglePoint's clients include L'Oreal, Ford, Chevy, Kraft and Nordstrom's BP Fashion.

Nissan, Hilton Hotels and Visa all advertised on NBC's mobile platform for the Beijing Olympics.

SinglePoint can also enable ad-supported mobile content, including video, ringtones, wallpapers and games.

The company ran a mobile couponing initiative with NBC, with uniquely generated alpha-numeric codes on mobile coupons that could be redeemed on NBC's Web site.

"We serve all types of mobile advertising, but we recommend text-based campaigns to start with," Mr. Begert said. "Because 98 percent of all phones can send and receive text messages, SMS campaigns have the broadest reach."

NBC News and the Today Show send out SMS alerts to let its viewers know who is going to be appearing on the shows.

NBC also sends out sports alerts with scores and leaderboards.

Many TV shows, including Project Runway and Survivor, are running SMS sweepstakes, polls or voting.

For example, if consumers sign up for Heroes alerts, they receive up to 10 text messages during each show giving them background information about what is happening in the show while they are watching.

"In the past month we've sent out 5 million ad-eligible messages, each associated with particular show," Mr. Begert said. "They are inherently targeted to the specific demographic of each show."

Advertiser either pay for a certain number of impressions or based on specific performance benchmarks.

One retailer wanted to have 10,000 impressions a day, running all the way through the holiday season.
As part of the SingleBrand Advertising Platform, the new Ad Marketplace presents a complete onscreen inventory of scheduled mobile messaging campaigns by each TV show.

SinglePoint's targeting technology offers aggregated viewer data that allows further targeting by demographic, geographic, behavioral and psychographic criteria.

Time- and location-sensitive campaigns are also possible.

Publishers -- that is, TV networks and show producers -- have the added benefit of fully showcasing their mobile ad inventory in one location to maximize their use of inventory and competitive pricing.

Advertisers can login to the Web-based Ad Marketplace to view available inventory, pricing and demographic reach.

Once these selections are made and the advertising is uploaded with associated preferences, this information is transmitted to the publisher in real-time for viewing and approval.

Publishers login to the Ad Marketplace to define new inventory or review pending inventory buys, and can accept or reject advertising requests.

Once approved, the advertisements are queued for serving into the scheduled campaigns.

As the ad campaigns are running, advertisers and publishers can both view real-time performance metrics, such as impressions served, response rates and revenue earned.

SinglePoint claims that it served close to 5 million ad-eligible text messages in the month of September alone, and that its response rates range between 3 and 10 percent.

By using the SingleBrand Advertising Platform, comprised of the Ad-Insertion Platform and Ad Marketplace, advertisers can buy inventory and submit ads for direct insertion into TV-originated mobile messaging campaigns.

Ad formats that can be used include text and multimedia messages -- both SMS and MMS -- enabling direct response campaigns such as click-to-call, click-to-link and click-to-SMS.

SingleBrand Ad Marketplace is integrated with the SinglePoint product suite, which supports applications such as ticketing/coupons, video streaming and content download.

It can also be customized and integrated with third-party campaign creation and advertiser management solutions.

SinglePoint provides media interactivity and mobile advertising to a total audience of more than 260 million North American wireless subscribers.

SinglePoint claims that it powers 84 percent of television-to-mobile interactivity in North America today, with more than 60 million television-driven iTV transactions processed in the last six months.

SinglePoint works in partnership with entertainment brands, media companies, brand managers, advertising agencies and mobile networks.

SinglePoint's full suite of offered services include TV/Web/radio voting and polling, text2screen, text and multimedia message ad insertion, advertising video overlay, ticketing/coupons, video streaming and download, billing, reporting and analytics.

Investors include Ignition Partners, Intel Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Northwest Venture Associates, Rally Capital LLC and SeaPoint Ventures.

"We designed SingleBrand to be a true marketplace, letting any advertiser go in and view the inventory that's available, exposing this to a much larger audience," Mr. Begert said. "We want to make ad purchases in the mobile medium much easier than it has been in the past, make it more similar to an ecommerce environment, let brands and ad firms go to a Web browser and see inventory and conduct a buy right there.

"There's a lot more to mobile advertising than WAP banner ads, although we can embed WAP links into text messages," he said. "SMS is a good mechanism to drive people to your Web site, and while people don't do a lot of search and discovery on their mobile device, if you provide a pertinent link there's a high probability that they'll click through to see the offer.

"We looked for this technology all over the world, but we couldn't find it, so we had to develop it and create it ourselves."