Strong Year For Velti As Mobile Advertising And Marketing Comes Of Age

Strong Year For Velti As Mobile Advertising And Marketing Comes Of Age


Velti’s Full-Service Technology Platform Brings Mobile Into The Marketing Mix For Global Brands; Provides Operators With a Means To Monetize Services

London, UK - Velti, a mobile marketing and advertising technology service provider, announced a very successful 2007, with revenue up 75% on the previous year.

At Mobile World Congress 2008, Velti announced the launch of the latest version of its Mobile Marketing Platform version 4 (MMP 4.0) along with significant new customer wins and updates including Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, LMVH’s Hennessy, Pepsico, Colgate-Plamolive, Ferrero, Barcardi, MTV, CBS, Vogue Magazine and Mastercard.

“2007 was the year when the mobile channel started to move into the mainstream advertising and marketing mix,” explains Alexandros Moukas, CEO of Velti. “At Velti, our market-leading full service mobile technology platform allows clients to manage more than seventy types of campaign solutions from development through to delivery and measurement. This holistic approach gives our customers the ability to deploy the right campaigns for their audiences to the timescales and across the regions they need.”

MMP 4.0 features enhanced advertising and marketing solutions spanning multiple mediums including mobile communities, games and applications. Using MMP4.0, advertisers and operators can offer consumers a unique, personalised mobile marketing experience using loyalty schemes, mobile coupons, social networks and other interactive activities

Adds Moukas: “The global media industry is looking at mobile marketing as the next big advertising platform. Velti is continually driving the market, looking to bring social networking, user generated content and digital communities into the mobile marketing mix while also enabling customers to maximise their investment in traditional media spend.”

Besides the Version 4.0 launch, Velti is also announcing significant customer wins and contract extensions. Its work with Johnson & Johnson for example, includes a mobile advice-based community for mothers-to-be; in this case Velti MMP was used to design and execute an integrated mobile marketing and advertising campaign targeting the Hispanic U.S. market. In another very interesting mobile campaign, new client Kellogg’s has launched an on-pack short code promotion for instant win prizes with very successful results.

Moreover, in 2007 Velti has created a number of brand loyalty building campaigns for major Operators in Europe, such as Orange UK. The leading UK mobile operator partnered with Velti to launch an online and mobile music community which offers a priority mobile ticketing notification and purchasing service. The campaign is aimed at engaging and developing a direct and interactive relationship with customers, allowing users to receive notifications regarding their favorite artists’ concerts and reserve tickets via the mobile.

Velti’s work with mobile operator MTEL on a short code competition led to the country’s most successful mobile campaign with over 12.5m messages from a subscriber base of just 4.5m while a Bacardi campaign for mobile invitations to parties had to close early due to its success.

Finally, in 2007, Velti and the Interpublic Group (NYSE:IPG), one of the world’s leading advertising agencies and marketing services groups, announced the launch of Ansible, their joint venture which has formed a dedicated mobile marketing agency. Ansible operates in North America and Europe, with plans to open full-service offices in Asia and is using Velti’s MMP to offer mobile strategy, creative development and campaign management, leveraging best-in-class technology and expertise. Ansible has made excellent progress since its commercial launch in September 2007, having signed up 5 Fortune-50 customers for mobile campaigns in North America, Europe and Asia.

“Velti has more than seven years of experience working with mobile operators and ad agencies,” says Velti’s COO Chris Kaskavelis. “We have been around from the start of the industry and have a deep understanding of our customers, their business practices and customers. We can show operators a way to monetise new data services. We give ad agencies another channel to offer their clients and we bring media companies new channels through which to maximise the revenue from their intellectual property. But more than that, with our technology and commitment with R&D, we offer our customers clear line of sight into the technologies and campaigns that will provide new revenue channels as the mobile advertising industry develops.”

Velti is offering demonstrations of its innovative Mobile Marketing Platform at its booth 7C86 in Hall 7.