Today we have a an interview with Comverse Fun Dial marketing experts, Audelia Boker and Inbal Rosenberg, and Scott Manthey of JabberTones will be asking the questions!
Scott: Why have ringback tones in general been the red headed step child in the content mobile industry? I have felt that the hype in the industry after real tone/master tone debate and the never found app skipped right onto video when ringbacks were today and video is still tomorrow. Is it the carriers (b/c there is no competition= no marketing?) The content producers (figured the carriers would advertise for them?)
Audelia: For a long time, the only players that were able to market ringback tones were the operators since it's a network service. Therefore, B2C players such as content aggregators couldn't take part in the business and promote the service. This is about to change, with content mobile players stepping in.
Scott: Why haven't the enterprise sector jumped into ringback space - branding their company cell phones without spending on a pbx?
Inbal: I think it all depends on how aggressively the operator is marketing the service to this segment. We know of operators that 20% out of their ringback tones users are corporate users.
Xen: There are some mobile operators that have realized that the business is a relevant segment for ringback tones. For example, Orange IL targeted its business customers and provided a suiting offering -- to turn the ringback tone into a channel to communicate with wide audience. Many big sized companies use the corporate ringback tone as another channel of advertising (and play their advertising campaign), small and medium sized businesses, which have smaller budgets for advertising, use their company’s ringback tones to position themselves as creative, dynamic, cool and promising companies.
Scott: In terms of trends of ringback tones purchasing, is there a correlation with handsets or computer usage or any customer habits outside the mobile arena?
Audelia: Not that we know of. We are more aware of a correlation with other mobile types of usage (SMS usage, games, etc…).
Scott: I have heard that the beast selling ringback tones are movie themes - is this consistent with your data? How is the content different than the top selling ringtones? More voice tones? More music? I really care more about the content that is not being driven by a marketing campaign - A team theme song for instance.
Audelia: It very much depends on the country specificities. Overall, we know that most successful ringback tones are music related. But in some countries (e.g. Turkey, China) jokes are very successful too.
Scott: Can we compare the adoption curve in the US to Asia with the overall marketing budgets and educational campaigns?
Audelia: No. In Asia, more or less from day1, all operators and content providers invested in the service. Therefore awareness grew almost over night and service adoption was much faster.
Scott: Do you think there is a correlation between the age of ringback tones users and the fact that ringback tones are only for post paid? Whereas ringtone sales are for both pre and post paid?
Audelia: RBT are not only for post paid in most countries in the world. If that's the case in the US, it certainly has an impact on the average age of RBT users.
Xen: We run into a great example of Hutch, the Indian mobile operator, which sells ringback tones for prepaid with Fun Cards. Here is the TV ad:
Scott: How many telcos have a pre paid ringback tones service? I know Telefonica launched with Comverse but are there any elsewhere in the world?
Inbal: yes. Most operators in APAC & Eastern Europe have prepaid ringback tones service as in most cases over 80% of their users are prepaid.
Scott: Overall is the ringback tone service a less developed service than sms b/c essentially it is a voicemail technology and carriers have little faith in old technology?
Audelia: What do you mean by voicemail technology? Ringback tones is less developed mostly because it has no functional benefit, whereas SMS obviously do. Moreover, ringback tones require constant marketing efforts, whereas it's not the case for SMS. So it's less a matter of faith and more a matter of efforts required in order to promote the service and generate revenues.
Thank you Scott, Audelia and Inbal for this spontaneous interview! :) If you have further questions, feel free to send them over.
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