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K. Ananthan

With your leave.

Shamik Paul

It is not only pizzas that you can ask for to be delivered at your doorstep but also advertisements as per your choice.

And hey presto! There they would be in your mobile phones, giving you all the latest information you want.

For those of us who have been incessantly bombarded by a variety of text messages, e-mails and telephone calls at all hours of the day (and night), the targeted advertisement services provided by the Bangalore-based mobile advertisement company mGinger could well be a saviour of sorts.

mGinger allows every individual consumer to receive only those advertisements that the consumer is interested in. Also, the advertisements are targeted at a consumer base that has opted in to the service.

On the one hand, while this is an alternative to spam as far as the consumers are concerned, it also ensures greater ROI (return on investment) for the advertisers who get a better response to their advertisements because it is targeted, says Chaitanya Nallan, Chief Executive Officer, mGinger.

“It is a platform that matches the advertisers and the consumers,” Nallan says.

How does the service work? “Its simple,” he says. The consumers have to register on the mGinger portal and give information about their age, income range, profession and personal interests. There are 76 interest categories.

The consumers can also specify the number of advertisements they would like to receive in a day and what would be a convenient time to receive the advertisements. It’s permission-based advertisement, says Nallan.

The advertisers, too, have to register with the company and have to specify the consumer group they want to target. mGinger has developed a Business Intelligence solution in-house that helps to match the advertisers with the consumers. The advertisements are then sent to the consumer’s mobile phone.

Nallan says the company also uses the Business Intelligence solution to ascertain whether the information provided by the consumers is authentic.

The company also has a system of rating the consumers based on the authenticity of the information they have provided. At present, mGinger has about 1.8 million users. By the end of the quarter, the number would increase to 2 million, Nallan says.

mGinger generally focuses on local companies. It has about 100 customers in Bangalore and Hyderabad each, and about 150 customers in Bombay and Delhi.

Out of the total 350 customers, about 250 customers are local. The rest are national customers, says Nallan. The company also has some customers in Chennai, Pune, Jaipur and Coimbatore.

Sports goods maker Adidas, Max New York Life Insurance, Reliance Digital and Mumbai-based restaurant Trafalgar Chowk are some of mGinger’s customers, according to Nallan.

“It was a good experience promoting CAVIN Cally through mGinger. Initially I was sceptical, but now I am glad,” says Jeetendra Sangram, Director, CAVIN Cally Fashions (India) Pvt Ltd, a men’s apparel company.

There was an increase of 38 to 40 per cent in footfall on weekdays.

On the weekends, there was an increase of 55 to 60 per cent. It also created actual sales because the campaign was targeted, Sangram adds.

The campaign was for 45 days. He says the company prefers to do it in spurts.

It will lose impact if it is done regularly. The company will do it for a particular offer or during season time, he adds.

Shamik.paul@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : M-Commerce | Advertising | Telecommunications

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