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Paramount, Universal Studios to serve ads on mobile white space

Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios will serve graphical ads to the white space on mobile phone screens.

Digital Sidebar will power the advertisements via its Sidebar platform, which delivers ads onto the white space of devices before and after calls, and in incoming and outgoing SMS notifications.

"This platform is just for mobile and it was devised with that in mind," said Stephanie Grossman, founder/CEO of Digital Sidebar, Los Angeles. "At the same time, it extends beyond mobile advertising. The critical part is a really great consumer experience."

Sidebar will soon roll out in an eight-week national consumer pilot program with a major U.S. wireless carrier whose name wasn't disclosed.

Digital Sidebar has already signed advertising agreements with other brands such as Hasbro's' Trivial Pursuit, Paige Premium Denim, a large credit card company and major recording label Universal Motown.

"Many of these advertisers have never done mobile advertising before and their enthusiasm is impressive," Ms. Grossman said.

"When I devised this platform, the whole idea behind it was to create a new form of media, since people were just starting to talk about mobile," she said. "I was hearing, 'Nobody knows the right way to do it,' and I thought, 'Hmm I think I do.'"

The platform's content includes promotions that link to interactive and multimedia entertainment, SMS coupons and special offers.

Sidebar allows advertisers to target content to consumers by age, gender, interests, use patterns, day and time.

Sidebar's share feature lets users forward content to other mobile consumers.

Digital Sidebar said by 2012, 1.28 trillion white spaces can be targeted for content delivery every month.

In a study conducted by mobile media metrics researcher M:Metrics, 20 percent of respondents went from "adverse" to "favorable" in their stated perception of mobile advertising after viewing the Sidebar demo.

In addition, consumers ages 16-24 said they were 59 percent likely to use Sidebar if it was installed onto their phones. Forty-three percent of 25-34-year-olds said the same.

At this point, Sidebar is not facing much competition in its niche of the industry.

"A company in Russia is working with something similar, but that's it," Ms. Grossman said. "We've established credibility with clients and carriers by offering a simpler and easier end-to-end solution for promotion and content discovery.

"Distribution is the key to making this a viable platform," she said. "We had to make sure that device functionality was 100 percent reliable and that it's fully redundant. We're getting T-shirts made that say 'You have to will it into existence.' This has been a huge effort. We refuse to fail and we're doing the right thing."