Carrier E-Plus, a division of KPN, is now using Alcatel-Lucent's newly launched Advertising Selection Server for its mobile advertising offering through its subsidiary Gettings.

The Advertising Selection Server is a new element in Alcatel-Lucent´s suite of digital media and advertising solutions. This mobile advertising platform, implemented as a hosted service, is a key element of the Gettings business model around mobile advertising, which was developed through collaboration between Alcatel-Lucent and E-Plus in the creation of new service features and system testing.

"E-Plus is telling its subscribers if they are interested in free communications services such as voice minutes and text messages to sign up via the Web, enter their mobile phone number and say which categories they're interested in," said Rudi Broos, Antwerp, Belgium-based director of strategy and marketing, digital media and advertising, for Alcatel-Lucent.

"Depending on the package, they will get a certain number of marketing messages each month," he said. "The company wanted to reach the broadest possible range, so they're focusing on SMS, MMS and WAP."

With 15 million customers, E-Plus is the third largest mobile network operator in Germany. In 2006 and 2007 it was also the fastest growing and most profitable mobile provider.

Initially, E-Plus was a single brand with a broad package of services.

Since 2005, the E-Plus Group has been operating several brands: BASE, voice and Internet for a fixed monthly sum; SIM card proivder Simyo; Ay Yildiz for the Turkish community; Vybemobile, specializing in lifestyle, telephony and music; and numerous partnerships with companies outside and within the telecom world.

These new providers have resulted in 7.6 million new customers over the course of two years.

E-Plus has a partnership with Hamburg, Germany-based Interactive Marketing Group, or IMG, which sells the carrier's ad inventory.

Gettings enables advertisers to deliver targeted mobile advertising campaigns to all customers of the E-Plus Group following an opt-in model.

With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent partners with service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide to provide services delivering voice, data and video communication services to consumers.

Specializing in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs.

Providing a new level of control in the management of mobile advertising campaigns, the new Advertising Selection Server product features targeting algorithms designed to help mobile service providers offer advertisers focused and impactful advertising campaigns.

Advertising must not be perceived as a nuisance, and this is especially true for ads on a mobile phone, according to E-Plus's Gettings.

The carriers stresses that mobile advertising only works if it strictly centers around the recipients' interests.

Within the Gettings application, E-Plus' consumers choose between three packages -- S, M and L -- where they will receive between 10 and 25 mobile ads per week.

The Advertising Selection Server enables consumers to provide their preferences so they receive only mobile ads that interest them, providing advertisers with more targeted campaigns.

Using the Advertising Selection Server, service providers receive access to consumers and subscribers' profile information, helping them address the growing mobile advertising market of which the U.S. segment alone is expected to grow from $160 million last year to $3.1 billion in 2013, according to the Kelsey Group.

The Advertising Selection Server provides mobile service providers with a single platform that is able to deliver via SMS, MMS and WAP, with a mix of push and pull targeted advertising campaigns tailored to individual subscribers' opt-in preferences.

The Advertising Selection Server also offers an interface for inventory and campaign management and acts as a single front-end for advertising players and features a suite of APIs for integration with third-party services, profiling and billing systems.

The Advertising Selection Server is generally available worldwide as a turnkey product or a hosted service.

The Advertising Selection Server supports Alcatel-Lucent's broader personalized content and advertising strategy, which is geared toward enabling the delivery of relevant, interactive and personalized advertising to consumers over communications networks of all kinds.

With various digital media formats, Alcatel-Lucent is enabling conversations between consumers and brands that follow the consumer to the screen of their choice, with a focus on mobile.

"The millennial generation is a great fit for mobile, because they're time rich but cash poor, and they're used to social networking sites, so they have no problem giving up information such as their interests and so on," Mr. Broos said. "This segment will be keen to use these mobile advertising services.

"Service providers have a role to play in the upcoming new media digital advertising value chain, because they can leverage consumer intelligence," he said. "Telecom providers can allocate budget for new media and become media owners.

"The telcos, leveraging consumer intelligence and network data, can turn subscribers into an audience for brands and media buyers."