European mobile game ad serving company to play in U.S.

By Giselle Abramovich

April 8, 2008

Didmo is out to get more

Scandinavian mobile company Didmo has brought its ad-based mobile content platform to the United States, Britain, Germany and Spain.

Didmo claims it has experienced strong acceptance of its free, ad-supported mobile games and this sparked its expansion into Eastern Europe and the U.S. Users are exposed to a few seconds of full-screen advertising to get into a game. This feature has resulted in a 500 percent click-through rate, the company claims.

"Our platform enables us to deliver full-screen, high-quality advertising to users with a built-in campaign management system for advertisers, including real-time statistics on impressions, click-throughs, demographic data and more,” said Rikard Björklind, cofounder and chief technology officer of Didmo, in a statement.

Didmo’s platform takes a publisher's game and wraps it with advertising at the code level for just 24 hours.

Users download a game and before the game loads, they are shown four seconds of full-screen advertising. At the end of the game, an additional four-second advertisement is also shown. No ads are shown while the user plays the game.

After 24 hours, the user is given the opportunity to buy the game or download a new game for an additional 24 hours. The model allows users to try before they buy with minimal investment and lets publishers generate revenue on game sales.

Didmo advertisers include 7-Eleven, Activision and Unilever. All three are seeing a 5 percent to 10 percent click-through rate on the ads Didmo serves, according to the company.

The U.S. arm is based in San Jose, CA.

Per recent research by market researchers Mind Commerce and Gartner Group, the mobile advertising market is anticipated to grow anywhere from $14.6 billion in 2011 to $19 billion in 2012.