Weather Channel debuts mobile Web video ads
March 17, 2008
A sunny outlook for the Weather Channel Mobile
The Weather Channel Interactive has opened its mobile Web site to video advertising in a move that strikes a blow for rich media executions on mobile.
The move comes soon after The Weather Channel Mobile added video forecasts to its site in January. The mobile Web video ad feature is live on weather.com, which has device-detection capability.
“What’s important here is that it’s the mobile Web, so it’ll be accessible to the phone’s mobile Web browser,” said Dave Blumenthal, spokesman at The Weather Channel Interactive, Atlanta.
The new ad will include a banner ad on the video index pages, a five-second pre-roll billboard and a 15-second post-roll video ad.
The Weather Channel will sell the product as a sponsorship at launch, allowing the advertiser to own the section.
Such mobile Web video ads can be bought as part of a multichannel buy across all Weather Channel properties including television, online sites such as http://www.weather.com and http://www.weather.co.uk and the mobile Web site at weather.com.
Advertisers who have signed up for the mobile Web video ads will be disclosed at a later date, Mr. Blumenthal said.
The Weather Channel Mobile is the most popular content site on the mobile Web.
The site averaged 6.3 million monthly unique users last year. It recorded 7.5 million unique users in January, up from 6.3 million in December and 5.9 million in November, according to Nielsen Mobile.
The Weather Channel first launched a WAP mobile site in 1999. Six years later, it started runs ads on the site. Units currently offered on the mobile Web site include banners, click-to-call, microsites and weather-triggered and geo-targeted ads.
Advertisers on The Weather Channel Mobile include American Express Co., Cisco Systems and the Zyrtec allergy medication. It isn’t known if they have signed up for the mobile Web video ads.
Typical advertisers on The Weather Channel Mobile also include travel and tourism brands, pharmaceutical companies, financial services firms and automakers.
Checking weather is one of the top activities undertaken on mobile phones.
The Weather Channel is feeding into that demand by releasing several hundred new weather video reports posted each day on the mobile Web – all fodder for advertising support.
Recent additions to the company’s mobile site include airport delay information, traffic updates and data on skiing and golf course conditions.
“What we’re doing is looking for more content that we can offer mobile users,” Mr. Blumenthal said.