New Smart unit to launch mobile marketing services

Smart Communications’ new subsidiary Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise (CURE), the latest mobile telecommunications player in the country, will be positioning itself as a mobile marketing company rather than a traditional telco when it starts offering its services to public beginning next month.

CURE launched yesterday mobile, the company’s cellular phone service brand, which aims to build on the still relatively untapped mobile marketing as a means for advertisers to more effectively reach their target market.

It will have a nationwide coverage immediately on the first day of its commercial launch next month because of an agreement with Smart to use the latter’s mobile phone network. CURE itself has around 30 cell sites in Pasig, Manila and Makati and it will utilize for a fee Smart’s network in areas where its own network is absent.

CURE is already fully interconnected with Smart and Piltel’s mobile network for voice and text (via 2G and 3G) as well as PLDT’s landline network while negotiations with Globe and Digitel for interconnection of their respective networks are still ongoing. CURE is also interconnected with Bayan Telecommunications’ wireline network.

According to CURE chief marketing officer Ardie Balderrama, the company will be the first ad-funded mobile phone service in Asia. “Ad funded means our subscribers can avail of our mobile services (calls, texts, surf) for free because a certain brand or company has sponsored his usage. Basically, the more ads you read, the more freebies you get,” he said.

According to ABI Research, mobile marketing and advertising expenses reached $3 billion globally in 2007 and is expected to hit $19 billion (including mobile search and video advertising) by 2011. Mobile advertising revenue grew 7000 percent from 2001-2006.

In the Philippines, total advertising spending for print, television and radio in 2007 amounted to P154.4 billion from P143.6 billion in 2006.