Europe : 3, the mobile media company, announced the launch of a new range of free-to-access content for customers on its Planet 3 portal. 

Working in partnership with Rhythm New Media, the new service will be supported by personalised advertising from major brands, meaning content that was previously paid for can now be viewed for free by customers.

The new ad-supported service will be available to 3’s customers from April and represents the realisation of a new business model for the mobile content business.  With the launch of ad-funded content 3 has significantly increased the range of video content available to customers for free.  Video content been made available on the portal free includes a selection of news, comedy, celebrity gossip, animations and film.  These services will continue to sit alongside existing premium entertainment and information services, such as full-length music tracks and mobile games.

Mobile advertising

3’s ad-funded video content offering presents brands with a new opportunity to deliver targeted and personalised advertising to a hard-to-access demographic.  Brand advertising clients that have confirmed for the launch of the service in April include Microsoft and Unilever. 

Brands will be able to buy advertising space based on the demographics of the customer watching it.  Before viewing the free content for the first time customers will be asked to submit basic demographic data (age and gender) which can be used by brands to target their advertising more effectively.  In addition, the advertising can be frequency regulated, meaning that a brand can define how many times an individual sees a specific ad, preventing wasted impressions and removing the risk of advertising fatigue.

Rhythm NewMedia is responsible both for the sales of the advertising inventory created by the launch as well as for serving the ads on the service itself.

Graeme Oxby, Marketing Director at 3 UK, said:

“We’re always looking at ways of bringing our customers great new content on the Planet 3 portal – things like our mobile games and music are already very popular and are generating millions of downloads.  However, we also know that people want to browse around and watch stuff for free – by introducing advertising supported content we can massively increase the range of video clips available.  Ad supported content is going to be an important part of the mobile world going forward.”

Ujjal Kohli, CEO of Rhythm NewMedia, said:

 “This launch offers advertisers an amazing new opportunity – the chance to deliver personalised advertising on mobile at an individual level.  As well as selecting your target audience on demographic and content data, our ad-serving technology means you can decide what they see and how many times.  For example, if you’ve got multiple ad treatments then we can let you control who sees which one, when and in what order.”