Swanbay, the media and mobile technology company, has announced that four leading brands have begun advertising on its mobile platform. Tissot, Travelport Holidays, Star Cruises and Ceat are using the Swanbay platform to reach customers in India through a service that provides free, high-quality video clips to millions of mobile phone subscribers.

Swanbay provides mobile users with free local and international video content, including sport, news, music, cartoons, fashion and movies. Swanbay has partnered with several mobile network operators across Asia, Middle East and Europe to provide advertising partners and content providers with an opportunity to reach over 500m consumers today, growing to over 1bn in 2011.

“Throughout 2010, Swanbay has being expanding its network and broadening its content offering,” says Swanbay director of sales, John Haskins. “We’re now seeing consumers using the service, and advertisers looking to sponsor the content. Early portal statistics across India, Pakistan and Asia show that once people have accessed the portals, over 50 per cent of consumers download and watch a video that starts with a short ad.

Advertisers can run targeted campaigns by selecting content and locations that are relevant to their brand. They can also measure the effectiveness of their campaign through a web-based reporting tool. The ads are sold on a pay-per-view basis. 
“Video advertising over mobile by Swanbay is an excellent and innovative media option,” says Javed Akkhtar, CEO of TravelPort Holidays. Our campaign received a very high quality response, and the ROI was 40 per cent better than bulk SMS and other over-the-mobile promos.”

Swanbay launched its service at the start of the year in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Launch programmes are currently underway in the UK, Thailand, Malaysia, Middle East, Bulgaria, Turkey and The Balkans. Swanbay currently has a subscriber base of approximately 200m, with a further 300m subscribers under contract and launching in 2010. It says the subscriber base is expected to increase by a further 500m in 2011.

“We have the technology, the backing and the partners to continue to grow rapidly,” says Haskins. “With the number of internet enabled phones growing at 30 per cent a year, this is becoming an excellent channel for brands with ambitions to reach a mass market.”