OnMobile Global has tied up with Vodafone to pilot advertising supported ring-back tones (Ad RBT) in India, and has inked a strategic partnership with media buying agency GroupM to bring advertisers on board. Arvind Rao, Chairman of OnMobile said during an earnings conference call that the pricing will be such that an Ad-RBT does not cannibalize on the the revenue shares for both operators or OnMobile - the ARPU will remain the same. Mouli Raman, CTO of OnMobile said that the revenue share from Ad-RBTs for OnMobile, will be between 25-30 percent. Rao mentioned that the company will be targeting local advertising - shopkeepers, restaurants - the proverbial long tail. They estimate that the Ad-RBT could be as large as 1/4th-15th the size of the advertising market. Cost-Per-Click Model? The revenue model hasn't been frozen yet, and OnMobile is still testing the service. But some inputs on the pricing - Ads will have different rates based on the level of profiling and the number of exposures. The money will be split between the sales commission agent, the operator and OnMobile. If you're press #* while listening to an ad, you will be delivered an m-coupon or an SMS with additional information. So the company can charge, dynamically, much higher rates. For an unprofiled customer, the rate would be X. For a slightly profiled customer, the rate would maybe be 3X. "If it's a highly profiled customer, we could charge 10x," Rao said. Users who deploy the service will be offered…
