Mobile messaging and advertising company Affle and Japanese mobile advertising firm, D2 Communications have formed a mobile marketing joint venture in the Indian market called ad2c. ad2c, at launch has acquired Mobimasta, a Gurgaon based specialist mobile marketing agency founded in November 2009 by Anurag Singh, Viraj Singh and Alok Pabalkar. Anurag Singh is now the COO of ad2c, while Madan Sanglikar, previously a Principal Partner at Mindshare India leading its digital team, has joined ad2c as its CEO. MobiMasta had clients such as Samsung, Yahoo, Coca Cola, Reebok, Adidas and NDTV. Ad2c has a holding company in Singapore, in which Affle and D2 Communications has ownership. The India venture has offices in Delhi and Mumbai, is planning to launch an office in Bangalore, and in Indonesia. D2 Communications, a subsidiary of NTT DOCOMO in a JV with Dentsu, had invested around Rs 50 crore in Affle in October last year. D2 Communications claims around 25% of the mobile advertising market in Japan, and plan, according to Anuj Khanna Sohum, Chairman of the Affle group, is to bring thousands of case studies from D2 to India. According to Sohum, mobile marketing in India is currently just a Rs 150 crore market. The venture will also look to bring data, research and insights into the Indian market, which it currently lacks, Anurag Singh added. Advertisers Perspective CVL Srinivas, Chairman of SMG India pointed towards a few challenges that Mobile marketing faces in India: - The ecosystem is far too complex: too many players offering too many things and…
