Amobee Media Systems has announced its selection by Vodafone Italia to offer ad-funded mobile video content to the operator's 29.1 million Italian customers.
The service, called FreeVideo, allows Vodafone Italia UMTS users to access a wide range of high-quality, local and branded video content for free in return for receiving relevant commercial messages from major brands. Two of the first brands to sign up to the service are the charity group ActionAid and the global media company RCS Media Group.
Amobee is providing the centralised ad-server to seamlessly integrate relevant and dynamic commercial messages. This service closely follows Amobee's recent announcements with Vodafone in Spain, Greece and the Czech Republic, in which the company is enabling ad-funded peer-to-peer SMS and games as well as advertising on Vodafone Live!
Amobee and Vodafone Italia have brought together a set of partners to enable the launch of FreeVideo. QuickPlay Media, a world leader in the management and delivery of mobile TV and video services, is powering streaming video content with its OpenVideo service delivery platform. QuickPlay is also enabling dynamic real-time stitching of ads provided by the Amobee platform and FreeVideo content.
Dada's advertising agency Dada Ad is responsible for recruiting and managing the relationship with advertisers aiming to run rich-media, tactical campaigns on mobile. Dada Ad has been successfully selling mobile campaigns for Vodafone Italia since March 2007.
UMTS users with a video-enabled handset can opt-in to watch free news, sport, comedy and music clips from media brands such as e-Class, Dorna and Digital Magics. Amobee instantly processes the user's profile and contextual information and selects a relevant "pre-roll'" video ad, followed by the video content and then a "post-roll'" ad.
Zohar Levkovitz, CEO of Amobee commented, "We've been rolling out new and exciting mobile advertising deals with Vodafone across Europe. Vodafone Italy is the latest step in a very successful relationship. Ad-funded video services enable operators to develop a new revenue opportunity as brands make use of mobile as a channel to reach audiences. It also allows users to watch mobile video for free. Vodafone is really making great strides in maximising the potential of this."
