Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Commercialisation of
Context-Sensitive Mobile Attention
in Mobile Media Markets
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Band 3
ISSN 1863-2831
ISSN: 1863-2831
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Foreword
The mobile communications industry as well as the telecommunications indus-
try in general is in the process of radical transition. Voice communication and
SMS messages are becoming commodities in more and more saturated markets.
At the same time, all forms of telecommunications, including voice telephony,
are mapped to data and the related Internet services, e.g. Voice-over-IP. In con-
sequence traditional sources of revenue and profit, especially voice telephony
services, are drying out, partly due to harder competition between traditional
providers, partly due to competition from new Internet-based providers, such as
Skype.
Data services, which for a while were seen as new sources of revenue and profit
are confronted with customers being very reluctant to pay, especially as so many
free services are available over the Internet. Therefore examining business mod-
els with customers not paying directly (i.e. advertisers are “stepping in”) is be-
coming more and more important also in mobile communications. In this regard,
Internet marketing actors are increasingly interested to better understand the
situation (the “context”) in which an advertising message is reaching the recipi-
ent. Context information is necessary to tailor the messages and the way they are
transmitted to the respective addressee – in this age of information overload a
necessary prerequisite for an advertising message to be perceived at all.
This situation is actually a problem, that the media industry has faced for a long
time, and at this point, the interests of advertisers in old and new media meet
what mobile communications providers know and can – to some degree – offer:
Very precise information (gained from the cell based mobile communication
infrastructure) on where customers are, what needs they may have and a trust
relation in terms of managing these data (from often longstanding customer rela-
tionships). From these data advertisers can derive the much sought-after infor-
mation about the situation (“context”) of a communicating or receiving cus-
tomer.
Andreas Albers has well identified the increasing importance of context infor-
mation, made it the objective of his research, analysed its influence on the com-
mercialisation of mobile media, and consequently used this knowledge for de-
sign, construction, and implementation. Doing so he was able to tailor his sub-
ject in a way that promises results of long-standing importance – despite the
VI Foreword
very complex and volatile situation in both mobile communications and mobile
media.
First Andreas Albers identifies and analyses the influence of contextual informa-
tion, e.g. on “traditional” mobile advertising by Mobile Marketing Providers.
This analysis supports the understanding of identity and profile information not
only in the domain of mobile marketing, but also in general. Then Andreas
Albers uses his findings as basis for his MoMeMa engineering recommendation
framework for constructing mobile media markets in which context-sensitive,
mobile attention can be traded. It is noteworthy that Andreas Albers has man-
aged to replace the economic good of mobile advertising media performance by
that of mobile attention, which for the first time made it possible to analyse the
impact of context information.
A further important Design Science contribution in the area of Business Infor-
matics is CoMPaS (Context-sensitive Mobile Portal Service), Andreas Albers’
prototypical proof-of-concept implementation of MoMeMa. CoMPaS also pro-
vides a basis for future behavioural research on context-sensitive mobile atten-
tion of mobile users in the domain of mobile marketing. An expert survey for
the empirical evaluation of the recommendation framework brings the excellent
design science contributions full circle.
Andreas Albers has written a first class thesis in Business Informatics, which is
already influencing neighbouring disciplines, e.g. marketing.
I am more than happy to wish this to book all the best, especially many inter-
ested readers.
Preface
In a society of growing information overflow, it becomes increasingly difficult
for enterprises to attract the attention of consumers for marketing campaigns
promoting their products and services. In this regard, mobile media offers adver-
tisers a highly personal communication channel to their recipients. Thereby,
context information provided by the mobile network allows advertisers to target
their Mobile Marketing campaigns towards the momentary usage situation of
mobile users.
In this media market, the objective of Mobile Marketing Providers is to com-
mercialise the provision of such a mobile communication channel to advertisers
via their Mobile Media Market platform. However, the specific characteristics of
context information generate impacts on a Mobile Marketing Provider’s tradi-
tional business model. In order to address these impacts, this work develops and
applies a conceptional analysis framework for the use of context information in
the Mobile Marketing domain. Subsequently and based on the knowledge ac-
quired from the analysis, an engineering recommendation framework for Mobile
Media Market platforms (MoMeMa) is developed and presented. Its guidelines
enable Mobile Marketing Providers to develop or align their Mobile Media
Market platforms in order to unleash the benefits of context information for Mo-
bile Marketing campaigns while being able to cope with its identified impacts.
Thereby, I hope my work is able to contribute to a better understanding of con-
text-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns in academia as well as to their
growth in the industry.
When I began this thesis at the faculty of business administration and economics
at the Goethe University Frankfurt, the mobile Internet was in the pre-iPhone
era. This was characterised by high mobile data communication costs, complex
device usability, and low mobile network bandwidth. Nevertheless, the theoreti-
cal potential of integrating context information into Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns in order to provide benefit to mobile users as well as advertisers was tan-
gible. However, actually contributing to this concept in the form of a doctoral
thesis required a substantial academic and industry support.
The foundation for the conduction of this work was enabled by my participation
in two research projects founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education
and Research. The PREMIUM and its predecessor project PREMIUM Services
VIII Preface
provided the funding of this work and allowed a continuous review and im-
provement of my ideas and contributions.
Without the support received from industry partners, it would have been very
difficult to substantiate the utility of this work and its contribution to the prac-
tice. Among the many partners, I would especially thank Deutsche Telekom,
Nokia-Siemens Networks, T-Systems, Detecon International, Deloitte, Interac-
tive Media, and AllesKlar AG for their expertise and inspiring comments on my
contributions.
Special thanks go to my advisor Prof. Dr. Kai Rannenberg for always being
open-minded to my ideas and for his continuous encouragement and support in
order to successfully complete this thesis. In this regard, the Chair of Mobile
Business & Multilateral Security was offering a multi-disciplinary research en-
vironment that was complemented and supported by many industry partners,
partner universities, and research organisations. This significantly fostered the
outcome of this work. Moreover, I would also like to thank the other members
of the board of examiners Prof. Dr. Roland Holten, Prof. Dr. Matthias Blonski,
and Prof. Dr. Oliver Hinz for their instructive advice and comments.
I have very much appreciated the support and fruitful discussions of my col-
leagues at the Chair of Mobile Business & Multilateral Security. I would like to
thank André Deuker, Stefan Figge, Christian Kahl, Jan Muntermann, Mike
Radmacher and Stefan Weiss for their stimulating comments and contributions
to my work. In addition, I am grateful to Elvira Koch for her support in solving
all issues beyond my actual research work, but necessary in order to complete
this thesis. Further thanks go to Katrina Taylor, who has done a magnificent job
proof-reading and significantly enhancing the readability of the manuscript.
Special thanks go to my wife and family for their continuous support and en-
couragement during the time it took me to accomplish the outcome of this thesis.
Andreas Albers
Table of Contents IX
Table of Contents
Foreword ............................................................................................................. V
Preface .............................................................................................................. VII
Table of Contents............................................................................................... IX
List of Figures .................................................................................................. XV
List of Tables ................................................................................................... XIX
List of Equations............................................................................................. XXI
List of Abbreviations ................................................................................... XXIII
1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Mobile Marketing .................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Research Objectives and Questions ....................................................................... 5
1.3 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 6
1.4 Research Scope and Methodology ........................................................................ 10
1.4.1 Research Scope .......................................................................................... 10
1.4.2 Design Science Research Framework ....................................................... 13
2.6.2
User Acceptance of Context-sensitive Mobile Marketing Campaigns ..... 52
2.6.3
Mobile Marketing Providers enabling Context-sensitive Mobile
Marketing .................................................................................................. 53
2.7 Summary and Conclusion ..................................................................................... 54
5 Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets ....... 115
5.1 Introduction to Electronic Markets ................................................................... 115
5.2 Related Work on the Design of Electronic Markets ......................................... 117
5.3 Introduction to the Market Engineering Framework ...................................... 119
5.3.1 Market Environment ................................................................................ 120
5.3.2 Transaction Object ................................................................................... 120
5.3.3 Transaction Service ................................................................................. 121
5.4 Introduction of the Market Engineering Process Model ................................. 126
5.5 Adaption of the Market Engineering Framework for Mobile Media
Markets ................................................................................................................. 128
5.5.1 Market Environment of Mobile Media Markets...................................... 128
5.5.2 Mobile Attention as the Transaction Object ............................................ 129
5.5.3 Transaction Service for Mobile Media Markets ...................................... 130
5.6 Summary .............................................................................................................. 132
7.2 Use Cases derived from the Application Scenario ............................................ 195
7.2.1 Management of Mobile Portal Categories ............................................... 196
7.2.2 Management of Mobile Advertising Campaigns..................................... 197
7.2.3 Management of User Profile.................................................................... 197
7.2.4 Use of Mobile Portal ............................................................................... 198
7.3 Application Process ............................................................................................. 199
7.4 Three-Tier Prototype Architecture .................................................................... 200
7.4.1 Presentation Tier ...................................................................................... 201
7.4.2 Logic Tier ................................................................................................ 206
7.4.3 Data Tier .................................................................................................. 207
7.5 ICT-Infrastructure Setup ................................................................................... 209
7.5.1 ICT-Infrastructure Elements .................................................................... 209
7.5.2 ICT-Infrastructure Software Technology ................................................ 211
7.5.3 Programming Language and Development Environment ....................... 213
7.6 Limitations of the Prototype ............................................................................... 214
7.6.1 Conceptional and Functional Limitations................................................ 214
7.6.2 Performance and Security Limitations .................................................... 215
7.7 Summary .............................................................................................................. 216
List of Figures
Figure 1.1: Structure of the Thesis .................................................................. 8
Figure 1.2: Research Scopes of this Work .................................................... 11
Figure 2.1: Policies in the Marketing Mix (based on McCarthy 1960) ........ 19
Figure 2.2: Marketing Campaigns within the Scope of this Work ............... 21
Figure 2.3: Triangular relationship of advertising media markets (based
on Zerdick et al. 2001, p. 50) ...................................................... 22
Figure 2.4: Market and Media Information for Media Planning (Bogs
2001, p. 114) ............................................................................... 23
Figure 2.5: Targeting and Performance Measurement of Traditional vs.
Online Marketing Campaigns (based on Skiera et al. 2001) ...... 27
Figure 2.6: Reach vs. Quality of Targeted Online Marketing Campaigns
(Hegge 2008, p. 290) .................................................................. 29
Figure 2.7: Advantages of Mobile Marketing (based on Dufft 2003, p.
12) ............................................................................................... 37
Figure 2.8: Utilisation of the distinctive Mobile Media Features for
Mobile Marketing Campaigns .................................................... 42
Figure 2.9: Primary and Secondary Context Dimensions applied to
describe the Usage Situation of Mobile Users............................ 44
Figure 2.10: Types of Mobile Marketing Campaigns based on Mobile
User Information ......................................................................... 47
Figure 2.11: Targeting of Traditional Mobile Marketing Campaigns ............ 48
Figure 2.12: Targeting of Context-sensitive Mobile Marketing
Campaigns................................................................................... 49
Figure 3.1: Model of Attention Process (Davenport and Beck 2001, p.
21) ............................................................................................... 59
Figure 3.2: The Relation of Attention Data, Attention Profiles and
Targeting Profiles for Mobile Marketing Campaigns ................ 61
Figure 3.3: Characteristics of Mobile Attention as an Economic Good in
Mobile Media Markets (based on Koppius 1999) ...................... 64
Figure 3.4: Attention Value Chain of Mobile Marketing Providers ............. 69
Figure 3.5: Data Quality Framework (Wang and Strong 1996).................... 71
Figure 3.6: Phases of Transactions managed and executed by
Intermediaries (based on Schmid and Lindemann 1998 and
Rose 1998, p. 179 ff.) ................................................................. 73
XVI List of Figures
Figure 3.7: Two-sided Market Concept (based on Dewenter 2006) ............. 76
Figure 3.8: Two-sided Mobile Media Market (based on Dewenter 2006) ... 79
Figure 4.1: Data Communication Technologies and Terminal Devices
of the Mobile Medium ................................................................ 84
Figure 4.2: Overview of Mobile Marketing Activities at Present
(Steimel et al. 2008, p. 79) .......................................................... 87
Figure 4.3: Development of Mobile Advertising Revenues in Western
Europe (based on Strategy Analytics 2007) ............................... 88
Figure 4.4: Mobile Marketing Value Chain and participating Market
Players (based on Steimel et al. 2008, p. 120) ............................ 89
Figure 4.5: Players in Mobile Media Market ................................................ 90
Figure 4.6: Mobile Media Market Platform enabling Mobile
Advertising Campaigns............................................................... 91
Figure 4.7: Context-sensitive Attention as an intangible Good in Mobile
Media Markets (based on Koppius 1999)................................... 93
Figure 4.8: Information Qualities of Mobile Attention ................................. 94
Figure 4.9: Acquisition of Traditional vs. Context-sensitive Attention
Data ............................................................................................. 99
Figure 4.10: Targeting of Traditional vs. Context-sensitive Mobile
Attention ................................................................................... 105
Figure 5.1: Microeconomic System Framework (Smith 1982) .................. 116
Figure 5.2: Reference Model for Electronic Markets (Lindemann and
Schmid 1998) ............................................................................ 118
Figure 5.3: Electronic Market Engineering Framework (based on
Weinhardt et al. 2003) .............................................................. 119
Figure 5.4: Revenue Model Framework (Skiera et al. 2005) ...................... 122
Figure 5.5: Simplified Value Chain Model (based on Zerdick et al.
2001, p. 33) ............................................................................... 123
Figure 5.6: Process and Rules of a Resource Allocation Mechanism
(based on Holtmann 2004, p. 133)............................................ 124
Figure 5.7: Three-Tier Architecture of an Electronic Market (based on
Holtmann 2004, p. 191 f.) ......................................................... 125
Figure 5.8: Possible Interdependencies between Electronic Markets
Components .............................................................................. 126
List of Figures XVII
Figure 7.2: Use Cases of the Mobile Media Market Platform .................... 196
Figure 7.3: Mobile Portal Activity Diagram ............................................... 200
Figure 7.4: Mobile Portal Component of the CoMPaS Prototype .............. 202
Figure 7.5: Mobile User Profile and Privacy Setting Interface ................... 202
Figure 7.6: Selected CoMPaS GUI Components for Advertisers ............... 203
Figure 7.7: Selected CoMPaS GUI Components for the Mobile
Marketing Provider ................................................................... 205
Figure 7.8: UML Class Diagram of the CoMPaS Prototype ...................... 207
Figure 7.9: ER-Model of the CoMPaS Data Tier........................................ 208
Figure 7.10: Overview of the Elements of the Prototype System ................. 210
Figure 7.11: ICT-Infrastructure Software Technology Overview for
Prototype ................................................................................... 212
Figure 8.1: Evaluation Process based on Expert Interviews and
Qualitative Content Analysis .................................................... 224
Figure 8.2: Knowledge Coverage of interviewed Organisations ................ 227
List of Tables XIX
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Mobility dimensions and moving entities (Feldmann 2005,
p. 4) ............................................................................................. 32
Table 2.2: Technical vs. Actual Reach of Mobile Media in Germany
(Steimel et al. 2008, p. 50) .......................................................... 40
Table 4.1: Summary of developed Research Propositions on the
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention .............. 113
Table 6.1: Basic Design Aspects of Auctions (based on Skiera and
Spann 2004) .............................................................................. 164
Table 6.2: Simplified Utility Scoring Scenario for Personal Attraction
(based on Krafft 2002, p. 79) .................................................... 171
Table 8.1: Fictitious Example of a Summarising QCA ............................. 223
Table 8.2: Organisations, which participated in the Expert Interviews ..... 226
List of Equations XXI
List of Equations
Equation 6.1: Overall Utility Score for a Buyer.............................................. 167
Equation 6.2: Winning Bid Determination of Buyer ...................................... 167
Equation 6.3: Calculation of Personal Attraction............................................ 171
Equation 6.4: Calculation POS Distance based Pythagorean Theorem
(Wikipedia 2009) ...................................................................... 172
Equation 6.5: Calculation of Geographic Reachability (based on Huff
1964) ......................................................................................... 173
Equation 6.6: Calculation of Temporal Reachability ...................................... 175
Equation 6.7: Calculation of Business Relevance for Mobile Attention ........ 176
Equation 6.8: Calculation of Monetary Advertiser Auction Bid .................... 178
Equation 6.9: Calculation of Virtual Bid by Mobile Marketing Provider ...... 179
List of Abbreviations XXIII
List of Abbreviations
API Application Programming Interface
ASP Active Server Pages
ATM Automatic Teller Machine
B-MAD Bluetooth Mobile Advertising
CET Central European Time
CLP City Light Poster
CoMPaS Context-sensitive Mobile Portal Application Service
COO Cell of Origin
CPM Cost-per-Mille
CPU Central Processing Unit
CRM Customer Relationship Management
CS Computer Science
DLL Dynamic Link Library
DVD Digital Versatile Disc
EC European Commission
E-LBA European Location Based Advertising
ER Entity Relationship
EU European Union
FIDIS Future of Identity in the Information Society
GPS Global Positioning System
GSM Global System of Mobile Communication
GUI Graphical User Interface
HTML Hypertext Markup Language
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IDE Integrated Development Environment
IdM Identity Management
IdMS Identity Management System
IIS Internet Information Service
IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity
IP Internet Protocol
IR Infrared
IrDA Infrared Data Association
XXIV List of Abbreviations
IS Information System(s)
IT Information Technology
IVR Interactive Voice Response
LBS Location-based Service
LTE Long Term Evolution
MAC Media Access Control
MAUT Multi-attributive Utility Theory
MIdMS Mobile Identity Management System
MMS Multimedia Messaging Service
MoMeMa Mobile Media Market
MSISDN Mobile Subscriber Integrated Services Digital Network
Number
MVNO Mobile Virtual Network Operator
PC Personal Computer
PIN Personal Identification Number
POS Point-of-Sales
PREMIUM Preis- und Erlösmodelle für das Internet – Umsetzung und
Marktchancen
PSMS Push Short Message Service
QCA Qualitative Content Analysis
SIC Semantic Identity Concept
SIM Subscriber Identity Module
SMB Server Message Block
SMMART System for Mobile Marketing: Adaptive, Personalized and
Targeted
SMS Short Message Service
SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
SQL Structured Query Language
SSO Single-Sign-On
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
TOA Time of Arrival
TV Television
UML Unified Modeling Language
UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunication System
W3C World Wide Web Consortium
List of Abbreviations XXV
1 Introduction
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”
Simon 1971, Designing Organisations
for an Information-Rich World
The emergence and success of the Internet within the last decade had a tremen-
dous impact on the market for advertising-financed media as a vehicle for mar-
keting campaigns (European Interactive Advertising Association 2008a;
Bachem 2008; Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft 2009). Although, traditional
media (e.g. TV, radio, print, etc.) solely constitutes a uni-directional communi-
cation channel for advertisers to their recipients, it still dominates the market.
However, media consumers increasingly demand to choose their preferred con-
tent on an individual basis – independent from time, place and especially me-
dium (Kaspar 2006). Consequently, they are increasingly shifting their attention
towards interactive online media (European Interactive Advertising Association
2008b).
In contrast to traditional media, the Internet as a bidirectional communication
channel allows online users to personalise their consumed media content accord-
ing to their individual needs. Thereby, the Internet enables advertisers to meas-
ure and analyse the preferences of online users in real-time without media dis-
ruptions. Combined with additional sociographic, psychographic and demo-
graphic data, the resulting user profiles can be used to target Online Marketing
campaigns towards the immediate needs of online users. Thus, there is a transi-
tion in the advertising industry from the content-centric targeting of marketing
campaigns towards user-profile-based approaches (Ehrlich 2008, p. 267 ff.). The
effectiveness of the latter concept can directly be observed in the literally ex-
ploding growth of the online advertising spending in Europe. As a result, today,
online media markets are considered highly competitive and increasingly satu-
rated. Consequently, Online Marketing Providers such Google or Yahoo as en-
ablers of Online Marketing campaigns are seeking new revenue streams in their
business domain (European Interactive Advertising Association 2008c).
With dropping prices for mobile data communications (Mohr 2009) and increas-
ing usability of mobile devices (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 109), the mobile Internet
is considered to be on the verge of the mass market and a prospective medium
2 Introduction
(Cisco Corporation 2009; TNS infratest 2009) for Online Marketing Providers to
archive this goal. Although, the Mobile Marketing revenues are still quite low
compared to traditional or online advertising-financed media, Mobile Advertis-
ing as a subset of Mobile Marketing currently represents one of the strongest
growing marketing means (Strategy Analytics 2007).
Analogue to the fixed Internet (and to traditional media as well), Mobile Mar-
keting Providers act in the role of intermediaries enabling Mobile Marketing
campaigns via their mobile media market platform. On the one hand, such a
platform offers a mobile portal enabling a communication channel between mo-
bile users and advertisers. On the other hand, it operates a mobile media market,
on which mobile media performance (i.e. access to the communication channel
to mobile users) is offered and traded. This mobile media market constitutes a
two-sided media market (Evans 2005). On its content market side, the attention
of mobile users is acquired by providing informative or entertaining content. On
the advertisement market side, this attention is sold to advertisers in the form of
mobile advertising space (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 120 ff.).
With regard to the provision of mobile media performance, one distinctive fea-
ture of the mobile medium is the access to context information about mobile us-
ers (e.g. location or identity). It is considered highly beneficial for the targeting
of Mobile Marketing campaigns (Figge and Theysohn 2006). Although, context
information is hardly offered by Mobile Marketing Providers in practice, there
are several indicators that Mobile Marketing Providers will be compelled to do
so in order to differentiate their offerings from competition (Figge and Albers
2008). However, due to specific characteristics (e.g. explicity of data about mo-
bile users), context information is supposed to have several impacts on the tradi-
tional commercialisation of mobile media performance via mobile media mar-
kets (Albers 2007 and 2008; Figge and Albers 2008). Consequently, Mobile
Marketing Providers willing to provide advertisers access to context information
for Mobile Marketing campaigns have to be aware of these potential impacts.
This knowledge allows Mobile Marketing Providers to consider and address
these impacts in the design of their mobile media market platforms and thereby
take advantage of context information for their business mission (Albers 2007
and 2008).
Introduction 3
The objective of this work is to explore and analyse the impacts of context in-
formation on traditional commercialisation of mobile media performance for
Mobile Marketing Providers, in their role as enablers of Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns. Subsequently, this gained knowledge lays the foundation for the devel-
opment of an engineering recommendation framework for mobile media market
platforms. It is supposed to offer means to Mobile Marketing Providers to bene-
fit from offering context information to advertisers for Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns while being able to cope with its impacts or challenges respectively.
Section 1.1 briefly illustrates the past and recent developments in the Mobile
Marketing domain as well as the need and difficulty of exploiting the benefits of
context information, serving as research motivation. Then, Section 1.2 outlines
the research objective and the derived research questions. The general structure
of the work along with the major contributions of each chapter is presented in
Section 1.3. Finally, section 1.4 outlines the research scope and the design sci-
ence framework as methodological basis for the entire thesis.
Today, fuelled by the growing success of the mobile Internet, the portfolio of
Mobile Marketing campaigns is aligning with their equivalents of the fixed
Internet (i.e. towards Mobile Marketing campaigns conducted via the mobile
web). Thereby, Mobile Advertising is currently the fastest growing marketing
means (Strategy Analytics 2007, Kishore 2008). Consequently, the competition
for the attention of mobile users is increasing at the same pace. Telecommunica-
tion enterprises, Internet providers (e.g. Google1, Yahoo2), software manufactur-
ers (e.g. Microsoft3) and mobile device manufacturers (e.g. Nokia4) are position-
ing their organisations as Mobile Marketing Providers in the centre of the adver-
tising-financed mobile media market. In order to succeed in this two-sided mo-
bile media market, Mobile Marketing Providers have to satisfy the needs of both
customers on each market side. Whereas advertisers demand high effectiveness
of their Mobile Marketing campaigns (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 60), mobile users
expect Mobile Marketing campaigns relevant to their personal interests or needs
(Steimel et al. 2008, p. 47; Ehrlich 2008, p. 267).
These demands can be fulfiled by the application of context information ac-
quired from the mobile network in order to target Mobile Marketing campaigns.
It allows to distinctly identify mobile users, determine their current geographical
location and log their access time. This information can be compiled into a pro-
file, which reflects the momentary usage situation of a mobile user. It allows
advertisers to individually evaluate and select only those mobile users, which
exhibit certain relevance in relation to their momentary usage situation (e.g. only
mobile users in close vicinity to a Point-of-Sale (POS)). From a mobile user’s
point-of-view, this allows the provision of relevant offerings that can satisfy
their immediate needs (Figge and Theysohn 2006). At the same time, this can
alleviate the very limited user experience of mobile devices, with regard to
1
Online advertising market leader Google initiated the development of the open source mo-
bile operating system Android (Google Corporation 2009a) and recently acquired the lead-
ing mobile off-deck advertiser AdMob (AdMob 2009).
2
Yahoo significantly enhanced and extended its mobile advertising services (Wiley et al.
2007).
3
Microsoft bought Mobile Advertisement Provider ScreenTonic to position itself in the mo-
bile advertising market (Microsoft Press 2007).
4
Market leader for mobile handsets Nokia bought the Mobile Advertiser enPocket (Nokia
2007) and launched a mobile multimedia service Ovi, which enhances the mobile phone by
making the personal data for users accessable via the mobile Internet (Nokia 2009).
Introduction 5
screen size and input capabilities, by the reducing the search expenditures of
mobile users for the desired information (Feldmann 2005, p. 59).
The following section is going to outline the research object of this thesis with
regard to the Mobile Marketing Providers enabling this kind of context-sensitive
Mobile Marketing campaigns for advertisers.
Once the impacts of context information are explored and analysed, this knowl-
edge is translated into a market engineering recommendation framework
(MoMeMa framework) for Mobile Marketing Providers. Along its complemen-
tary engineering process model, it documents for each market development
stage/activity, which design aspects for mobile media market platforms are rec-
ommended in order to take advantage of context information to enable Mobile
Marketing campaigns.
Based on the outlined research objective, this thesis is going to follow the design
science paradigm – which is introduced later (cp. Section 1.4.2). Thereby, the
proposed MoMeMa framework for the Mobile Marketing Providers represents
6 Introduction
Introduction (Chapter 1)
C
D
Due to the unwieldy number of possible Mobile Marketing campaigns and the
number of available types of context information, Chapter 4 begins with narrow-
ing down the analysis scope in order to reduce the complexity of the analysis.
Thus, Mobile Advertising campaigns as a subset of Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns delivered via the mobile web are analysed. Then, following the previ-
ously introduced conceptional framework, the impacts of context information on
the traditional commercialisation of mobile attention are analysed. Given the
novelty of Mobile Advertising campaigns integrating context information, an
explorative literature review as a research method is used.
In order to translate the findings of Chapter 4 into engineering recommendations
for mobile media market platforms, a proven reference model is required to en-
sure all necessary engineering aspects are going to be covered. By acknowledg-
ing mobile media markets as a subset of electronic markets, Chapter 5 chooses
Market Engineering concept of Weinhardt et al. (2003), which provides a holis-
tic approach by covering Information and Commnunication (ICT) infrastructure
and business model aspects beyond the traditional focus on resource allocation
mechanisms. Nevertheless, since mobile media markets exhibit several distinct
characteristics, the Market Engineering concept has to be aligned appropriately
in some of its aspects.
Based on the adapted Market Engineering approach, Chapter 6 presents the IT
artifact in the form of the engineering recommendation framework (MoMeMa)
for mobile media market platforms of context-sensitive mobile attention. It is
developed along the complementary engineering process model provided by the
Market Engineering concept. For Mobile Marketing Providers, its main contri-
butions comprise four aspects. First, it documents the main mobile media market
stakeholders and their interests. Second, it provides a characterisation of the
economic market environment, which a mobile media market platform will be
embedded. Third, the relevant specfications for context-sensitive mobile atten-
tion as transaction object are given. Fourth and finally, the design recommenda-
tion for the market transaction service consisting of business model, resource
allocation mechanism, and ICT-infrastructure component are provided.
The technical feasibility to implement mobile media market platforms by explic-
itly applying the proposed MoMeMa framework is demonstrated in Chapter 7.
For this, a prototypical software system in the form of a mobile media market
10 Introduction
The research scope of this thesis comprises a hierarchy of five scopes within the
information systems (IS) field (cp. Figure 1.2).
Introduction 11
Geographical Region
Competitive
Environment
Market
Participants
Mobile
Marketing
Campaigns
The outline of this work comprises the IS field in which the Mobile Marketing
domain as the main research scope is further embedded. Subsequently, its com-
plex ecosystem is narrowed down as follows:
• Geographical Region: The IT artifact presented in Chapter 6 is supposed to
enable the solution to currently unsolved problems in a specific domain (Hev-
ner et al. 2004). Consequently, it has to be developed and evaluated with re-
spect to a specific market environment, which is divided into technology,
socio-demographic and legal components (Weinhardt et al. 2003). Since these
components naturally differ across the countries of the world, an engineering
recommendation framework for mobile media markets attempting to cover all
these specific aspects would be either highly complex or trivially abstract.
For this, the IT artifact aims at the development of the most relevant engineer-
ing recommendations for mobile media markets platforms in the European
Union (EU). As a conglomerate of countries covering the largest part of
Europe, the EU has common legal directives for its members (Moussis 2001).
This becomes favourable because context information is considered personal
information (Art. 29 Data Protection Working Party 2007; Klüver et al. 2006)
12 Introduction
The previous paragraphs have illustrated the research scope of this work. The
following section outlines the application of design science research guidelines,
as according to Hevner et al. (2004) defined in the research scope.
Information Systems Research can be divided into design and behavioural sci-
ence branches. Although, there is still an ongoing discussion in the IS commu-
nity about the distinct differentiation of these two research approaches (Hevner
et al. 2004; March and Smith 1995), they can be roughly outlined as follows.
Whereas behavioural science aims at understanding and explaining observations
to render them into testable theories (March and Smith 1995), the objective of
design science is to “address an important organisational problem“ (Hevner et
al. 2004) by designing, developing and evaluating an IT artifact (Olivier 2004).
This work applies the design science paradigm by creating a novel IT artifact to
demonstrate a possible solution for a problem in the Mobile Marketing domain.
For this, it utilises the frequently cited and applied design science framework of
Hevner et al. (2004) as methodological approach. In the following, the seven
proposed guidelines of this framework are briefly summarised while illustrating
how this work addressed them:
• Problem Relevance: IS research starts with the identification of a relevant
problem in an organisational domain, which can be addressed by the devel-
opment of an IT artifact. The IT artifact is supposed to constitute a technol-
ogy-based solution, which addresses important business aspects relevant to
the IS community (Hevner et al. 2004).
The introducing sections of this chapter have already highlighted the potential
of mobile media for carrying out Mobile Marketing campaigns, as well as the
hardly exploited opportunities for Mobile Marketing Providers of enabling
context-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns.
• Design of an Artifact: The objective of design science is creating a novel IT
artifact for addressing an important organisational problem. In this regard, IT
artifacts can represent constructs, models, methods, or instantiations and have
to be described effectively in order to enable their implementation and appli-
cation in an organisational context (Hevner et al. 2004). They do not have to
be complete information systems capable of being used in practice. They
14 Introduction
rather represent concepts for e.g. practices, technical capabilities, and prod-
ucts for developing innovative information systems (Denning 1997).
This work presents the MoMeMa framework for mobile media markets as IT
artifact (cp. Chapter 6). It provides engineering recommendations for mobile
media market platforms owned and operated Mobile Marketing Providers and
it constitutes a model.
• Design Evaluation: It is not sufficient to develop an IT artifact which ad-
dresses an identified research problem without disclosing its utility to the IS
community (Hevner et al. 2004). Consequently, evaluation methods have to
be applied to assess the utility, quality, and efficiency of an IT artifact in
terms of functionality, completeness, consistency, accuracy, performance, re-
liability or usability (Hevner et al. 2004).
The evaluation of the IT artifact is conducted in two steps. First, Chapter 7
presents a developed software prototype of a mobile media market platform.
It is designed based on the MoMeMa framework in order to demonstrate the
technical feasibility to implement the proposed mobile media market engi-
neering recommendations. Second, the utility of the IT artifact to address the
identified impacts of context information on the traditional commercialisation
of mobile attention in practice, is evaluated by conducting expert interviews
with individuals from selected organisations in the mobile media ecosystem
(cp. Chapter 8).
• Research Contributions: According to Hevner et al. (2004), there are two
dimensions of contributions for design science research. The first dimension
constitutes the environment of the addressed problem space (e.g. people, or-
ganisations and technologies) and the second one represents the IS knowledge
base, which holds foundations (novel constructs or models) and methodolo-
gies (measure and evaluation metrics).
This work provides contributions to the IS knowledge base of the addressed
problem space. In the sense of Gregor (2006), the first contribution constitutes
the exploration and analysis of context information impacts on the traditional
commercialisation of mobile media performance and represents an analysis
theory (Theory Type I).
The gained knowledge from this analysis then lays the foundation for the sec-
ond contribution: The developed, prototyped, and evaluated IT artifact (Hev-
Introduction 15
5
For an overview of the published research papers, access the website of the Chair for Mo-
bile Business and Multilateral Security (http://www.m-chair.net).
6
PREMIUM: Preis- und Erlösmodelle im Internet – Umsetzung und Marktchancen (PRE-
MIUM 2003)
7
PREMIUM Services: This project attempts to take the developed pricing models of PRE-
MIUM and prototypically implement and offer them via a SOA-based pricing services
platform (PREMIUM Services 2009).
8
For an overview of the published research papers, access the website of the Chair for Mo-
bile Business and Multilateral Security (http://www.m-chair.net).
State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media 17
Product Price
Product Differentiation Price Discrimination
Product Innovation Price Bundling
Product Elimination Seasonal Pricing
Marketing
Mix
Place Promotion
Inventory Management Advertising
Transportation Sales Promotion
Distribution Channels Personal Selling
9
In the context of mobile media markets, media corporations are referred as Mobile Market-
ing Providers.
20 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
Marketing Domain
Marketing
Working Definition
Marketing Mix
Medium
Marketing
Campaign
10
Reach denotes the number of media consumers who can be reached by a specific medium
for marketing campaigns (e.g. TV channel).
22 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
Media
Corporation
Figure 2.4: Market and Media Information for Media Planning (Bogs
2001, p. 114)
Pricing
Prices
Media
Costs
Investment
Discounts
Media Media
Media Profitability
Budget Plan
Target Group
Optimization
Impact Media Quality of Reach &
Contacts
Contact Quality
Quality
24 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
11
Mille is latin and means 1000 (Online Directionary 2009).
12
In the context of online media, “media corporations” are now considered “Online Market-
ing Providers” whereas “online users” denote the “media consumers” of traditional media.
State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media 25
13
Nevertheless, Internet Service Providers are required to provide the communication infra-
structure of the Internet. However, in contrast to traditional media, these organisations do
not regulate the access.
26 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
the same time allowing advertisers to bypass the services of traditional media
agencies. Although the media agencies are still involved in the development of
sophisticated marketing campaigns, search engine providers like Google or Ya-
hoo, offer a simple interface for advertisers to create text-based online adver-
tisements and expose them to the targeted audience (Google Corporation 2009c;
Google Corporation 2009d; Yahoo Corporation 2009a).
Incomplete
Delayed,
Media Break
14
For instance, IP addresses of fixed terminal devices reveal the roughly originating geo-
graphic region of an online user, which can be used for geo-targeting purposes. For in-
stance, see the service of NetIP (Müller 2009).
State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media 29
CRM / Login
“true”
Quality
Behavioral data
“likely”
Typologies /
Socio-demographic Reach
“calculated”
15
Ad-Views denote an online marketing metric, which shows how many times an online ad-
vertisement was viewed by online users (Freytag 2008).
16
Dynamic, interactive pricing means that a price is the result of an interaction between
buyer and seller (e.g. an auction) (Skiera et al. 2005).
17
For more information, a range of available online user behaviours applied in online com-
pensation methods can be found in Dickinger et al. (2008).
State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media 31
18
For more details on the Palm Pre, refer to Palm (Palm Corporation 2009).
19
For more details on the Apple iPhone, refer to Apple (Apple Corporation 2009a).
32 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
form, it may comprise notebooks accessing the Internet via the mobile Internet,
which ultimately corresponds to fixed Internet access. Feldmann (2005, p. 4)
classifies possible instantiations of mobile media with regard to mobility dimen-
sions and moving entities (cp. Table 2.1).
Moving ++ ++ ++ ++
Information
Moving -- + + ++
device
Moving -- - + ++
person
proposition of Holland et al. (2006, p. 61), who document features, which have
already been identified as beneficial to Mobile Marketing campaigns.
2.4.1.1 Location and Time Independence
One of most prominent features of the mobile medium constitutes the opportu-
nity of mobile users to access data communication services independent from
their current geographical location (Camponovo and Pigneur 2005; Nysveen et
al. 2005). This ubiquitous access is substantiated by the continuous upgrade of
mobile networks. Whereas in the early days, only the Global System of Mobile
Communication (GSM) constituted the foundation of mobile data communica-
tions, new technology standards such as Universal Mobile Telecommunication
System (UMTS), Long Term Evolution (LTE) or Worldwide Interoperability of
Microwave Access (WiMax) have already or will become available (BSI 2008).
In addition, the ability of contemporary mobile networks to seamlessly roam
between the heterogeneous network technologies (including dedicated Wi-Fi
hotspots), will further increase and tighten the nation-wide mobile network cov-
erage (Sasikala and Srivatsa 2006).
The geographical location independence of mobile media also implicitly in-
cludes time independence. Similar to the fixed Internet, mobile access is avail-
able for 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Since mobile users are not
bound to geographical locations (e.g. home or Internet cafés), they are able to
satisfy immediate needs in their momentary situation (i.e. defined by geographi-
cal location and time of day) (Feldmann 2005, p. 78).
2.4.1.2 Interaction with Mobile Devices
Mobile devices exhibit several intrinsic characteristics and conceptual features,
which affect their interaction with mobile users and distinctively differentiate
the mobile media from its fixed online equivalent:
• Location Independence and Instant Interaction: Due to the compactness
and battery-power, unlike the personal computers, mobile devices do not re-
quire any specific physical location (e.g. office workspace) to be used
(Feldmann 2005, p. 5). This flexibility is supplemented by the absence of boot
time for their operating system. Thus, mobile devices can be instantly avail-
able in order to satisfy immediate needs of mobile users (Stanoevska-Slabeva
2004).
34 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
network functionality, it works for every mobile network and device (Schiller
2003, p. 102).
• Geographical User Location: Mobile networks are compounded of network
cells, which are spanned by physical cell towers. Each mobile device booked
into the mobile network has to be associated with at least one network cell in
order to enable the communication service (Schiller 2003, p. 100 ff.). Mobile
network operators are able to acquire the unique ID of the cell in which a mo-
bile user is currently booked in with their device. From this ID, the geo-
graphical location of the cell tower can be queried. Depending on its specifi-
cation, a cell tower can provide network coverage ranging from ca. 100m up
to 30 km radius (Schiller 2003, p. 117). Consequently, the actual geographical
location of mobile user can only be approximated (Cell-of-Orgin (COO)
method). In addition, several more accurate methods such as Time of Arrival
(TOA), which measures the signal time difference between cell tower and
mobile devices, are available (Bill et al. 2004).
Complementary to these network-based localisation methods, a mobile device
can provide location information by itself. Therefore, it has to either be
equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) or Wi-Fi network device.
In the case of a GPS device, a highly accurate localisation based on geo-
stationary satellites positioned in space is available. By contrast, a Wi-Fi de-
vice scans for Wi-Fi Access Points (WAP) in close vicinity, acquires its
unique ID (MAC address20) and attempts to query the corresponding geo-
graphical location from a WAP database. Since WAPs have only limited net-
work coverage (ca. 30m), they provide medium location accuracy (Albers et
al. 2005).
Both network and mobile device-based localisation approaches exhibit their
individual advantages and disadvantages. Network-based localisation, such as
COO, works for every mobile network and device, but produces often highly
inaccurate results. By contrast, GPS or Wi-Fi-based localisation methods re-
quire mobile devices to be equipped with the respective technology, but offer
more accurate results. In addition, the GPS service is globally available, but
20
Media Access Control (MAC) address represents a worldwide unique number, which iden-
tifies network interface cards or network adapters (IEEE Standards Association 2009).
36 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
performs poorly if used indoors. Wi-Fi works well indoors, but requires
highly populated areas as in large cities (Bill et al. 2004).
• Time of Day: The determination of the time of day when a mobile user ac-
cesses mobile network is trivial and represents a build-in feature of all mobile
networks (Robra-Bussantz 2005).
This outlined context information can theoretically be automatically acquired
without user interaction (cp. passive online data, Section 2.3.2.1). However, it
constitutes explicit data about individual mobile users (actively disclosed profile
data, cp. Section 2.3.2.1).
Literature does not provide a consistent definition for the term Mobile Market-
ing and it is often synonymously used for Mobile Advertising (Leppäniemi et al.
2006b). Nevertheless, marketing campaigns conducted via the mobile medium
allow the implementation of the same marketing policies (4Ps) like fixed online
media. In this regard, advertisers are currently focusing on the following Mobile
Marketing objectives (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 67; Holland and Bammel 2006, p.
107):
• Improving Sales: Advertisers aim at increasing the sales of their products
and services by establishing an additional communication channel to the cus-
tomer.
• Improving Brand Awareness: Advertisers aim at increasing the brand
awareness in the population as well as extending their services to mobile us-
ers.
• Address Generation: Acquisition of postal user home addresses and con-
ducting market research via the mobile medium.
In order to provide a consistent definition for the term Mobile Marketing, this
thesis adapts the proposal of Leppäniemi et al. (2006b), which is in line with
general marketing understanding of this work (cp. Section 2.1.1):
Along with this definition, the previously outlined distinctive features of mobile
media offer several theoretical advantages for Mobile Marketing campaigns,
whose features are depicted in Figure 2.7 and are comprised of two categories:
Maximising Reach and Minimising Circulation Waste.
High Interactivity
Location-based Time Independent
Recipient Addressability Customer Addressability
Minimised
Extensive Personalization Maximised Mass Media
Circulation
Capabilities Reach Capabilities
Waste
• Maximised Reach: By the end of the year 2007, most European regions had
exceeded a 100% mobile penetration rate (RNCOS 2008)21. Thereby, theo-
retically every citizen in Germany or Europe owned one or more mobile de-
vices and thus could be contacted independent from time of day or their geo-
graphical location (cp. Section 2.4.1.3). This opportunity is substantiated by
the fact that mobile users typically carry their mobile device like keys with
them all time whilst having it turned on an average of 14 hours per day
(Roesch 2005).
• Minimised Circulation Waste: The availability of context information (cp.
Section 2.4.1.3) allows targeting Mobile Marketing campaigns by location,
time of day and user identity. Therefore, Mobile Marketing campaigns can be
highly personalised to the suit individual needs of mobile users in their mo-
mentary usage situation. For instance, advertisers may target certain Mobile
Marketing campaigns only those mobile users, which currently reside in close
vicinity of their POS (Figge and Albers 2008; Albers 2007).
21
This is based on the ratio of European mobile subscribers to the total of European citizens.
38 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
the relevant target audience and expose mobile users to corresponding Mobile
Marketing campaigns. A prominent example is the Mobile Virtual Network
Operator (MVNO) Blyk (Blyk 2009), which offers its subscribers subsidised
mobile voice calls, text messages and data communication in exchange for
their permission to send SMS-based text advertisements to their phones.
Despite of the outlined potential of using context information for the targeting of
Mobile Marketing campaigns, it is currently hardly exploited in practice.
Whereas in the past monetary costs were held responsible for this circumstance,
today still unsolved legal data protection issues are hindering the increasing ap-
plication of this kind of information22 (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 26 f.). Mobile
Marketing Providers currently offering access to context information for Mobile
Marketing campaigns predominantly utilise only the geographic location of mo-
bile users.
In addition to the outlined targeting effectiveness benefits, the mobile medium
provides advertisers a theoretically higher reach for Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns than fixed traditional and online media (cp. Section 2.4.2.1). However,
not every mobile subscriber owns a mobile device, which is technically capable
to process every possible Mobile Marketing campaign. Even if the latter is the
case, mobile subscribers might refuse actual use of a certain mobile medium
(e.g. Mobile TV) or are not aware about the capabilities of their mobile device.
Table 2.2 illustrates this circumstance at the example of Germany.
22
This applies besides the fact that not every Mobile Marketing campaign is able to benefit
from context information.
40 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
Mobile
Technical Reached
Advertising Marketing Instrument
Reach Consumers
Medium
rently do not offer this type of pricing models (Albers 2007; Steimel et al. 2008,
p. 130).
Figure 2.8: Utilisation of the distinctive Mobile Media Features for Mobile
Marketing Campaigns
Personal Characteristics
of Mobile Media
1 Personal
Device
Intrinsically
Personal Information
2
Store
available
Targeting of Mobile
Marketing Campaigns
To be
4 Context Information actively
utilised
swers to where, when, who and what questions and acts as indices for deriving
the secondary context. If context is integrated into applications, it creates a con-
text-sensitive or context-aware system: “A system is context-aware if it uses
context to provide relevant information and/or services to the user, where rele-
vancy depends on the user’s task” (Dey and Abowd 1999).
In the scope of this work, context information provided by mobile media can be
categorised in the four primary context dimensions of Dey and Abowd (1999) as
follows:
• Location: The location represents the current geographical location of a mo-
bile user. Depending on the used technology, it is represented by either exact
GPS coordinates or a roughly estimated location area (Albers et al. 2005).
• Time: The time is respresented by the time of day for a mobile user. In the
scope of this work, the Central European Time (CET) is assumed. It provides
a common time zone for a majority of the European countries (Time and Date
2009).
• Person: The identity of a person is uniquely represented by the MSISDN of a
SIM card, which each mobile device needs in order to connect to the mobile
network.
• Activity: The online behaviour of mobile users observed by tracking entered
search queries in search engines, filled out web forms, clicked links, etc.) (cp.
Section 2.3.2.1).
In order for context information to be applied to the targeting of Mobile Market-
ing campaigns, secondary context information has to be derived from the loca-
tion, person, time, and activity dimension indices. In this regard, feasible secon-
dary context information applicable for Mobile Marketing campaigns is as fol-
lows:
• POS Distance (from Location): The geographical location of a mobile user
allows determining the distance between them and a potentially promoted
POS (Huff 1964).
• Remaining Visiting Time (from Time of Day): This represents the result of
the time of day matched with available opening hours of a POS or the office
hours / leisure time of a mobile user. This allows delivering Mobile Market-
44 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
ing campaigns only if a mobile user actually has to the time to respond to an
offering.
• Personal Preferences (from Person): By uniquely identifying a mobile user
(person dimension), personal preferences relevant for Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns can be queried from a database and associated with that mobile user.
For instance, this can comprise information such as socio-demographic data,
geographic data (i.e. home residence), and transaction history (Nieschlag et al.
2002, p. 1125 ff.).
• Immediate Need (from Activity): With the knowledge of a mobile user’s ac-
tivity or request, the delivery of Mobile Marketing campaigns can be directly
attached to these requests. For instance, a mobile user selects a certain cate-
gory (e.g. restaurants) or another specific webpage (e.g. home page) in a mo-
bile portal, which indicates their wish to visit a restaurant.
In this regard, Figure 2.9 depicts an overview of the context information types
considered relevant in the scope of this work for Mobile Marketing campaigns.
Primary
Context
In addition, there are also several other types of primary context information,
which are applicable to Mobile Marketing campaigns, but are not addressed
State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media 45
within the scope of this work. Representative examples are the mobile device
and network context. The former denotes attributes describing device capabili-
ties such as battery state and CPU / memory usage. The latter comprises attrib-
utes describing network status parameters such as quality of service, link status,
bandwidth, and topology (Sharma et al. 2008, p. 272).
Finally, besides outlined dimensions of secondary context information, it is also
important to distinguish between the different accessibilities to context informa-
tion (Sharma et al. 2008, p. 272 f.; Bulander et al. 2004). In this regard, the pri-
vate context is solely under the control of a mobile user (e.g. location informa-
tion determined by their mobile device via GPS). By contrast, the public context
can theoretically be accessed without explicit consent of mobile users. For in-
stance, the access time for a visited or an entered search engine keyword be-
comes implicitly available with the service usage.
Although, context information is not suitable or required for every Mobile Mar-
keting campaign, it is able to provide the following theoretical benefits for the
participants of the idealised mobile media market:
• Mobile Users: Context information allows targeting Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns to satisfy an immediate need of mobile users in their current situation.
Consequently, the provided offerings or promotions exhibit a higher utility for
mobile users (Figge 2007, p. 168) and reduce a potential disturbance of mo-
bile users with irrelevant contents (Heinonen and Strandvik 2007).
• Advertisers: Context information about mobile users decreases the uncer-
tainty of advertisers about the quality of purchased mobile media performance
because it reduces the information asymmetry between both parties (Weiber
and Adler 1995). Advertisers are able to evaluate individually the relevance of
mobile users (cp. Section 2.4.2) and subsequently satisfy the needs of mobile
users in their momentary mobile usage situation. This becomes especially
beneficial for advertisers because, according to Zängler (2000, p. 83), the in-
tent to consume is the predominant reason for the mobility of individuals.
Thereby, context-senstive Mobile Marketing campaigns allow advertisers to
promote products, which are typically not purchased online because mobile
46 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
Residing on the left are traditional Mobile Marketing campaigns. These offer the
highest reach for advertisers to mobile users. Their targeting is based on ob-
served online behaviour, which typically applies to large audience groups. Due
to their statistical nature, these targeting profiles exhibit only a low information
quality (Hegge 2008, p. 290 f.).
Sitting in the middle are context-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns. They
offer only medium reach because context information allows the targeting of
significant smaller audience groups. However, context information can be auto-
matically acquired and constitutes explicit information about mobile users at
medium quality.
On the right, Mobile CRM campaigns are depicted. These exhibit the lowest
reach since they require an existing business relationship to individual mobile
users. However, they are founded on highly detailed transaction details about
mobile users. Consequently, they exhibit the highest quantity and quality of mo-
bile user information (Duncan and Moriarty 1998, p. 8).
48 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
sumed by mobile users, whose current usage situation is relevant to them (cp.
Figure 2.12).
The already previously presented SmartRotuaari project (Ojala et al. 2003) of-
fers, besides its application, a complementing evaluation of user acceptance and
perceived added value. In this regard, an interesting finding was the fact that it is
not sufficient to target mobile advertisements solely based on the geographical
location of a POS (Ojala et al. 2003). Instead, advertisers also have to incorpo-
rate the personal preferences of mobile users into the targeting models.
The B-MAD as the successor of the SmartRotuaari project (Aalto et al. 2004)
also provides an empirical analysis of location-based mobile advertising system.
It focused on the technical reliability of the system and the user acceptance for
Mobile Marketing campaigns. Although the Bluetooth-based location technol-
ogy was found to be not reliable, the mobile user’s attitude towards the service
was overall positive. Nevertheless, similar to the SmartRotuaari system, the
concept needs to be extended for the targeting of Mobile Marketing campaigns
based on personal user preferences as well.
Klafft et al. (2006) conducted an empirical study regarding the acceptance of
context-sensitive Mobile Couponing. In an experimental field test, they evalu-
ated the redemption of mobile coupons, which have been given to mobile users,
in accordance with their distance of a POS. Their findings indicate that mainly
young mobile users, whose immediate needs can be addressed by close-by POS,
are highly attracted by these kinds of Mobile Marketing campaigns.
Finally, Bruner (2007) has to be mentioned. He conducted an empirical study to
measure mobile users’ attitude towards location-based advertising. As a result,
he developed an analysis model dedicated to aid academics and practitioners in
evaluating different design concepts of Mobile Marketing campaigns.
Regarding the business model and operated mobile media market platforms of
Mobile Marketing Providers enabling Mobile Marketing campaigns, only a few
publications so far have been published.
Tripathi (2003) presents decision models for wireless advertising companies op-
timising the delivery time of SMS-based promotional text messages. For this, an
algorithm for Mobile Marketing Providers was developed. It incorporates time
54 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
of day, user location, price of promotional messages and network load into its
distribution algorithm.
Gopal and Tripathi (2006) continued and extended the work of Tripathi (2003).
They have further analysed the aspects, which have impact on the delivery of
SMS-based promotional text messages. Thereby, the user’s mobility, estimated
time window for the advertisement delivery, learning about mobile user prefer-
ences over time, measurement of advertising effectiveness, network capacity
modelling, capacity purchase decisions, availability of location data and real-
time processing capacities were identified and discussed. In order to determine
the relevance of the distance between a retail store (i.e. POS) and advertising
delivery location (i.e. mobile user location), an initial experimental study on the
effectiveness of mobile advertising was conducted. Their findings show a sig-
nificant correlation of the distance between retail location and point of adver-
tisement delivery: A small distance shows a higher likelihood of a mobile user
to redeem a provided coupon. It also shows that the characteristics of the coupon
itself have to match the personal preferences of a mobile user in order to be of
value.
Finally, Figge (2007) extended the traditional business model of mobile network
operators offering mobile voice and data communications by developing a mo-
bile portal, which features context-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns. For
this, Figge has developed a corresponding business model framework whilst an-
swering the following research questions for mobile network operators:
• How can context information about mobile users be represented in order to
be applied to Mobile Marketing campaigns?
• How can a business model be developed to enable context-sensitive Mobile
Marketing campaigns based on its traditional equivalent?
• How can a prototypical mobile portal be designed to enable context-sensitive
Mobile Marketing campaigns, in order to demonstrate ICT-related feasibility
of the business model?
ingly shifting their attention towards online media with interactivity as its most
distinctive feature.
Online media enables an interactively personalised media consumption for
online users as well as the establishment of a bidirectional communication chan-
nel for advertisers with those online recipients. Thereby, it enables new targeting
models for Online Marketing campaigns and new pricing models for the respec-
tive online media performance offered by Online Marketing Providers.
Evolved from online media, mobile media constitutes the latest vehicle for mar-
keting campaigns. It offers several distinctive features beneficial to marketing
campaigns, but currently advertisers predominantly take advantage of its charac-
teristic in being more personal than any other media. However, this intrinsic fea-
ture of mobile media does not comprise its full potential. Enriching mobile me-
dia performance with context information about mobile users, allows advertisers
to target their Mobile Marketing campaigns to the momentary usage situation of
individual mobile users. As a result, advertisers are able to increase the effec-
tiveness of their Mobile Marketing campaigns and mobile users receive offer-
ings more relevant to their immediate needs.
From a technical perspective, this context information can be considered solely
as additional data about mobile users. However, with regard to the targeting of
Mobile Marketing campaigns, it is able to describe explicitly the individual us-
age situation of mobile users. Thereby, its availability to do so depends on the
capability and willingness of mobile users to disclose this kind of information.
Consequently, Mobile Marketing Providers willing to enrich their mobile media
performance with context information have to be aware to potential impacts on
its commercialisation and the mean to cope with them.
As the previous section on related work has revealed, the body of literature con-
cerned with context-sensitive Mobile Marketing is relatively small compared to
the total number of publications on traditional Mobile Marketing (Leppäniemi
2006b). Existing contributions in this field can be roughly categorised as techni-
cal design / architectural, user acceptance and economic publications. Thus, lit-
erature has mainly focused on concepts and architectures enabling the integra-
tion of context information into Mobile Marketing campaigns. Consequently,
context-sensitive Mobile Marketing still is a young field (cp. Section 2.4.2) and
56 State-of-the-Art Advertising-financed Media
23
Potential attention is referred to as attention throughout the remainder of this work.
58 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
Figure 3.1: Model of Attention Process (Davenport and Beck 2001, p. 21)
Narrowing Decision
Awareness Phase Attention Phase
Action
Between the narrowing
Items come into phase and the decision Decide
awareness phase, attention is paid whether or
to a particular item not to act
allows advertisers to determine which mobile users are relevant and thereby ex-
posed to Mobile Marketing campaigns (cp. Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2: The Relation of Attention Data, Attention Profiles and Target-
ing Profiles for Mobile Marketing Campaigns
Explicit
Attention Data matching Attention of
relevant Mobile
Users to be
exposed to
Targeting Profile Mobile Marketing
Campaigns
Targeted
Preferred describes Mobile Users
Attention Data For Mobile
for Mobile Marketing
Marketing Campaign
Campaign
harder for advertisers to capture the attention of mobile users for the market-
ing campaigns in a world of information overflow. In contrast to mobile atten-
tion, mobile advertising space is almost indispensably available. Conse-
quently, mobile websites attracting much attention become very valuable and
are more difficult to find (Sacharin 2001, p. 3).
• Measurability: Depending on the applied types of Mobile Marketing cam-
paigns, several metrics are in place to measure the (potential) attention of mo-
bile users paid to advertisements. For instance, the mobile Internet as an in-
teractive medium offers the direct measurement of attention by tracking the
click-streams of mobile users on websites (Thomas 2008). Nevertheless, the
actual attention of mobile users can only indirectly and inaccurately be meas-
ured since there is no metric for attention in existence (Goldhaber 1997a;
Ghosh 1997). Consequently, mobile attention can only be measured if a Mo-
bile Marketing campaign was able to induce some user action such as a prod-
uct purchase or visiting an advertised mobile website. Metrics such as the
brand awareness generated by a Mobile Marketing campaign cannot be di-
rectly acquired via the mobile media (Thomas 2008).
• Transferability: Ownership rights of an economic good needs to be ex-
changeable between different parties (Hill 1999, p. 427). Mobile attention in
mobile media markets is acquired by Mobile Marketing Providers and sold to
advertisers as media mobile performance. By bundling provided content with
Mobile Marketing campaigns, Mobile Marketing Providers are conditionally
able to transfer this attention to advertisers.
Research in the field of the digital economy shows how the characteristics of
economic goods can significantly determine the requirements for the design of
market transactions. A prominent example represents the pricing of physical vs.
digital goods. Whereas physical goods have constant production and reproduc-
tion costs, digital goods such as information are expensive to produce, but cheap
to reproduce (first copy costs paradigm). These different cost structures have to
be reflected in varying respective pricing models for these goods (Shapiro and
Varian 2006, p. 20 ff.), which ultimately leads to different designs for market
transactions (Hill 1999, p. 427). Consequently, the understanding of the charac-
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 63
24
The characteristics of attention also apply to other types of media markets (e.g. online me-
dia) but are in the following solely discussed in the context of mobile media.
64 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
Customisability Perishability
Transfer Mode
Substitutability Recipient
Options for
Intensity of Use Tangible Support Externalities
Existence of a Complexity of
Tangible Equivalent Product Use
Under the assumption that Mobile Marketing Providers have already acquired
the attention from mobile users and are ready to sell it, the characteristics of
mobile attention can be described based on of Koppius (1999) as follows:
Buyer-related Dimensions (Advertiser):
• Value Determination: Intangible goods exhibit two characteristics, which
complicate their value determination. First, the value of intangibles can often
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 65
only be derived from an underlying product (e.g. patent). Secondly, the tradi-
tional economics of production (e.g. marginal costs concept) no longer ap-
plies if the good can be digitised. Therefore, Koppius (1999) proposes the dif-
ferentiation between search and experience goods. The quality of search
goods can be inspected prior to the purchase (e.g. price) whereas the quality
of goods with experience qualities can only be determined after the purchase
or consumption (e.g. information goods such as books or papers). Further-
more, this classic categorisation of goods was extended by Darby and Karmi
(1973) with credence goods. The value of such goods cannot be determined at
all – even after consumption or purchase (e.g. consultancy).
The value of mobile attention for advertisers is determined by its relevance
for a Mobile Marketing campaign. Advertisers determine this relevance by
matching attention profiles of mobile users with the respective targeting pro-
file of a Mobile Marketing campaign (cp. Nieschlag et al. 2002, p. 1061). Fur-
thermore, the value of mobile attention depends on the number of advertisers
it was sold to at the same time. Theoretically, mobile attention could be split
up into infinite units and used by multiple advertisers. However, the value of
this attention decreases with each additional sold unit because mobile users
have only a limited capability of apprehending the provided Mobile Market-
ing campaigns25.
• Perishability: Value of a good decreasing over time is considered as perish-
able.
Mobile attention as well as attention in general cannot be stored. Conse-
quently, the value of mobile attention perishes immediately if not applied di-
rectly to Mobile Marketing campaigns.
• Who or what is the direct Recipient?: This dimension is concerned with the
question what type of recipient an intangible good has. This can be either per-
sons (e.g. editorial content) or business services (e.g. insurance).
Advertisers are recipients of mobile attention. They expose it to Mobile Mar-
keting campaigns. However, if following Simon (1971), who states that in-
formation consumes attention, one could also consider the contents of Mobile
25
For example, a webpage overloaded with online banners would be of no value to both mo-
bile users and advertisers.
66 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
gible (e.g. database) as well as tangible form (e.g. media data report26), but
this does not represent a tangible equivalent.
Delivery-related dimension:
• Transfer Mode: The transfer mode primarily aims at intangible digital
goods. The delivery of digital goods can either be accomplished at once (e.g.
download) or may require several interactions (e.g. Internet search engine re-
sult).
Mobile attention cannot be stored and has to be used at the same time it is ac-
quired. Thus, mobile attention is delivered at once by Mobile Marketing Pro-
viders to the advertiser.
• Options for Tangible Support: The utilisation of intangible goods always
requires tangible support in order for them to have value. For instance, a
software application may be delivered electronically or via a physical medium
(e.g. DVD).
Tangible support for mobile attention is always required and not optional.
Advertisers receive mobile attention through displaying their Mobile Market-
ing campaigns on the respective advertising space on mobile websites.
After outlining the characteristics of mobile attention as an economic good, the
following section illustrates the main aspects of its value creation process along
the classic value chain model.
26
Media data reports are issued by media corporations (e.g. Mobile Marketing Providers).
They are supposed to inform advertisers about the reach and types of recipients of their
media channels (Bogs 2001, p. 39 ff.).
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 69
Based on the simplified model of Porter (1985), the mobile attention value chain
comprises procurement, production, and sales & distribution chain links (cp.
Figure 3.4). It is connected to the content and advertisement market, which are
both operated by the Mobile Marketing Provider (two-sided mobile media mar-
ket).
Mobile Marketing
Provider
Along with these intermediary roles of a Mobile Marketing Provider, the charac-
teristics of each value chain link are further elaborated in the following sections.
The first activity in the mobile attention value chain constitutes the procurement
of mobile attention from mobile users. In general, mobile attention in media
markets cannot be acquired directly like physical goods on procurement markets
(e.g. oil, steel, etc.). Mobile users freely choose which media content provides
the highest value in satisfying their informative or entertaining needs (Kaspar
2006, p. 158). In exchange, they are paying their attention to Mobile Marketing
campaigns bundled to this media content.
In order to enable effective Mobile Marketing campaigns, Mobile Marketing
Providers have to acquire attention data about mobile users (cp. Section 3.1).
Aggregated to attention profiles, this data allows deriving the personal prefer-
ences of mobile users and enables the targeting of Mobile Marketing campaigns
for advertisers. In this regard, Rose (1998, p. 22 ff.) presents relevant data acqui-
sition aspects, which also apply for Mobile Marketing Providers, as information
intermediaries:
• Type of Attention Data Acquisition: Mobile attention data either can ac-
tively or passively be acquired. Passive acquisition means that Mobile Mar-
keting Providers observe the online behaviour of mobile users on their mobile
websites (e.g. followed website links). By contrast, active acquisition means
that mobile users actively provide attention data when using a mobile website
(e.g. entered search query).
• Attention Data Acquisition Costs: Attention data acquisition costs signifi-
cantly depend on the type of attention data acquisition. Mobile users typically
demand monetary or incentives in exchange for actively providing attention
data (Awad and Krishnan 2006), which may cause significant costs. By con-
trast, passively observing the online behaviour of mobile users generates
fewer costs since no user interaction is required.
Furthermore, Rose (1998, p. 26 ff.) discusses the credibility of information as
well as the trust in the information source. Those aspects can be directly related
to the quality of attention data. In this regard, Wang and Strong (1996) provide
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 71
one of the most comprehensive, but generic frameworks on the meaning of data
quality for its consumers (cp. Figure 3.5)
Data
Quality
Agreement Phase
• Standard Contracts
• Negotiation Infrastructure
• Auctions
Contract • ...
Settlement Phase
• Logistic flows
End of Transaction • Delivery of Product
• Financial flow
• Information flow
For each of these transaction phases, Rose (1998, p. 179 ff.) as well as Schmid
and Lindemann (1998) highlighted the aspects, which an intermediary in the role
of an electronic market operator can support:
• Information Phase: In the information phase, buyers and sellers acquire
knowledge about the general business environment, market partners as well as
available goods and services. The phase ends with a submission of an offer
for a good or service and consecutively starts the agreement phase (Schmid
and Lindemann 1998).
Thereby, goods in electronic markets have to be distinctly identifiable, which
requires a common language or semantic basis respectively (Schmid 1999, p.
10). Consequently, goods and services have to be described by means of elec-
tronic media covering all relevant characteristics. Therefore, several descrip-
tion approaches can be distinguished: Informal (e.g. individual description of
product characteristics), semiformal (e.g. based on a set of predefined charac-
teristics) and formal (e.g. using a formal language) (Rose 1998, p. 182).
74 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
Mobile Marketing Providers offer this product description through the provi-
sion of mobile attention profiles (cp. Section 3.2.2). Depending on the type of
Mobile Marketing campaign, different product description approaches may
apply. For instance, mobile attention profiles applied in mobile display adver-
tising campaigns are predominantly described on a semi-formal basis. By
contrast, mobile attention profiles for SMS-based mobile text-promotions are
typically formally described since they are automatically processed for the
targeting of the campaign (Steimel et al. 2008).
• Agreement Phase: In the agreement phase, the conditions of the transaction
are negotiated. This most importantly concerns the price fixing process,
which is supposed to leads to a legally binding contract (Schmid and Linde-
mann 1998). This phase can be supported by an intermediary in offering stan-
dardised contracts, negotiation on behalf of the transaction partners or by the
provision of an electronic negotiation infrastructure (e.g. for auctions).
For Mobile Marketing Providers, the focus of this phase is on the price fixing
process. For this, they are offering mobile attention predominantly based on
static pricing mechanisms (i.e. CPM) and dynamic, interactive pricing (i.e.
auction models) (cp. Section 2.4.2.2).
• Settlement Phase: In the settlement phase, the terms of the closed contract
are fulfilled. This concerns the logistic (i.e. delivery of product), financial and
information flows. Thereby, electronic goods may be delivered via electronic
networks such as the Internet, whereas physical goods require a different dis-
tribution channel. Financial flows can be executed electronically. In this re-
gard, an intermediary can manage and fulfil all these coordination processes
between sellers and buyers (Rose 1998, p. 183).
Once purchased, mobile attention is delivered to advertisers by displaying
their respective Mobile Marketing campaigns on the mobile website, provided
by the Mobile Marketing Provider. Advertisers become informed by Mobile
Marketing Providers about the performance of the campaign (e.g. received
clicks on a mobile advertisement) and are charged based on the agreed com-
pensation model (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 60).
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 75
Markets can be understood as an abstract place where supply and demand for
goods meets and exchange processes between buyers and sellers are enabled
(Picot et al. 2003, p. 338). Thereby, markets can either evolve over time or are
designed by market engineers (Holtmann 2004, p. 22 f.). The latter types are
based on formal rules as well as standards for a specific purpose and are referred
to as organised markets. While the former types presented are self-organised27,
organised markets require a market operator, which enables and monitors the
transactions on the market (Weinhardt et al. 2003; Holtmann 2004, p. 22 ff.).
Operators of organised markets often act as intermediaries between sellers and
buyers and may provide several economic benefits. On the Internet, information
intermediaries play an important role by helping to overcome market imperfec-
tions (Rose 1998, p. 51 f.), such as information asymmetries by enabling the
matching of appropriate trading partners (Jullien 2004). Furthermore, they can
reduce necessary number of interactions between trading partners. The outcome,
known as the Baligh/Richartz-Effect (Bogs 2001, p. 79), lowers the necessary
contacts from n*m to n+m. They also act as a trust provider between the in-
volved parties (Picot e al. 2003, p. 381) whilst offering charging, billing or other
logistic functionality necessary for the execution of market transactions (Jullien
2004).
Although, intermediaries cannot be justified in every market to address prevail-
ing imperfections such as search costs (Rose 1998), their role becomes a neces-
sity in two-sided markets. The intermediary provides services for two (or more)
parties in disjunctive markets in order to enable their interaction by bridging
possible incompatibilities. These markets are linked by their common pricing
structure and the indirect cross-network externalities (Roson 2005a; Jullien
27
For example, the German mobile media market is highly regulated but the market transac-
tions are not organised (Heinemann et al. 2004).
76 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
2004). A more formal definition for this two-sided market concept was provided
by Roson (2005b):
Typical examples of such markets are credit cards systems, software platforms
such as Microsoft Windows or shopping malls (Roson 2005b; Peitz 2005; Jul-
lien 2004) as well as advertising-financed media (Anderson and Gabszewicz
2006), which will be covered in more detail later in this section. The general
two-sided market is exemplified and outlined in Figure 3.7.
Intermediary
€ €
Market 1 Market 2
Indirect
Network Externalities
Shapiro 1985). Thereby, direct network externalities are the result of the im-
mediate value created by additional users joining the network (e.g. increasing
number of participants of a telephone network). By contrast, indirect network
externalities are a secondary result of users adapting a service or good (e.g.
cheaper telephones) (Katz and Shapiro 1985). Indirect network externalities
can occur in one-sided as well as two-sided markets, but the distinct charac-
teristic of two-sided markets is that indirect network externalities occur across
both of the markets (Evans 2003). Therefore, the value of the first network is
the function of the size of the second network and vice versa.
This can be further illustrated by taking the previously mentioned software
platform Microsoft Windows as an example. The first market-side (or net-
work) is represented by the users of Windows software applications. This
party benefits from a large number of software developers on the second mar-
ket-side – given that an increasing number of software developers provide a
greater variety of software applications. From the software developers’ per-
spective, a large network of users increases the number of potential software
application purchases.
• Pricing: One of the key characteristics of two-sided markets is that the de-
termination of optimal prices must be balanced between both market sides
(Evans 2003). Prices cannot be assigned independently to each market side.
This is because the price of one market side has a direct impact on the other
market side. Thus, both markets are linked by a common pricing structure and
level (Rochet and Tirole 2002). The determination of these prices depends on
several aspects such as the price elasticity of a network or its existing network
externalities (Roson 2005b). Consequently, this prevents the application of
traditional pricing strategies used in ordinary markets (Jullien 2004; Parker
and Van Alstyne 2005).
• Interaction Types: An intermediary enables two types of possible interac-
tions between the two market sides – each providing value to the network in
their own way. The previously illustrated software platform represents a mul-
tiple interacting network, which benefits from each possible interaction of us-
ers and application developers. Single interacting networks on the other hand,
only benefit from a single matching interaction (e.g. real estate or dating
agencies) (Poulios 2007; Roson 2005a).
78 Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention
The model of two-sided markets outlined in the previous chapter can be applied
to describe the specific characteristics of the mobile media markets (Anderson
and Gabszewicz 2006; Reisinger 2003) on an abstract level28.
In mobile media markets, the intermediary platform is typically represented by
Mobile Marketing Providers, which serve two disjunctive markets. Participants
on the first market (content market) are mobile users willing to receive informa-
tive and/or entertaining contents. In exchange for their mobile attention paid to
advertisements bundled with the provisioned contents, they receive this service
free of charge or on subsidised basis. On the second market (advertisement mar-
ket), advertisers purchase this generated attention of an audience in order to ex-
28
On a more detailed level, mobile media markets may contain more market participants in
order to create value (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 120). However, in the context of this work,
this abstraction level of two-sided markets is sufficient in order to address the research ob-
jective.
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 79
Mobile Marketing
Provider
€
Mobile Advertisers
Users
Indirect
Network Externalities
ones for a mobile user, an increasing number of advertisers can also lead to
positive network externalities29 (Ferrando et al. 2004; Dewenter 2006).
• Pricing: The balancing of the price structure between the advertisement and
content market is predestined. On the content market side, prices are typically
lower than on the advertisement market or non-existent at all (Evans 2003).
Mobile users receive content predominantly free-of-charge or at a price which
is typically below marginal production costs of these contents (Anderson and
Gabszewicz 2006). In this regard, the pricing strategy in two-sided markets
must not be confused with cross-subsidy of products as known on traditional
one-sided markets. Cross-subsidy is of a temporary nature whereas this strat-
egy applies permanently (Anderson and Gabszewicz 2006).
• Interaction Types: Although traditional mobile media markets constitute a
multiple interacting network, the sophisticated personalisation features result-
ing from available context information of mobile media (Stewart and Pavlou
2002) theoretically tends towards a single interacting network such as one-to-
one marketing campaigns (Kotler et al. 2001, p. 1203).
• Two-sided Market Categories: Mobile media markets belong to the cate-
gory of audience makers. They are matching advertisers to audiences (i.e.
mobile users as recipients of Mobile Marketing campaigns) (Evans 2003).
• Market Development: The chicken & egg problem of mobile media markets
is typically addressed by attracting mobile users with content whilst subsidis-
ing the price of Mobile Marketing campaigns for advertisers until the critical
mass of mobile users is reached to get a sufficient number of advertisers on
board (cp. Evans 2003).
3.4 Summary
This chapter presented a conceptional framework to be applied to the explora-
tion of impacts of context information on the traditional commercialisation of
mobile media performance in mobile media markets.
29
For instance, this applies to the AdSense Advertising Network of Google Corporation:
From a pool of available advertisements, only a limited number of relevant advertisments
is selected and displayed to the online user (Google Corporation 2009d).
Conceptual Analysis Framework for Mobile Attention 81
For this, based on the attention economy school, the attention of mobile users
rather than mobile media performance has been considered the scarce economic
good traded in the mobile media markets. Along this new paradigm, all relevant
aspects for the commercialisation of mobile attention as an economic good have
been covered by respective concepts, which led to the following three compo-
nents of the conceptional analysis framework:
The first framework component covers the nature and characteristics of mobile
attention as an economic good in mobile media markets. Based on the model of
Koppius (1999), its characteristics as an intangible, non-digital good have been
outlined.
The second framework component is concerned with the value creation process
of mobile attention. Thereby, the role of a Mobile Marketing Provider can be
analysed from two perspectives along the value chain. First, this role constitutes
the information intermediary, which acquires mobile attention about mobile us-
ers, compiles it to attention profiles, and finally disseminates it to the respective
advertisers. Secondly, Mobile Marketing Providers act in the matchmaker in-
termediary role. This enables and supports market transactions for mobile atten-
tion from Mobile Marketing Providers to advertisers.
Finally, the third framework component constitutes the consideration of mobile
media markets as two-sided markets based on the theory of network economics.
This allows analysing the impact of applying context information on the main
functioning and behaviour of an entire mobile media market.
This outlined conceptional analysis framework is applied in the following chap-
ter in order to systematically explore and analyse the impacts of context infor-
mation on the traditional commercialisation of mobile attention as an economic
good in mobile media markets.
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 83
30
Context-sensitive mobile attention denotes mobile attention enriched or described with
context information.
84 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
tions, still some aspects (e.g. available context information, mobile medium,
etc.) affect the characteristics of mobile attention. Consequently, the following
section is going to narrow the potential analysis scope down to the current most
prospective Mobile Marketing campaigns for context-sensitive mobile attention.
Mobile
Medium
Mobile Data
Terminal Devices Communication
Technologies
31
Whilst mobile phones typically provide basic voice and data communication services,
smart phones are offering advanced capabilities, which can be compared to PC functional-
ity (Feldmann 2005, p. 55ff.).
32
For instance, notebooks are not typically used by persons walking through a pedestrian
precinct.
86 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
Mobile
Marketing
Mobile Direct
Mobile Permission Mobile Advertising Mobile CRM
Response Marketing
Campaign-driven continuously
2.000
1.000
619 Search +169%
Video/TV +109%
500
284 Text/MMS +17%
155
In-Application +226%
0
2007 2011
Device Manufacturers
Content Providers
Portal Player
Multimedia Agencies
The foundation of this Mobile Marketing value chain represents the infrastruc-
ture equipment vendors, device manufacturers, as well as core access players,
which together enable the current mobile data communications. Based on this
communication layer, portal players attract mobile users with content delivered
by content providers / aggregators. The acquired mobile attention of users is
subsequently exposed to Mobile Marketing campaigns developed by wireless
application providers and multimedia agencies. Finally, potentially initiated pur-
chases of mobile users can be supported by mobile payment services (Steimel et
al. 2008, p. 120 ff.).
For the provision of Mobile Marketing campaigns, these organisations form a
value network. However, this work focuses on the analysis of transactions for
mobile attention between mobile users and advertisers, which are enabled by
Mobile Marketing Providers. Since other organisations are not directly affected
33
The black labelled market players in the value chain exhibit strong relevance to the provi-
sion of Mobile Marketing campaigns. Grey labelled boxes denote future areas of relevance
and white boxes denote an involvement of the player in this chain link but without rele-
vance to Mobile Marketing.
90 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
Mobile
Marketing
Provider
Mobile
Advertisers
Users
pays for
opportunity
to advertise
2
1 4
purchases offered products
7
and generates revenues
Mobile Advertisers
Users
offers products and services 6
according to user context
Following the model of Zerdick and Picot (2001, p. 50), interactions between
the market players to conduct Mobile Advertising campaigns can be described
as follows:
1. Mobile users signal their immediate need for informative or entertaining con-
tent to the Mobile Marketing Provider by logging on to their mobile web por-
92 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
tal. At the same time, they may disclose primary context information (i.e. lo-
cation, time, identity and activities), which can be used to determine and de-
scribe their current usage situation.
2. The Mobile Marketing Provider attempts to satisfy these needs by offering
mobile content personalised according to derived secondary context informa-
tion (e.g. local weather report, news, etc.).
3. In exchange for these predominantly free-of-charge mobile contents, the mo-
bile user pays attention to Mobile Advertising campaigns.
4. The Mobile Marketing Provider enriches the attracted mobile attention with
acquired context information about mobile users and offers it to advertisers.
The latter choose the mobile attention, which exhibits the highest relevance
for their Mobile Advertising campaigns (e.g. mobile users in close vicinity to
the POS of an advertiser).
5. Advertisers pay for the opportunity to expose this mobile attention to their
Mobile Advertising campaigns.
6. Mobile advertising space provided by the Mobile Marketing Provider, which
actually enables advertisers to convey their marketing objectives to the re-
spective recipients.
7. Mobile users can purchase products / services promoted via the Mobile Ad-
vertising campaign – which may generate additional revenues for the adver-
tisers.
By following the outlined analysis scope, the next section proceeds with the first
component of the framework by analysing context-sensitive mobile attention as
an economic good in mobile media markets.
Context-sensitive
Mobile Marketing Mobile Attention Advertiser
Provider
Search
Qualities Context-sensitive
Traditional Mobile Attention
Mobile Attention
Experience Credence
Qualities Qualities
34
In other words: If a mobile user can be influenced according to the objective of a con-
ducted Mobile Advertising campaign, he is likely to exhibit the personal preferences upon
which the Mobile Advertising campaign was targeted.
35
For instance, a mobile user may not give his consent in order to determine his current geo-
graphic location.
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 95
made in real-time once a mobile user accesses the mobile portal of a Mobile
Marketing Provider. Since this can only be accomplished automatically, ad-
vertisers have to specify their corresponding targeting profiles in advance
without the knowledge of the actual mobile users. Consequently, context-
sensitive mobile attention is assumed to exhibit a higher complexity of use
than their traditional equivalents.
• Externalities: As already discussed in Section 3.3.2, traditional mobile atten-
tion exhibits cross-network externalities. This also applies to context-sensitive
mobile attention, but in a different manner, which is discussed in more detail
later in Section 4.4.1.
plicit information about individual mobile users, advertisers are able to ar-
chive a significantly higher targeting effectivness for their Mobile Advertising
campaigns.
• Substitutability: The substitutability of mobile attention is determined by the
specificity of the underlying attention profiles. The higher, the specificity of
mobile attention, the less likely it can be substituted by the mobile attention of
a different mobile user.
Whereas traditional mobile attention profiles describe large, homogenous au-
dience groups (e.g. based on an entered keyword), the traditional mobile at-
tention is more likely to be replacable compared to context-sensitive mobile
attention. Since context information allows describing an individual momen-
tary usage situation of a mobile user, its mobile attention is more difficult to
substitute.
• Intensity of Use: Mobile attention is a single-use good since it has to be ac-
quired anew for each Mobile Advertising campaign. This applies to tradi-
tional as well as context-sensitive mobile attention.
• Existence of tangible equivalent: Since mobile attention cannot be stored,
there is no existence of tangible equivalent. This applies to both traditional
and context-sensitive mobile attention.
Content Content
Personal Provider 1 … Provider n
Preferences
Primary
Context
Information
Mobile
Network
Operator
tion has collected about them, and the explanation on how this information is
going to be used (e.g. data transparency, data removal, and time expiration of
data). In this regard, Friberg (2007, p. 82) concludes that information trans-
parency is able to reduce privacy concerns and increase the user’s willingness
to disclose personal information. This implies the need for Mobile Marketing
Providers to make the targeting process of Mobile Advertising campaigns for
mobile users transparent. For instance, it could be disclosed to a mobile user
that a certain Mobile Advertising campaign has been displayed on their mo-
bile device because of their close vicinity to a promoted POS.
In addition to the willingness of mobile users to disclose context-sensitive mo-
bile attention data, the data quality aspects of traditional and context-sensitive
mobile attention data have to be compared. This is because the data quality de-
termines an advertiser’s ability to target Mobile Advertising campaigns effec-
tively.
The quality of traditional mobile attention data predominantly depends of the
amount of collected behavioural data and its interpretation for the targeting of
Mobile Advertising campaigns (Oesterer and Winkler 2008, p. 579 ff.). This
data quality can be characterised based on the data quality framework of Wang
and Strong (1996) as outlined in Section 3.2.1. However, since context-sensitive
mobile attention data is the focus of this analysis, it is no longer addressed
within the scope of this work.
For context-sensitive mobile attention data, the data quality can be analysed
based on quality of context framework of Buchholz et al. (2003, p. 5 ff.). It is
defined by the following quality criteria:
• Precision: Precision describes how accurate provided context information
about mobile users is. For instance, although GPS is able to position mobile
users on a scale of a few metres, the precision of COO-localisation can vary
between 100m and 30km (cp. Section 2.4.1.3).
• Probability of Correctness: Depending on the source of context information
different probabilities for its correctness exists. For instance, a GPS device
may fail to provide their correct location due to the lack of satellite connec-
tivity.
102 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
In order to convert acquired mobile attention into a tradable good, Mobile Mar-
keting Providers have to produce mobile attention profiles from the attention
data (Figge 2007, p. 66 ff.). These profiles represent the personal preferences of
mobile users in their momentary usage situation and enable the targeting of Mo-
bile Advertising campaigns for advertisers.
Depending on the requirements of advertisers as recipients of mobile attention
profiles, those can be processed in various forms (i.e. analytically, synoptically
or synthetically). Traditional attention data represents observed online behaviour
of mobile users (e.g. followed links, entered keywords, etc.). It is analytically
processed to derive mobile user preferences. Those traditional mobile attention
profiles represent the statistical average preferences of a group of mobile users,
who regulary pay attention to a certain type of Mobile Advertising campaign
(Hegge 2008, p. 288 ff.; Oesterer and Winkler 2008, p. 579 ff.).
By contrast, context-sensitive attention data represents explicit information
about individual mobile users. It is synthetically processed (Rose 1998, p. 172)
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 103
Marketing Providers and advertisers about the meaning of the attributes con-
tained in the traditional mobile attention profile (Figge 2007, p. 82).
By contrast, context-sensitive mobile attention is purchased at the very moment,
a mobile users accesses the mobile portal of a Mobile Marketing Provider.
Therefore, context-sensitive mobile attention profiles have to be matched in
real-time with the corresponding targeting profile of a Mobile Advertising cam-
paign. Consequently, context-sensitive mobile attention profiles as well as the
respective targeting profiles have to be formally specified (cp. Section 4.2) in an
electronically processable data format. Therefore, a common semantic under-
standing about the contained attributes is required as well (Schmid 1999, p. 10).
However, since context information is actively disclosed by mobile users, this
understanding has to be extended to them too. If mobile users are unable to ex-
press their real personal preferences (e.g. personal interests) against a Mobile
Marketing Provider or advertiser respectively, the targeting of a Mobile Adver-
tising campaign may fail.
As result of the information phase, the advertiser selects the mobile attention of
their preferred mobile audience by formally specifying their targeting profile
(e.g. male students, currently in Munich on holiday). Subsequently, the price
fixing process for this mobile attention is the main objective of the agreement
phase.
4.3.3.2 The Agreement Phase
The main subject of the negotiation of an agreement between Mobile Marketing
Providers and advertisers is the price fixing for the provision of mobile attention.
The type of negotiation significantly depends on the applied pricing model. For
static pricing models such as CPM, the terms of conditions are already available
in the information phase (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 93). By contrast, dynamic, in-
teractive pricing models typically found in the search engine-marketing domain,
are auctioning off the position of a mobile advertisement on the result page of
search engines (Google Corporation 2009c; Yahoo Corporation 2009a).
Traditional mobile attention is predominately priced based on the static CPM
pricing model (Steimel et al. 2008, p. 22). Theoretically, this model could also
be applied to context-sensitive mobile attention. However, the availability of
context information for mobile attention leads to the ability to target very small
audiences groups or even individual mobile users.
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 105
Figure 4.10 depicts the different types of targeted groups. For traditional mobile
attention, all mobile users within the targeting profile (e.g. male students living
in Frankfurt) have the same single value for advertisers. By contrast, for context-
sensitive mobile attention, all mobile users within a targeting profile (e.g. mobile
users with a max. POS distance of 500m) can exhibit further individual, distinc-
tive values for advertisers (e.g. individual personal preferences derived from
their identity information).
Traditional Context-sensitive
Mobile Attention Mobile Attention
Value A
Value B
Value C
Value D
Mobile
Value X Users
Targeting Profile
work introduced by Buchholz et al. (2003). For instance, the quality of con-
text information can be described by its up-to-dateness, precision or the reso-
lution (cp. Section 4.3.1).
• Advertiser’s Ability to assess the Value of Context-sensitive Attention:
Advertisers need to be able to assess the actual value or relevance of mobile
attention for their planned Mobile Advertising campaign. Otherwise, they will
not able to reveal their true willingness-to-pay for it (Skiera and Spann 2002,
p. 279).
In conclusion, context-sensitive mobile attention exhibits better search qualities
than traditional mobile attention, which helps to reduce the information asym-
metries between advertisers and mobile users. This allows advertisers to select
the individual mobile attention of mobile users, which they consider relevant for
their Mobile Advertising campaigns. Thereby, the context-sensitive mobile at-
tention of each mobile user has a distinct value for each advertiser. Conse-
quently, the pricing of context-sensitive mobile attention based on classic CPM
approaches is no longer efficient. Mobile Marketing Providers have to differen-
tiate prices for mobile attention in accordance with an advertiser’s individual
WTP. This allows them to increase their profits by reducing the advertiser’s sur-
plus (Varian 1996).
According to Odlyzko (2003), three prerequisites have to be met in order that
Mobile Marketing Providers are able to conduct price discrimination:
• Advertisers have to accept price discrimination for mobile attention (1).
• Mobile Marketing Providers can successfully prevent arbitrage (2).
• Mobile Marketing Providers have to gain knowledge about the individual
WTP of an advertiser for the mobile attention of a mobile user in their mo-
mentary usage situation (3).
The ability to meet the first condition originates from the fact that advertisers
cannot compare the prices of mobile attention to prices offered by theoretical
competitors. Context information leads to an individual value of mobile atten-
tion for each advertiser. Thus, context information converts the homogenous
good mobile attention into a heterogeneous one. This makes it a non-commodity
good, which can be price-discriminated.
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 107
One of the most distinct characteristics of two-sided media markets are indirect
network externalities across both markets (cp. Section 3.3.2). In traditional mo-
bile media markets, advertisers benefit from an increasing number of mobile
users (reach) whereas the utility of mobile users can either be positively or nega-
tive correlated to the number of advertisers in the market (cp. Section 3.3.1).
With the availability of context information, the mobile attention of mobile users
can be described more accurately and thus individually. While this provides
benefit to advertisers and mobile users (cp. Section 2.5), it also decreases the
indirect cross-network effects within the two-sided mobile media market. The
more accurately a mobile attention profile describes the preferences of a targeted
mobile user, the more difficult it becomes to find this mobile user among the
visitors of a Mobile Marketing Provider’s mobile portal. Consequently, the mere
size of the content or advertiser market side becomes less relevant compared to
having the right mobile users matched to the targeting profiles with advertisers
in the market.
Two-sided media markets are linked by their common pricing structure across
both markets. In general, advertising-financed media markets offer content to
mobile users predominately free-of-charge, while advertisers are charged for the
attention of users (cp. Section 3.3.2).
In traditional mobile media markets, the situation is similar. However, the acqui-
sition of context information in order to target Mobile Advertising campaigns
generates additional costs (cp. Section 3.2.1). This is because mobile users ex-
pect incentives in exchange for the active disclosure of personal information
(Awad and Krishnan 2006). Consequently, Mobile Marketing Providers are fac-
ing the question of how to balance the acquisition costs for context information,
in relation to the potentially higher willingness-to-pay of advertisers, due to a
higher targeting effectiveness for context-sensitive mobile attention.
110 Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention
The main issue of developing and establishing a two-sided market is often called
the chicken & egg problem. It refers to the fact that a market intermediary has to
get a certain number of participants onboard for both market sides at the same
time. Once a critical mass of participants on either side has been reached, the
market starts to function on its own. This issue can be addressed by various
forms of subsidisation for one or both markets (cp. Section 3.3.2).
Context information allows advertisers to target Mobile Advertising campaigns
to individual mobile users. Therefore, subsidising one market becomes more
difficult than in traditional mobile media markets. Although the latter benefits
from any new participant, the development of mobile media markets for context-
sensitive mobile attention can only take advantage from a new participant, if he
is directly relevant to the opposite market. In other words, a new mobile user is
only beneficial to the two-sided mobile media market development if he
matches to the targeting profile of an existing advertiser.
Impacts of Context Information on Mobile Attention 111
attention can only indicate the need for different or new engineering require-
ments for mobile media markets than empirically proving them.
Finally, the developed conceptional analysis framework (cp. Chapter 3) consid-
ers mobile attention as an economic good in mobile media markets. Although,
the attention economy school lays the foundation for this approach, it does not
constitute a proven theory (Zerdick et al. 2001, p. 36 ff.).
Based on the analysis results, multiple research propositions reflecting the ex-
plored impacts have been developed. The following Table 4.1 summarises these
propositions based on the perspectives from which the analysis was conducted.
Two-sided Market
Type
Indirect Network
Externalities across
both Markets
System Performance
Efficiency, Revenue
Behaviour
Based on dispersed
private information
given the Institution
Institution
System Performance
Language of Market,
Efficiency, Revenue
Rules of Communication and Contract,
Procedural Structure
Economic Environment
Agent Preferences, Costs,
Resources, Knowledge
signed towards a desired market outcome (Weinhardt et al. 2003). They require
a market operator, who provides an electronic marketplace, in order to enable
the allocation of resources in exchange for monetary compensation (Neumann
2007, p. 63). Thereby, the market operator needs to compensate their invest-
ments in the electronic market and gain profits from their operation. Conse-
quently, the design of electronic markets involves the development of a market
operator’s business model as well (Weinhardt et al. 2006, p. 9). Furthermore, the
information and communication technology (ICT) has to be considered too. Be-
cause of this, the development of distributed market platforms (e.g. via Peer-to-
Peer architectures), multi-agent systems targeting scalability, security and trust,
as well as the computability of resource allocation comprise the most recent
challenges to be addressed in this field (Weinhardt et al. 2006, p. 9).
Electronic markets do not merely comprise the development of a resource allo-
cation mechanism conducted via electronic media. Market designers have to
consider the interdisciplinary aspects of electronic markets, which require an
integrated development approach (Schmid and Lindemann 1998). In this regard,
the following section shows the review of existing contributions to this field.
Transaction
Market Transactions and Business Scenarios
View
Infrastructure
Communication Infrastructure
View
t
Market Transaction
The reference model vertically structures the design aspects of the different dis-
ciplines as views along the classic phases of a market transaction. In this regard,
the two upper views are concerned with organisational aspects, whereas the
lower equivalents are addressing the technological aspects of the electronic mar-
ket. Although, acknowledging the need to address the interdisciplinary aspects
of electronic markets with the development of a multi-layered reference model,
the authors did not provide a structured process model to alleviate the complex
and error-prone design of electronic markets. In this regard, Weinhardt et al.
(2003) introduced the Market Engineering approach for the design of electronic
Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets 119
Transaction Service
Environment (market structure) Behaviour of
• Technological Transaction Market E-Market
• Social- • Microstructure outcome
Object Participants
economical • ICT-Infrastructure
• Legal • Business Model
Market Performance
(Allocation, Prices)
Based on the given market environment, the market designer describes the
transaction object by specifying its key characteristics. According to Holtmann
(2004, p .137) this includes answering the following questions:
• What kind of good can actually be traded on the market (e.g. tangible vs. in-
tangible goods)? This is directly determined by the interests of the market
stakeholders as well as the market environment.
• What are the key characteristics, which suitably describe the transaction ob-
ject? For instance, this includes ensuring that buyers are able to distinctly
identify a trading object and determine its quality.
• How can this good actually be traded on the market (e.g. minimum requested
quantity)? For instance, information as an economic good is traded differently
than physical goods (Shapiro and Varian 2006, p. 3 f.).
The transaction object specification constitutes the link between the market en-
vironment in which an electronic market is embedded, and the market transac-
tion service to be designed (Weinhardt et al. 2003, p. 137). Thereby, this trans-
Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets 121
This can be further subdivided into revenue source, revenue partner and price
model components with regard to commercialised products or services.
Revenue
Source
Revenue
Partner
Seller Buyer
Price
Model
Non-
Interactive
Interactive
There are three types of revenue sources. Product represents the provision of
products or services in exchange for monetary compensation. Contact de-
notes the provision of an opportunity to contact customers for marketing
purposes, and Information constitutes the provision of acquired knowledge
about customers for Third Parties.
The revenue partner constitutes the party from which the revenue of a busi-
ness is generated. This can be either the seller or buyer of a product or ser-
vice. If the revenue source is provided by the seller of a product, it is as-
sumed that the organisation acts in the role of an intermediary between both
parties and charges the seller for its services.
The price model represents the price fixing method, which can either be in-
teractive or non-interactive. Interactive pricing involves the interaction of
sellers and buyers in the price fixing process (e.g. auctions). For non-
interactive or static pricing respectively, the seller has to determine the price
of a product or service.
• Value Creation Architecture: The architecture for the value creation of an
organisation determines the interaction of the involved business partners in
Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets 123
order to produce products and services (Stähler 2001, p. 43). In this regard,
the value chain model developed by Porter (1998) applies. It consists of chain
links of which each represents a distinct activity to create value for the cus-
tomer. Figure 5.5 depicts a simplified model of the value chain based on Zer-
dick et al. (2001, p. 33). It is assumed that the left end of the value chain is
connected to the organisation’s suppliers, and the corresponding right end to
its customers (Zerdick et al. 2001, p. 31).
Figure 5.5: Simplified Value Chain Model (based on Zerdick et al. 2001,
p. 33)
Since in the scope of this work, the value creation in mobile media markets is
modelled as an mobile attention value chain (cp. Section 3.2), the frequent criti-
cism of this Porter model is that it is not being able to capture the complexity of
today’s value creation in the Internet economy (Tapscott et al. 2000). However,
since this work converts a value network into a value chain by the abstraction of
all participants in the mobile media markets (cp. Section 4.1.4), which are not
relevant in relation to the analysis of context information, this still allows the
application of Porter’s value chain model.
5.3.3.2 Market Microstructure
Although, the market microstructure theory originates in the financial domain to
study the exchanging assets in markets (Rose 1998, p. 72; Holtmann, p. 133),
this work applies its theory in the sense of a resource allocation mechanism for
context-sensitive mobile attention.
A resource allocation mechanism represents a protocol by which agents (i.e.
market participants) can realise a solution to a resource allocation problem.
Thereby, a mechanism maps messages or signals into a solution. For market-
based mechanisms, a price is assigned to each resource in the form of money.
Prices are non-negative numbers that determine the exchange value of resource
124 Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets
Communication
Process
Trading Rules
Allocation
Pricing
End
5.3.3.3 ICT-Infrastructure
The ICT-infrastructure comprises the underlying technology required to enable
the operation of electronic markets. This involves information systems as the
combination of software and hardware, including their architecture in order to
conduct market transaction (Holtmann 2004, p. 190 f.). Thereby, the ICT-
architecture of an electronic market can be typically based on the classic three-
tier architecture for information systems (Edwards 1999, S. 4 ff.) (cp. Figure
5.7).
Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets 125
Presentation Tier
• Market Participants User Interfaces (Trading)
• Market Operator User Interface (Administrator)
Logic Tier
Processing of Market Transactions
Data Tier
Transaction and User Data Storage
At the top of the ICT-architecture resides the presentation tier. It constitutes the
interface for market participants to enable the submission of offers and requests
for economic goods. Furthermore, the market operator is provided with an inter-
face to administrate the electronic market. In the middle, the logic tier is respon-
sible for the processing of market transactions (Lindemann and Schmid 1998).
At the bottom, the data tier stores the required data about the market participants
and transactions (Holtmann 2004, p. 192).
5.3.3.4 Interdependency of the Transaction Service Components
The outlined components of an electronic market exhibit possible interdepend-
encies and consequently have to be designed in an integral way of viewing
things. Although, there is an unknown list of potential interdependencies, market
designers have to be aware of this fact and evaluate possible occurrences during
the design process (Holtmann 2004, p. 138). In order to illustrate this issue, Fig-
ure 5.8 exemplifies a possible set of interdependencies:
A market operator introduces combinatorial auctions as new resource allocation
mechanism for selected products of their catalogue. Since the complexity of this
auction protocol exhibits a higher complexity than their previous one, it requires
a higher ICT-infrastructure performance (i.e. predominantly more computational
126 Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets
Electronic Market
Complex Resource
Allocation Mechanism
Market Microstructure
Combinatory
Auction
Fewer Market
Participants Higher
IT-Requirements
Requirements
Definition of Design of Implementation, Roll-out
Stakeholder Engineering
Transaction Transaction Test operation,
Identification based on
Object Service Evaluation controlling
Market
Environment
The first phase of the process model is concerned with the identification of the
electronic market stakeholders and their particular interests.
The consecutive phase constitutes the requirement engineering for the develop-
ment of the electronic market. This comprises the evaluation of the socio-
economic, technological, and legal environment in which the market is embed-
ded. The results provide the foundation for an appropriate definition of the
transaction object.
Based on the characteristics of a defined transaction object and the requirements
gathered from the environment analysis, the market transaction service is de-
signed – comprised of the market microstructure, business model as well as
ICT-infrastructure.
Once the transaction object has been defined and transaction service imple-
mented, the market design has to be tested for its economic performance based
on the given design objective. This involves testing the functionality of the elec-
tronic market software against its specification and its economic performance.
For this, a set of methods range from welfare economic or game theory ap-
proaches, to empirical lab or prototype evaluations (Neumann 2007, 169 ff.).
The final phase of the market engineering process constitutes the electronic
market roll-out, operation and performance controlling. Market operation and
performance controlling intuitively may to be not part of the market design
128 Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets
process. However, the knowledge gathered from these activities, provides the
foundation for the continuous and iterative re-evaluation and if applicable redes-
igning of an electronic market.
Since the Market Engineering Framework, as well as its complementary engi-
neering process model originally targeted electronic markets exchanging finan-
cial assets, the last section of this chapter illustrates how this concept can be
adopted for mobile media markets.
The first component of the Market Engineering Framework represents the envi-
ronment in which a market is typically embedded. It consists of a legal, socio-
economic, and technologic environment component (cp. Section 5.3). Thereby,
the Market Engineering Framework is able to capture the interdisciplinary as-
pects especially relevant to mobile media markets (cp. Figure 5.10).
Reference Model for the Development of Mobile Media Markets 129
Socio-Economic Environment
Socio-Economic Environment Personal Nature of
Mobile Media
Technologic Environment
Technologic Environment Sophisticated Infrastructure
enabling Mobile Media
Mobile media markets are highly regulated by the European Union as well as
their national authorities (European Parliament 1995 and 2002), exhibit distinct
socio-economic aspects due to its very personal nature of mobile media (Sultan
and Rohm 2005; Feldmann 2005, p. 60 f.), and require sophisticated ICT-
infrastructures in order to enable mobile data communications (Schiller 2003, p.
16 f.).
tention (cp. Section 3.3). Figure 5.11 depicts this extension of the Electronic
Market Engineering Framework, with respect to the procurement of mobile at-
tention.
Sale of
Procurement of Mobile Attention
Mobile Attention (Transaction Object)
Mobile Mobile
Advertiser
User Marketing
Delivery of Monetary (Buyer)
(Supplier) Provider
Mobile Content Compensation
5.5.3.3 ICT-Infrastructure
According to Holtmann (2004, p. 192), the ICT-infrastructure of mobile media
market platforms can be designed as a classic three-tier architecture consisting
of user interfaces (presentation tier), transaction processing (logic tier) and
transaction and user data storage (data layer). At this abstraction level, the same
aspects also apply for the ICT-infrastructure of mobile media markets.
5.6 Summary
The analysis of the impacts of context information on the traditional commer-
cialisation of mobile attention has revealed various aspects Mobile Marketing
Providers need to address with regard to the engineering of their mobile media
market platform. In order to develop and document these aspects in a structured,
proven manner, a suitable market engineering framework for this objective has
been evaluated.
After a brief introduction to electronic markets from an institutional perspective
and the discovery of their multidisciplinary nature, a literature review on elec-
tronic market frameworks as a superset of mobile media markets has been con-
ducted in this field. As a result, the Market Engineering Framework by
Weinhardt et al. (2003) was found to be most suitable. In combination with its
complementary engineering process model, the Market Engineering Framework
provides a structured and multidisciplinary, but holistic approach for the design
of electronic markets. Although, the Market Engineering Framework was origi-
nally developed for financial markets, it has been demonstrated that it could be
adapted to develop and document engineering recommendation for mobile me-
dia markets. The subsequent chapter presents the application of this reference
model for this objective.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 133
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets of Context-sensitive Mobile Attention
Section 6.1 begins with the presentation of the mobile media stakeholders and
the discussion of their interests. Then, Section 6.2 continues to document the
relevant characteristics of market environment in which mobile media markets
are embedded. It comprises the socio-economic, technological, and legal envi-
ronmental aspects.
Subsequently, Section 6.3 presents a feasible definition for context-sensitive
mobile attention as a transaction object. It involves specifying its key character-
istics, qualities, and treatment in the trading process. The engineering recom-
mendations of the market transaction service are documented in the Section 6.4.
Its main components constitute the business model, resource allocation mecha-
nism as well as the underlying ICT-infrastructure.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 135
and their privacy during and after their usage of services on the
mobile Internet.
A comparison of the outlined stakeholder interests towards context-sensitive
mobile attention reveals several conflicts of interests. The reasons for these con-
flicts are two-fold but predominately originate from the application of context
information for Mobile Advertising campaigns (cp. Figure 6.2).
Regulator
On the one hand, mobile users disclose only as much context-sensitive attention
data as they receive incentives (of any kind) in exchange. This generates con-
flicts to the interests of advertisers, which demand the most comprehensive at-
tention profiles possible about mobile users in order to archive a targeting effec-
tiveness (cp. Section 4.3.1). On the other hand, mobile users only accept or do
not feel disturbed by Mobile Advertising campaigns, if these are relevant to their
momentary usage situation (Heinonen and Strandvik 2006). This may conflict
138 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
36
For instance, the perception of the term “in close vicinity” may divert between mobile us-
ers and advertisers.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 139
37
For a comprehensive overview on available cloud services, refer to the market leader
Amazon (Amazon Corporation 2009).
142 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
Besides the general legal aspects in Europe to which each commercial organisa-
tion has to comply with, the EU issued several directives for the protection of
38
For instance, Orange Wednesdays is a Mobile Advertising campaign, which sends cross
selling offers (e.g. information on the DVD version) to cinema visitors, shortly after a
movie has ended (Orange Corporation 2009).
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 143
applies in situations, which are not covered by the E-Privacy Directive (FIDIS
2007a).
The E-Privacy Directive is specifically concerned with processing personal data
in the electronic communications sector. It “harmonises the provisions of the
Member States required to ensure an equivalent level of protection of fundamen-
tal rights and freedoms, and in particular the right to privacy, with respect to the
processing of personal data in the electronic communications sector and to en-
sure the free movement of such data and of electronic communication equip-
ment and services in the Community” (European Parliament 2002, Art. 1).
In order to comply with these directives or its national implementation respec-
tively, Mobile Marketing Providers enabling context-sensitive Mobile Advertis-
ing campaigns have to first identify the nature of their used primary context in-
formation. Therefore, they have to determine if context information about mo-
bile users constitutes either personal or traffic data for Mobile Advertising cam-
paigns.
Whereas the definition for personal data from Data Protection Directive still ap-
plies, traffic data “... means any data processed for the purpose of the convey-
ance of a communication on an electronic communications network or for the
billing thereof” (European Parliament 2002, Art. 2). Depending on the type of
processed data, different requirements have to be addressed. For personal data,
the already outlined requirements of the Data Protection Directive apply. By
contrast, for traffic data the following main requirements according to the E-
Privacy Directive are relevant (FIDIS 2007a):
• Communications and related traffic data has to be confidential. This means
eavesdropping, wiretapping, storage, or other kinds of interception or surveil-
lance of communications is prohibited without the consent of the users con-
cerned.
• Traffic data relating to subscribers or users, stored by the provider of a public
communication network, or publicly available electronic communication ser-
vice have to be erased or to be made anonymous, once it is no longer needed.
• Traffic data, which constitutes certain application contexts of personal data
has to be treated as stated in the Data Protection Directive.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 145
bile attention (cp. Section 6.3.1) and then continues to define mobile attention as
a transaction object (cp. Section 6.3.2) as well as its related trading rules (cp.
Section 6.3.3).
tisements since they represent the main mobile content and are not comple-
mentary to regular mobile content.
At the same time the mobile attention of mobile users is acquired, the comple-
menting attention data has to be gathered as well.
6.3.1.2 Acquisition of Attention Data
The value of the economic good mobile attention is significantly determined by
its complementing attention data about mobile users. Consequently, the aim of
Mobile Marketing Providers has to be to acquire the appropriate quality of atten-
tion data required for the effective targeting of Mobile Advertising campaigns.
Since context-sensitive mobile attention data has to be explicitly disclosed by
mobile users, Mobile Marketing Providers have to encourage the latter to do so
(cp. Section 3.2.1). For this, the following sections outline possible means for
this objective.
39
For more details on the concept of identity refer to the FIDIS deliverable Identity of Identi-
ty: Models (FIDIS 2005a).
150 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
While the previous features enable mobile users to manage their personal data,
the following features aid them to disclose this data in a convenient but con-
trolled manner:
• Single-Sign-On (SSO): This feature stores authentication information of mo-
bile users for different services. At the beginning of an online session, a mo-
bile user has to be authenticated only once to SSO service. From that moment
on, for each accessed mobile service known to the SSO service, the mobile
user is automatically authenticated until they finish their online session
(FIDIS 2005d, p. 28).
• Form Auto-Completion: The auto-completion-assistant or form filler respec-
tively aids mobile users to complete mobile web-forms such service registra-
tions or checkout forms. Compared to the SSO feature, this functionality re-
duces the input effort of mobile users even more (Rukzio et al. 2008).
In addition to theses value-added services, two other MIdMS functions make the
usage of mobile attention data for Mobile Advertising campaigns transparent to
mobile users (FIDIS 2005b, p. 12):
• History Management: History management allows mobile users to keep
track of their engaged interactions and service usages of the past as well as
their corresponding disclosed personal data. Thereby, it constitutes an impor-
tant functionality for mobile users to monitor the usage of their personal data
and contributes to privacy policy management.
• Context Monitoring: MIdMS can support a mobile user in the use of the ap-
propriate partial identity and the disclosure of the necessary personal data for
a mobile service. For instance, a mobile user might not have concerns reveal-
ing their current physical location in a business setting but may refuse to do
so in a private context. The monitoring of their current context allows the
automatic selection of the appropriate privacy policy.
keting Provider and mobile users along with the disclosure of personal data
(Friberg 2007, p. 64 ff.; Radmacher 2007a).
Due to the personal nature of the mobile medium and the resulting sensibility of
the personal data of mobile users, these measures are significantly more impor-
tant than in the stationary online medium. For Mobile Marketing Providers, this
can translate to the following measures for Mobile Advertising campaigns:
• Trusted Advertisers: Advertisers can be evaluated regarding the correctness
of statements in their context-sensitive Mobile Advertising campaigns. For
instance, for a POS, this may concern its geographic location, opening times,
and the promoted products. Since this promoted POS is physically visited by
mobile users, wrong or inaccurate information (e.g. a supposedly open POS is
closed) may lead to the disturbance of mobile users and in the worst case to
the refusal to use the mobile portal (Kobsa 2007).
• Transparent Targeting of Mobile Advertising Campaigns: Due to the con-
text-sensitiveness of the Mobile Advertising campaigns, it is important to ex-
plain why it is considered relevant to a mobile user (e.g. because of the close
POS vicinity). This increases a mobile user’s trust in the relevance of a Mo-
bile Advertising campaign and prevents privacy concerns due to opaque per-
sonal data usage of Mobile Marketing Providers (Radmacher 2007a).
Once attention data has been acquired from mobile users, Mobile Marketing
Providers have to produce attention profiles to make the good mobile attention
tradable in mobile media markets.
In order to make mobile attention a tradable good, its characteristics and quality
have to be assessable for advertisers. Thus, the acquired attention data about
mobile users has to be converted to mobile attention profiles, which reflect their
current usage situation. This requires the development of a suitable representa-
tion form, which is able to establish a common semantic understanding about
mobile attention profiles among all market participants (cp. Section 4.3.3). For
this, a formal data model with a syntactic definition of context-sensitive atten-
tion mobile profiles and commonly understood semantics is proposed. A con-
ducted literature review reveals the following two main concepts for this objec-
tive:
152 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
Identity Location
V
E D E
A C A G
Context
Time
H J
A G
Whilst SIC is able to establish a common understanding between the market par-
ticipants and allow the electronic matching of SIC-based attention profiles with
the respective targeting profiles, it currently does not cover the following as-
pects, which are relevant in the scope of this work for describing context-
sensitive mobile attention:
• Activity of Mobile Users: Context information in the scope of this work also
includes the activity of a mobile user attempting to satisfy the information
needs in their momentary usage situation (e.g. submitting a search query).
This is significantly important because the mobile Internet is accessed pre-
dominantly for spontaneous needs rather than on a regular basis like the fixed
Internet (Feldmann 2005, p. 108 f.). For the fixed Internet, longer online time
of users allows behavioural targeting approaches in order to determine the in-
tentions of an online user (Hegge, p. 289 f.) whereas the mobile Internet bene-
fits the actvity of a mobile user.
• Quality Information about Context-sensitive Attention Data: Due to the
highly varying nature of context information (cp. Section 4.3.1), it is impor-
tant to provide quality information about context information such as location
accuracy about mobile users. This allows advertisers a more accurate assess-
ment of the offered mobile attention. Therefore, the quality of context infor-
154 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
Identity Location
1 1
A B C A B C
P Q P Q P Q P Q P Q P Q
Context
Time Activity
1 1
A B C A B C
P Q P Q P Q P Q P Q P Q
From each type of primary context information (identity, location, time, activ-
ity), several other types of secondary context information (A, B, C) can be de-
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 155
rived. For each type of secondary context information, a privacy policy (P) as
well as context quality information (Q) can be specified40.
In order to establish a common understanding of context-sensitive mobile atten-
tion profiles between the mobile media market stakeholders, the application of
existing identity standards is recommended. Although, there is a portfolio of ex-
isting standards for the representation of a person (FIDIS 2005a, p. 40), there is
currently no standard available to model the momentary usage situation of mo-
bile users for the targeting Mobile Advertising campaigns.
Finally, the acquired attention data has to be compiled to a context-sensitive at-
tention profile based on the previously outlined model. Figure 6.5 briefly illus-
trates this process, which is less complex compared to traditional Mobile Adver-
tising campaigns because of the non-statistical nature of context-sensitive atten-
tion profiles.
Data Data
Conversion Compilation
Data Attribute 1
Source 1
Attribute 1
Data Attribute 2
Source 2
Attribute 2
. . .
. . .
. . .
Data Attribute n
Source n
Attribute n
The compilation process consists of two major activities. First, the acquired mo-
bile attention data is converted into uniform data format for each type of atten-
tion data. Secondly, the resulting attention data is compiled to a context-
40
The concrete specification for context-sensitive mobile attention is determined by the cor-
responding characteristics of Mobile Advertising campaigns, enabled by a Mobile Market-
ing Provider. However, these aspects will not be addressed in the scope of this work.
156 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
sensitive mobile attention profile based on the defined mobile attention profile
model (i.e. transaction object definition) of a Mobile Marketing Provider. This
includes the integration of context quality information, as well as the application
of privacy policies as specified by the mobile user.
Subsequent to the definition of context-sensitive mobile attention as transaction
object and production of its profiles, the trading rules recommended for context-
sensitive mobile attention are discussed.
Mobile User‘s
Attention to
Advertise-
ments
Number of Advertisers
41
Search Engine Marketing Provider Google successfully demonstrates such an approach by
adjusting the auction bid for keywords with advertisement quality factors (e.g. current ad
click-rate) (Google Corporation 2009c).
158 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
Finally, this leaves auctions in which advertisers as buyers submit monetary bids
corresponding to their WTP for this mobile attention, based on their context-
sensitive mobile attention profiles.
In summary, the revenue model of Mobile Marketing Providers is constituted by
generated revenues from selling mobile attention to advertisers (revenue source
contact). The latter are at the same time the revenue partners as buyers of mo-
bile attention and the proposed price model is a dynamic, interactive pricing
mechanism in the form of an auction (cp. Figure 6.7).
Revenue
Source
Revenue
Partner
Seller Buyer
Price
Model
Non-
Interactive
Interactive
Offering 2 Advertiser
Mobile Attention
User
Mobile Media Acquisition
Market of Attention 3
Store
Mobile Owner 1 Mobile
Portal Website of
Cinema A
Cinema A
• Books Store Owner
• Music Owner 2
• Action
• Clothes • Classics
• Movies …
Store Owner
• Drama
•… •…
n
Figure 6.10: Mobile Media Market Component of the Mobile Media Mar-
ket Platform
Provision of
3 Provision
Content Advertiser 1
1 of Attention
Mobile Media
Market Advertiser 2
Acquisition Monetary
…
of Attention Compensation
Mobile 2
Users 4 Advertiser n
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 163
The analysis of context-sensitive mobile attention has revealed that static pricing
mechanisms are not optimal from the perspective of a Mobile Marketing Pro-
vider (cp. Section 4.3.3). Due to the individual WTP of advertisers for context-
sensitive mobile attention, Mobile Marketing Providers have to implement a
new pricing mechanism in order to capture this consumer surplus. As previously
evaluated, a suitable interactive pricing mechanism for mobile attention consti-
tutes an auction. Although, basic auction formats are already applied to tradi-
tional mobile attention for search engine marketing campaigns (Google 2009c),
the availability of context information requires a more sophisticated concept,
which is outlined in the following sections.
6.4.2.1 General Auction Design Aspects for Context-sensitive Mobile
Attention
According to Bichler (2001, p. 11) auctions can be considered as specific forms
of negotiations between market participants. In this regard, McAfee and McMil-
lian (1987) define auctions as “a market institution with an explicit set of rules
determining resource allocation and prices on the basis of bids from the market
participants”. Thereby, one can add the description of Milgrom and Weber
(1982): “In an auction a bid taker offers to two or more potential bidders, who
send bids indicating willingness-to-pay for an object”.
For auctions, four fundamental formats can be distinguished based on bid sub-
mission type and the determination of the winning bid (Bichler 2001, p. 12):
• English Auction: The English Auction is an ascending auction format in
which potential buyers continuously raise their bids until only one buyer re-
mains. This last buyer wins the auction at the price of their last bid.
• First-Price Sealed Auction: This kind of auction works similarly to the Eng-
lish auction format, except that potential buyers are only allowed to submit
one sealed, private bid. The buyer with the highest submitted bid wins the
auction.
164 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
• Dutch Auction: This auction format constitutes the counterpart of the Eng-
lish Auction by working in the opposite way. The auction begins with a high
price for an object. Then this price is successively decreased until a buyer
calls to accept the current price. He wins the auction and the object.
• Vickrey Auction: The Vickrey auction format is also referred to as second-
price sealed auction and works similarly to the first-price sealed auction. The
exception is that the auction winner only has to pay the price of the second
highest bidding.
For these basic auctions types, Skiera and Spann (2004) present a framework for
design aspects and decisions (cp. Table 6.1).
Table 6.1: Basic Design Aspects of Auctions (based on Skiera and Spann
2004)
Along this presented auction design framework, the general auction type and
design requirements for context-sensitive mobile attention are discussed:
• Auction Type: As previously outlined, the auction type determines the way
an object is allocated to its potential buyers.
An appropriate auction type has to be processable in real-time (cp. Section
4.2) since context-sensitive mobile attention cannot be stored. English auc-
tions are not sealed in order to give the competing bidder the time to evaluate
and react to the currently highest bid. Consequently, this auction format has
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 165
the value of one. The overall utility of bid is given by the following Equation
6.1.
For m submitted bids, a seller determines the winning bid as follows (Equation
6.2):
For the first-price auctions, the winning buyer pays the submitted price. By con-
trast, in second-price auctions the difference between the highest and second
highest utility score is calculated and transformed into a corresponding monetary
value. This value is deducted from the submitted price of the winning buyer
(Bichler 2001, p. 143).
6.4.2.3 Multi-attributive Utility Scoring of Context-sensitive Mobile Attention
In order to apply multi-attributive auctions as a resource allocation mechanism
for context-sensitive mobile attention, the following requirements have to be
met:
• Multi-attributive Utility Theory (MAUT) as an underlying foundation of the
multi-attribute auction formats has to be suitable to translate the relevance of
Mobile Marketing campaigns into an utility score, which can be incorporated
into the auction process.
The general compatibility of MAUT to evaluate the interests of individuals
was analysed by Schäfer (2001). He reviewed a portfolio of approaches for
estimating user preferences along multiple dimensions and presented a set of
rules on how to apply MAUT for this purpose. Consequently, MAUT is con-
sidered suitable to translate the relevant of mobile user into a utility score to
be used in a multi-attributive auction.
168 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
Context Relevance
• Personal Attraction
• Geographical Relevance
• Temporal Relevance
• Satisfiable Needs
The matching of a mobile user’s attention profile with the targeting profile of a
Mobile Marketing Provider results in multiple non-normalised values (e.g. per-
sonal attraction, POS distance, etc.), which reflect the context relevance of a
Mobile Advertising campaign for the attention of a mobile user. In order to al-
low an overall assessment of this context relevance, in the second step, the cal-
culated non-normalised values for each mobile attention profile attribute have to
be translated into a single overall utility score, which represents the overall rele-
vance of a mobile user for a Mobile Advertising campaign. For this, a utility
function has to be developed which meets the following requirements:
• The non-normalised matching results of a specific attention profile attribute
have to be converted into normalised values within the interval [0,1].
• The scoring function has to be able to handle missing but relevant context in-
formation. For instance, a mobile user may refuse to disclose their current lo-
cation (cp. Section 4.3.1).
• The matching results for each context information type have to be weighted in
accordance with the requirements imposed by the kind of Mobile Advertising
campaigns (for instance, with an increasing price of a promoted product, mo-
bile users are willing to overcome greater distances, which require a suitable
weighing of the POS distance).
170 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
The resulting calculated utility score, based on matching results of the personal
preferences of a mobile user and the preferred personal preferences for a Mobile
Advertising campaign, is considered the personal attraction.
In order to calculate the utility of the POS distance for a mobile user, several
approaches can be found in the geo-marketing domain. In this regard, the Huff
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 173
42
The value of the exponent is two and thereby it complies to Gravitation-Theory (Reilly
1931)
43
For instance, mobile users are willing to overcome greater distance to shop for clothes
compared to POS offering groceries because the latter is cheaper.
44
The calculated remaining visiting time discussed in the next section, remains unrelated to
the travel time, since the shopping time is assumed significantly longer than the travel time
(i.e. hours vs. minutes) and thereby is not included in the formula.
174 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
The formula of Huff measured the attraction w in the size of a shopping centre.
Thereby, he assumed that the larger the size of a POS, the more products are
available for sale and thus the higher the attractiveness for a shopper. The pa-
rameter is to be individually determined by a POS (Huff 1964) and is not dis-
cussed here any further. Translated to the shopping scenario, the mass of an ob-
ject corresponds to the size of a POS (i.e. greater size equals greater varity of
choice) and the distance of the masses is the POS distance to consumer.
The resulting utility score based on the POS distance of a mobile user is consid-
ered the geographical reachability.
Thereby, the utility score regarding the time of day constitutes the relation be-
tween remaining visiting time and the required shopping time for specific goods
of a POS. It is considered as temporal relevance.
6.4.2.4 Overall Utility Function for the Multi-attributive Auction Format
Finally, the geographic and temporal reachability as well as personal attraction
of a POS for mobile users have to be aggregated to one single overall utility
function. For this, the Huff model, which accepts POS distance and attraction as
parameters, is applied as an underlying scoring function.
First, the attraction of a POS originally described in the Huff model by the
physical size of a POS is replaced by the personal attraction of a mobile user.
Second, the Huff model is extended in order to incorporate the temporal reach-
ability. Thereby, Equation 6.7 depicts the formula of the proposed overall utility
function reflecting the relevance of a mobile user for a Mobile Advertising cam-
paign.
176 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
In conclusion, it has to be noted that the MAUT provides means for Mobile
Marketing Providers to assess the relevance of context-sensitive mobile atten-
tion. However, the challenge for Mobile Marketing Providers remains to de-
velop the appropriate utility function (cp. Bichler 2001, p. 142) for a given cate-
gory of Mobile Advertising campaigns (e.g. restaurant promotions).
6.4.2.5 Auction Bid Calculation and Winner Determination
The previously developed utility function for context-sensitive mobile attention
provides the foundation for two aspects of the multi-attributive auction protocol.
On the one hand, it allows the Mobile Marketing Provider to adjust the monetary
bid of an advertiser based on the relevance of their Mobile Advertising cam-
paign for the mobile attention of a mobile user. On the other hand, advertisers
can apply this utility function model to calculate their momentary bid for this
mobile attention based on their own, individual evaluation of the relevance of a
mobile user for their Mobile Advertising campaign.
45
For simplicity reasons, the individual factors of the equation are currently not weighted.
Nevertheless, this can be included into the equations of the respective factors.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 177
The resulting monetary auction bid (AAB) is then submitted to the auction proc-
ess and evaluated by the Mobile Marketing Provider as discussed in the follow-
ing section.
cording to the Mobile Marketing Provider’s relative utility score of mobile at-
tention profiles. As a result, a virtual bid for the auction process is generated.
3€
150 m
100 m POS
50 m 4
POS 1€
3
2€
250 m
4€
500 m
POS
0,5 €
1
POS Targeting Profile
5 (Mobile Marketing
Provider)
Based on the latter two completed preparatory activities, the auction process is
triggered by a mobile user accessing the mobile portal of the Mobile Marketing
Provider. After selecting a mobile portal category, which best suits them to sat-
isfy their immediate need, their available context-sensitive mobile attention data
is acquired and a corresponding profile generated.
Subsequently, the Mobile Marketing Provider matches the current context-
sensitive mobile attention profile of a mobile user with all available targeting
profiles of advertisers. Those Mobile Advertising campaigns, whose matching
results meet the requirements of the targeting profile of the Mobile Marketing
Provider (e.g. restaurants in less than 1000m distance to the mobile user) are
considered relevant. Consequently, their corresponding advertisers are allowed
to participate in the bidding process for the current mobile attention of the mo-
bile user.
In the next step, advertisers match the attention profile with their targeting pro-
file and determine if this mobile attention is relevant (e.g. targeting of mobile
users in less than 500m distance to the restaurant). If the current mobile attention
is found relevant by an advertiser, the utility score of the POS distance for their
Mobile Advertising campaign is calculated (e.g. 250m distance to the restaurant
equals an utility score 50 out of 100). Based on this utility score, the advertiser
calculates the corresponding monetary bid (e.g. 50 (actual utility) /100 (ultility)
* 2€ (budget per mobile user) = 1€). Eventually, this bid is submitted to the Mo-
bile Marketing Provider.
The Mobile Marketing Provider takes the bid and calculates their own utility
score based on their targeting profile (e.g. 250m distance to the restaurant com-
pared to 1000m distance maximal allowed, equals an utility score 25 out of
100). The Mobile Marketing Provider applies their utility score in order to ad-
just the received monetary bid of the advertiser (e.g. 1€ (advertiser bid) * 25
(distance score POS) /100 (max. distance score (Mobile Marketing Provider) =
0,25 € (virtual bid of advertiser)). Finally, depending on the applied auction
type, the virtual bid of an advertiser, which is considered the most valuable,
wins the mobile attention.
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 183
6.4.3 ICT-Infrastructure
the database of the mobile media market platform. Furthermore, the transac-
tion history for each Mobile Advertising campaign is stored as well. It pro-
vides the foundation for accounting, billing, and performance measurements
of Mobile Advertising campaigns.
• Advertisers: Advertisers register their individual Mobile Advertising cam-
paign for a category of Mobile Advertising campaigns as defined by a Mobile
Marketing Provider. In this regard, they define their Mobile Advertisement
contents, targeting profile, and maximum bid per attention of a mobile user.
• Mobile Users: Once generated, the mobile attention profile of mobile users is
stored in the database. It consists of primary, secondary context information a
mobile user as well as further meta-data about the quality of context informa-
tion and privacy policies, but is only of temporary nature.
Figure 6.14 depicts the mobile media market platform in the three-tier model
while highlighting the most relevant previously discussed aspects of each tier.
Presentation Tier
• Identity Management System for Mobile Users
• Management Interface for Advertisers and Mobile
Marketing Provider
• Common understanding between Market Participants
Logic Tier
• Real-Time Processing of Transactions
• Processing of Transaction on the Mobile Media
Market Platform
Data Tier
• Transaction Data Storage centrally at the Mobile
Media Market Platform
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 187
6.6 Summary
The MoMeMa recommendation framework for mobile media markets addresses
impacts of context information on the traditional commercialisation of mobile
attention (cp. Figure 6.15).
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 189
Mobile Users
Relevance of Mobile Advertisements
Mobile Media Advertisers
Market Marketing Budget Efficiency
Stakeholders
Mobile Marketing Provider
Increasing Profits
Regulator
Socio-Economic Environment
Data Protection of Mobile Users
Personal Nature of Mobile Media
Technological Environment Mobile Media
Context Information Access and Market
available Processing Power Environment
Requirements
Legal and Reg. Environment
Data Protection (EU Directives)
Semantic Identify Concept
Common, semantic understanding
for Mobile Attention
Definition of
Mobile Attention Incorporation of Meta Information
as Transaction Quality of Context Information and
Object Privacy Policies
Specific Trading Rules
Relevance for Mobile Users
Business Model
Interactive, dynamic Pricing
Resource Allocation Mechanism Design of
Multi-attributive Auction Transaction
Service for
ICT-Infrastructure Mobile Attention
Centralized, Real-Time
Processing of Market Transactions
Along with the four major activities of the mobile media market engineering
process model, the main aspects of the MoMeMa have been documented:
• Mobile Media Market Stakeholders: The ability to describe the momentary
usage situation of mobile users for Mobile Advertising campaigns has im-
pacts on the interests of the involved mobile media market stakeholders. Mo-
bile users expect highly relevant Mobile Advertising campaigns in exchange
for the disclosure of their context-sensitive mobile attention data. Advertisers
demand a higher Mobile Advertising campaign effectiveness, whereas Mobile
Marketing Providers aim at additional revenues due to the increased value of
context-sensitive mobile attention. Finally, the interests of the regulators are
190 Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets
to protect the privacy of mobile users (i.e. their context-sensitive mobile at-
tention data).
• Mobile Media Market Environment Requirements: The market environ-
ment for mobile media markets is subdivided into the socio-economic, legal,
and technological environment. The analysis of the market environment re-
vealed for the social-economic component that the mobile medium is very
personal for mobile users. Consequently, it is able to attract high attention but
also raises the risk of disturbing the mobile user. Regarding the legal compo-
nent, it could be stated that Mobile Marketing Providers have to comply with
the European Data Protection directive or their national implementation re-
spectively regarding the use of context information about mobile users. Fi-
nally, the technology component focuses first on the access to the context in-
formation source. Therefore, mainly location-based context information (e.g.
POS locations) is available about mobile users. Secondly, sufficient comput-
ing power for processing transactions in an appropriate period of time is re-
quired, but already available today.
• Definition of Mobile Attention as Transaction Object: There are several
particular characteristics of context-sensitive mobile attention, which have to
be addressed for the transaction object definition. First of all, the mobile at-
tention has to be indirectly acquired from mobile users. This is not covered by
the framework of Weinhardt et al. (2003). Second, a common understanding
for context-sensitive mobile attention profiles has to be established between
all market participants. Second, due to the varying quality of context-sensitive
attention profiles, quality information has to be integrated into the mobile at-
tention profiles as meta-information. Third, since context-sensitive mobile at-
tention profiles contain personal data about mobile users, they have to incor-
porate user-driven privacy policies for this data. Finally, specific trading rules
have to be specified for this good. For instance, context-sensitive mobile at-
tention cannot be sold to the highest bidder without ensuring certain relevance
between advertisers and mobile users.
• Design of Transaction Service for Mobile Attention: Based on the stake-
holder’s interests and the characteristics of the transaction object, the engi-
neering recommendations proposed for the market transaction service have
been developed and presented. They are concerned with the business model,
Engineering Recommendation Framework for Mobile Media Markets 191
chapter concludes with a summary of the developed mobile media platform pro-
totype (cp. Section 7.7).
Initially in the preparation phase, advertisers (e.g. restaurant owners) and mobile
users have to register themselves with the mobile media market platform of a
Mobile Marketing Provider (0). For this, advertisers have the option to configure
targeting profiles, which reflect the targeted usage situation of the mobile user
(e.g. preferred age, interests, or location) as well as the maximum monetary
budget per mobile user.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 195
Mobile users may submit their personal preferences. These contain a particular
set of personal information (e.g. age, gender, etc.) and some more specific in-
formation about their preferences (e.g. pizza, movies). Both profiles are stored
by the Mobile Marketing Provider. They constitute the foundation for matching
Mobile Advertising campaigns with relevant mobile users.
The service provision of the mobile media market platform is triggered once the
mobile user accesses the mobile portal by using their mobile device (1).
Thereby, their personal preferences and momentary location are queried from
the respective databases and aggregated, together with a time stamp, into a con-
text-sensitive mobile attention profile (2). Once the mobile user has selected a
mobile portal category, the Mobile Marketing Provider matches the mobile
user’s attention profile with the targeting profiles of the advertisers available for
this portal category. If there is a match, the Mobile Advertising campaigns are
considered relevant and the advertisers are allowed to participate in the follow-
ing auction process. Once the auction winners are determined, the respective
Mobile Advertising campaigns are displayed on the mobile portal (3).
In order to illustrate these use cases, the following sections are going to outline
their main aspects in detail.
The foundation of the mobile portal constitutes the mobile content categories,
which are defined by the Mobile Marketing Provider. Advertisers register their
Mobile Advertising campaign to be displayed in an appropriate category of their
choice.
Similarly to the Yellow Pages service (AT&T Inc. 2009), these mobile portal
categories feature certain types of content (e.g. information on restaurants,
cinemas, sport events, etc.). Furthermore, Mobile Marketing Providers may
specify the maximum number of displayed mobile advertisements per user re-
quest, a pricing mechanism (e.g. first price auction) for the offered mobile atten-
tion as well as the corresponding compensation method (e.g. pay-per-click) (cp.
Section 2.4.2).
In addition, Mobile Marketing Providers specify a targeting profile, which de-
fines the group of mobile users relevant for this category of Mobile Marketing
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 197
Due to the identified need for mobile users to be able to manage and control the
personal information disclosed during the usage of the mobile portal, the func-
tionality of a mobile identity management system is required. It has to offer mo-
bile users the following features (cp. Section 6.3.1.2.2):
• Management of Personal Data: For the identity-based targeting of Mobile
Advertising campaigns, mobile users have to disclose personal information
such as gender, age, interests prior to the mobile portal usage. Therefore, they
198 Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform
The use case use of the mobile portal comprises a mobile user, who accesses the
mobile portal via their mobile device (e.g. smart phone). From the mobile por-
tal’s homepage, they are able to choose from multiple portal categories as speci-
fied by the Mobile Marketing Provider. Meanwhile, the context-sensitive mobile
attention profile reflecting the current usage situation of a mobile user is gener-
ated – while respecting their privacy policies.
After the mobile user has selected the mobile portal category of their choice, the
transaction service provided by the mobile media market allocates the mobile
user’s attention to the appropriate Mobile Advertising campaigns or advertisers
respectively.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 199
For instance, if a mobile user has selected the portal category restaurants, they
are exposed to a list of Italian restaurants (personal preferences), which are
within their close vicinity (location) and are currently open (time of day). Once
the mobile user chooses a specific offering by clicking on the Mobile Adver-
tisement, they are presented with additional POS details and directions − if ap-
plicable.
Based on the outlined use cases for the mobile media market platform prototype,
the sequential application process is described in the following section.
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Its presentation tier is located remotely with the clients (i.e. advertisers and mo-
bile users), whereas the logic- and data tier are situated at the server (i.e. at the
ICT-infrastructure platform of the Mobile Marketing Provider). Each of these
three tiers are presented and discussed in detail in the following sections.
The presentation layer is the topmost layer of the CoMPaS prototype architec-
ture. It is divided into the graphical user interfaces (GUI) for mobile users, ad-
vertisers and the Mobile Marketing Provider.
7.4.1.1 Mobile User GUI
The GUI for mobile users enables access to the content of a mobile portal via
mobile devices. Implemented as a HTML-based mobile web interface, it pre-
sents on its homepage, an overview of all available mobile user choices. On the
one hand, in the search & find section (designed in the YellowPages style)
(AT&T Inc. 2009) exclusively Mobile Advertising campaigns can be found. On
the other hand, the content section allows access to editorial content bundled
with Mobile Advertising campaigns.
Figure 7.4 depicts the initial overview page of the mobile portal on the left side.
Assuming a mobile user feels hungry, they could select the restaurant category
from the search & find section. They are presented with a list of relevant restau-
rants in accordance with their personal food preferences, current geographic lo-
cation and time of day (cp. Figure 7.4, right side). The percentage number for a
list entry indicates the aggregated relevance of this Mobile Advertising cam-
paign and is supposed to support the mobile user decision.
202 Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Mediaa Market Platform
Additionally, the mobile portal allows a mobile user to creaate, manage, and
choose from multiple pseuudonyms. These represent a set of perssonal preferences
and privacy policies. The latter comprise the disclosure of pushh activities, loca-
tion or identification information, personal mobile user profile,, and the genera-
tion of a transaction historry (cp. Figure 7.5).
Although Mobile Advertissing Push Activities are not in the scoppe of the outlined
application scenario (cp. Section
S 7.2), they are supported by thee CoMPaS proto-
type. If activated, a mobiile user receives mobile push advertissements on their
mobile device if an adverrtiser is able to satisfy one or more of their current re-
quests whilst matching thee attention profile of the mobile user.
7.4.1.2 Advertiser GUI
In order to enable the intteraction of advertisers with the mobiile media market
platform, the CoMPaS prrototype offers a second GUI, which allows defining,
configuring and controllinng of Mobile Advertising campaigns (ccp. Figure 7.6).
The management GUI for advertisers allows registering a plannned Mobile Ad-
vertising campaign for a specific mobile portal category. It is divided into the
following three main funcctional sections:
• Advertiser Activity: This
T section allows defining a planned Mobile
M Advertis-
ing campaign. It involvves, among others, the specification of the advertising
message, the POS locaation, opening hours, and maximum marketing
m budget
per mobile user (cp. Figgure 7.6, top).
• Filter: This section alllows setting up a basic filtering functtionality such as
maximum POS distancce, targeted opening hours, and how too proceed if this
information about a mobile
m user cannot be determined. Thhis specification
comprises the targetingg profile of an advertiser (cp. Figure 7.66, bottom, left).
• Matching: This sectioon allows the configuration of the predefined
p utility
functions for evaluatingg matching qualities between targetingg and mobile at-
tention profiles. Therebby, advertisers are able to adjust the coourse of the func-
tions, set the weight of
o a resulting utility score for a profiile attribute, and
specify how to proceedd if relevant information is missing (cp. Figure 7.6, bot-
tom, right).
Finally, the advertiser hass the opportunity to control the perforrmance of a Mo-
bile Advertising campaignn (e.g. click-rate) and the correspondingg accrued costs.
Prototypical Implementation
n of a Mobile Media Market Platform 205
g Provider GUI
7.4.1.3 Mobile Marketing
The Mobile Marketing Prrovider management GUI defines mobiile portal catego-
ries featuring specific conntent topics such as “restaurants” in thhe search & find
section (cp. Figure 7.7).
Figure 7.7: Selected CooMPaS GUI Components for the Moobile Marketing
Provider
opening hours), the pricing mechanism (e.g. auction format), and the com-
pensation method (cp. Figure 7.7 top, left).
• Filtering: Similar to the advertiser’s management GUI, filtering allows the
specification of general targeting profiles applicable to all registered Mobile
Advertising campaigns, for a certain portal category. For this, completely ir-
relevant Mobile Advertising campaigns for a mobile user (e.g. based on
maximum POS distance and relevant opening hours) can be filtered out (cp.
Figure 7.7 top, right).
• Matching: Similar to the advertiser management GUI, utility functions can
be configured in order to assess the matching qualities (i.e. context rele-
vance) between a mobile attention profile and the targeting profiles of all reg-
istered Mobile Advertising campaigns in this section (utility score) (cp. Fig-
ure 7.7 bottom).
The logic tier of the CoMPaS prototype is depicted in Figure 7.8. An UML class
diagram documents those classes essential for the understanding of the prototype
application logic46.
The central component of the CoMPaS prototype represents the mobilePortal
class, which is responsible for the interaction with the mobile user and the re-
sulting information flows.
Once a mobile user accesses the mobile portal, the idmFunc class attempts to
generate their mobile attention profile. For this, the mobileOP class requests
their identity and current location from the mobile operator interface. Once the
mobile attention profile is created, the mobile user can select a mobile portal
category of their choice. Subsequently, the targeting class is in charge of filter-
ing out the irrelevant Mobile Advertising campaigns for this portal category -
based on the corresponding targeting profile of the Mobile Marketing Provider.
46
In reality, the prototype is much more complex and comprises many more classes.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 207
Then, the matching class is responsible for auctioning off the mobile attention of
the mobile user. Firstly, the mobile attention profiles are matched with the tar-
geting profiles of the Mobile Advertising campaigns, which have been consid-
ered relevant by the targeting class. Secondly, the matching results are evaluated
based on the respective utility functions of the advertisers, and the correspond-
ing monetary bid for each advertiser is calculated. Thirdly, all advertiser bids are
discounted based on the utility function of the Mobile Marketing Provider.
Finally, the mobilePortal class determines the auction winners (advertisers) and
displays their Mobile Advertising campaigns via the mobile portal GUI. If the
mobile user clicks on the mobile advertisement, they receive more details about
the promoted product and a map with directions to the POS.
The lowest tier constitutes the data tier. It stores and maintains all necessary data
required to operate the mobile portal and the underlined mobile media market. A
corresponding ER-Model of the data tier is depicted in Figure 7.9.
208 Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform
The central entity of the data tier represents the MarketingActivity, which sum-
marises all relevant information in order to provide the mobile portal service.
Each data record holds a mobile portal category to be specified by the Mobile
Marketing Provider. Attached to the table is the AdvertiserActivitiy entity. It
comprises the Mobile Advertisement campaigns, which an advertiser has regis-
tered to this portal category. Furthermore, attached to this entity are multiple
additional dependent entities, which are used to specify filters and utility func-
tions (e.g. consumerInterests, filtering, targeting).
47
It has to be noted that the table names in the ER-Model may slightly differ from the termi-
nology used throughout this work. The prototype is able to provide more functionality than
discussed in the scope of this work and therefore the naming convention is more abstract or
general. This mainly concerns the tables MarketingActivity (corresponding to MobileAd-
vertisingCategory) and AdvertiserActivity (corresponding to AdvertiserCampaignProfile).
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 209
For each mobile user request of a certain mobile portal category, the Transac-
tionRound entity holds the information required to process an auction round for
the mobile attention of a mobile user. For each auction bid of an advertiser
within an auction round, the related entity TransactionDetail holds the necessary
information. For controlling purposes, the Matching and MatchingDetail entities
hold further detailed information about the results from matching mobile atten-
tion and targeting profiles.
Finally, the entity Pseudonym stores the personal information of the mobile user
under multiple pseudonyms. In this regard, the entity VirtualConsumer is used
to simulate the momentary usage situation of a mobile user and consequently the
use of the mobile portal.
The necessary ICT-infrastructure required and applied to enable the operation of
the previously outlined prototype architecture is presented in the following sec-
tion.
The central element of the ICT-infrastructure represents the Mobile Portal Ap-
plication Server. It is responsible for the translation of mobile user requests into
application events, which trigger the corresponding application processes. It is
based on a standard Intel-based server with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 as
the operating system.
In order to acquire geo-information, Mobile Portal Application Server connects
via the fixed Internet to the Microsoft Bing Maps Server (Microsoft Corporation
2009a). Using the TCP/IP, HTTPS and the SOAP protocol, a Web Service con-
nection is established48. This provides access to geographic maps and routing
directions for mobile users to promoted POS. Thereby, the application as well as
the data resides at the Microsoft Bing Data Centre and can be accessed on de-
mand (Microsoft Corporation 2009a).
The GUI for advertisers, which enables the interaction with the mobile media
market platform, has been implemented as a desktop application, which locally
runs on standard PCs. It communicates via the Internet using the TCP/IP and
Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) protocol with the CoMPaS database
residing on the Mobile Portal Application Server.
For the interaction of mobile users with the mobile portal, a mobile web inter-
face has been developed. In order to run, the mobile device has to have access to
48
For more information on Web Services, refer to the respective W3C Activity Website at
http://www.w3.org/2002/ws, accessed 2010-02-04.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 211
the mobile Internet and a mobile web browser featuring HTML 4.049 needs to be
installed.
Following the three-tier architecture model, the applied software technology for
the introduced infrastructure elements of the prototype and its communication
means is outlined (cp. Figure 7.11).
First, as operating system software, Microsoft Windows Server 200350 has been
used. On top of that, the Microsoft DotNet 2.0 Runtime51 provides the execution
environment for the CoMPaS prototype. Since the mobile portal GUI for mobile
users represents a web application, the Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0
(IIS6)52 is used to generate and deliver the respective mobile web pages.
The actual mobile portal application is embedded into this system software en-
vironment. On the bottom tier (data) resides the CoMPaS database in the form
of a Microsoft Access 200353 database file. No further database software is re-
quired to access and manipulate this database since Microsoft DotNet Frame-
work offers the required functionality.
The middle tier (logic tier) constitutes the application logic for processing the
market transactions on the mobile media market platform. It has been imple-
mented as Microsoft DotNet 2.0 Dynamic link library (DLL) in order to make
its functionally centrally accessible to all CoMPaS prototype components.
49
For more information of HTML 4.0, refer to the respective W3C Activity Website at
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4, accessed 2010-02-04.
50
For more information on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, refer to the Microsoft Product
Website at http://www.microsoft.com/germany/windowsserver2003/default.mspx, ac-
cessed 2010-02-04.
51
For more information on Microsoft DotNet, refer to the Microsoft Product Website at
http://www.microsoft.com/NET, accessed 2010-02-04.
52
For more information on Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0, refer to the Microsoft
Product Website at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/iis/default.mspx, ac-
cessed 2010-02-04.
53
For more information on Microsoft Access 2003, refer to the Microsoft Product Website at
http://office.microsoft.com/de-de/access, accessed 2010-02-04.
212 Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform
Presentation Layer
Application Layer
Application Layer
Data Layer
On the top tier (presentation) resides the GUI for mobile users, advertisers and
the Mobile Marketing Providers. Here, mobile web interfaces are implemented
with Microsoft ASP.Net54, which allows the development of dynamic web pages
54
For more information on Microsoft ASP.Net, refer to the Microsoft Product Website at
http://www.asp.net, accessed 2010-02-04.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 213
generated by the IIS6. By contrast, the advertisers’ GUI has been implemented
using the Microsoft DotNet WinForms 2.055 technology, which results in a lo-
cally executed desktop application.
In summary, the ICT-infrastructure for the CoMPaS prototype universally relies
on Microsoft software technology. For the prototype development, the choice of
technology from a single vendor ensures high compatibility between the differ-
ent components of the prototype. However, in reality, such homogenous ICT-
infrastructure environments are preferred but hardly exist. Nevertheless, by de-
signing the prototype along the three-tier architecture paradigm, using well-
defined interfaces, reduces the risk of incompatibilities if a tier has to be re-
placed by a different software technology.
55
For more information on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, refer to Microsoft Product
Website at http://www.microsoft.com/NET, accessed 2010-02-04.
56
For more information SQL, refer to the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) Website at http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=34133, accessed
2010-02-04.
57
For more information on Microsoft Visual C#.Net, refer to Microsoft Product Website at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp, accessed 2010-02-04.
214 Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform
failures or even denial-of-service attacks, which prevent the access for mobile
users and advertisers to the mobile media market platform.
• Accountability: Accountability means that a responsible person or system
can be definitely identified. This security goal especially becomes relevant in
business relations, where information and financial flows are exchanged elec-
tronically, and the involved need to be identified without any doubt.
The accountability of mobile users or advertisers cannot be guaranteed. This
may lead to click-fraud58. Whereas click fraud currently cannot completely be
prevented (Bennefeld 2008, p. 596 f.), the availability of context information
about mobile users allows the alleviation of this issue. Compared to tradi-
tional Mobile Advertising campaigns, click-fraud with their context-sensitive
campaign equivalents is much harder to accomplish. In order to generate costs
for an advertiser, the momentary usage situation of a fraudster has to match
the context to which a Mobile Advertising campaign has been targeted (e.g. in
close vicinity of a POS). By contrast, for fixed Online or traditional Mobile
Advertising campaigns, a fraudster can be anywhere in the world clicking on
an online or mobile advertisement.
Although the outlined security goals are valid in reality, they are not necessarily
required to demonstrate the general feasibility of implementing a mobile media
market platform, based on the developed engineering recommendations.
7.7 Summary
The CoMPaS prototype demonstrated the technical feasibility of applying the
developed MoMeMa framework to implement a mobile media market platform
for context-sensitive mobile attention. In this regard, it supports four use cases,
which relate to the mobile user, advertiser, and the Mobile Marketing Provider.
Completely relying on Microsoft software technology and standard consumer
PC hardware, the prototype implements a client / server concept, structured
along the three-tier architecture. On the data tier, all application data required to
conduct transactions for mobile attention are stored. One level up, on the logic
58
For instance, click-fraud could comprise competitors clicking, instead of mobile users, on
the displayed mobile advertisements. Thereby, draining the advertisement budget of an ad-
vertiser to the point at which he is no longer able to participate in the auction process. Con-
sequently, the Mobile Advertising campaign is not further displayed.
Prototypical Implementation of a Mobile Media Market Platform 217
tier, the application processes for conducting market transactions has been im-
plemented. Finally, on the presentation tier, GUIs for the interaction with the
market participants have been developed. The GUI of mobile users constitutes a
mobile web-based portal, whereas advertisers and Mobile Marketing Providers
have been provided with a local desktop application.
Like most prototypes, the CoMPaS application exhibits several limitations with
regard to conceptional, functional, performance and security aspects. Although
conceptional and functional aspects are candidates for further research, perform-
ance and security aspects are not explicitly addressed. Nevertheless, they are
relevant in practice, but not required in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the
MoMeMa framework.
Since the implementation of a software prototype does not replace an evaluation
of the developed IT artifact, the following chapter presents a conducted empiri-
cal evaluation of the MoMeMa framework with regard to its general utility for
the practice.
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 219
In order to conclude from the acquired empirical data of the expert interviews on
the utility of the MoMeMa framework, this data is evaluated using the qualita-
tive content analysis (QCA). It provides means for the analysis of material,
which originated from any kind of communication (Mayring 2008, p. 11). Ac-
cording to Mayring (2008, p. 42 ff.), the main characteristics of QCA can be
summarised as follows:
1. QCA is strongly founded on the concepts of the communication theory. The
analysis and interpretation of content always takes place in the context of
communication in which the content is acquired.
2. QCA always follows a redefined set of rules and process models to ensure a
systematic and comprehensible approach. However, a standard does not ex-
ist. Instead, a new process model always has to be developed in accordance
with the contents to be analysed.
3. The central component of the QCA is the category system. It structures the
content according to the specific criteria, which serves for the next interpreta-
tion steps.
For the evaluation of the IT artifact, an interview guideline has been formulated
containing multiple questions regarding the main aspects of the MoMeMa
framework. In order to build a QCA category system from this interview guide-
line, each question is considered a distinctive category, which aggregates all in-
put from the experts for this question59.
For the subsequent interpretation of the category contents, the QCA distin-
guishes between three types of basic interpretations60 (Mayring 2008, p. 59). In
this case, Summarising QCA as an interpretation method has been applied in or-
59
There several other QCA analysis approaches available. For an overview refer to Mayring
(2008, p. 59ff.)
60
For two other basic interpretation methods, refer to Mayring (2008, p. 57).
222 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
der to extract a general expert opinion for each category. It aims at reducing the
empirical data to the extent at which only the relevant contents remain. The re-
sult represents a content corpus, which still relates to the original material.
For an existing content category system, this interpretation approach constitutes
the following three steps (Mayring 2008, p. 61 ff.):
1. Paraphrasing: A content category is paraphrased to a form solely represent-
ing its essential contents. The resulting paraphrases are supposed to be for-
mulated using a uniform language.
2. Generalisation: For the generated paraphrases, a specific abstraction level is
defined and consequently applied. Thereby, paraphrases above the abstrac-
tion level remain untouched, whereas those residing below the baseline are
generalised.
3. Reduction: The meanings of the remaining paraphrases are compared. Simi-
lar or duplicate paraphrases are removed; irrelevant paraphrases are deleted.
Finally, the remaining paraphrases are aggregated to statements representing
the contents of the analysed category.
Table 8.1 illustrates the result of this basic interpretation process in the form of a
fictitious example, which is concerned with the integration of context informa-
tion into Mobile Marketing campaigns.
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 223
Expert interviews constitute a method used to acquire empirical data about a cer-
tain topic from experts in a specific domain (Gläser and Laudel 2009, p. 9 f.),
whereas the QCA analyses and interprets the contents generated by any form of
communication (Mayring 2008, p. 11). Consequently, combining both methods
allows analysing the empirical data acquired from the expert interviews with the
224 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
QCA (Mayring 2008, p. 62 ff.). Figure 8.1 depicts the link between both meth-
ods with the scope of this work.
Hypotheses
Paraphrasing
Development
Derival of Interview
Generalisation
Questions
2
Interview Conduction Reduction & Statement
& Results Development
The evaluation process begins with the design and conducting of the expert in-
terview guideline. At first, the research question to be addressed in the expert
interviews is specified. Then, hypotheses supporting the main aspects of the re-
search question are developed. For each hypothesis, several questions are de-
rived based on the analysis of the impacts of context information on the tradi-
tional commercialisation of mobile attention (cp. Chapter 4) and the IT artefact
design (cp. Chapter 6).
Equipped with this interview guideline, the expert interviews were conducted61.
The defined questions served as categories for the QCA (1). For each answer in
a category, the steps paraphrasing, generalisation, and reduction were conducted
(2). The process was repeated for each defined category (3). Finally, the evalua-
61
It has to be noted that the interview guideline was in English, whereas the interviews were
conducted in German. Furthermore, the naming of some terms has been translated to terms
more likely to be used in practice (e.g. the term “mobile attention” became “mobile user
contact”).
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 225
tion process was concluded with a review of the results for each hypotheses and
a discussion of the implications for the initially specified research question.
Based on this research question four hypotheses have been developed to support
the defined research question. These hypotheses are supposed to cover the key
aspects of the MoMeMa framework as well as the validity of assumed pre- and
post-conditions.
Hypothesis H4: The proposed engineering requirements for mobile media mar-
ket platforms are technically and legally feasible.
The interviewees chosen to test the outlined hypotheses and corresponding the
data acquisition process is documented in the following section.
62
Please refer to Appendix B for detailed contact information of these organisations.
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 227
This portfolio of organisations covers the relevant aspects of the value network
required to develop a mobile media market platform. Although, the expertise of
each organisation in relation to the expert interview focused on a specific area,
all organisations contributed to all questions to their best knowledge.
Starting from the top, the perspective of a Mobile Marketing Provider
(allesklar.com) and of a Mobile Advertising Agency (InteractiveMedia) was
covered. Furthermore, identity management and privacy aspects of mobile users
were specifically covered by Deloitte. Regarding the validity of business models
in the mobile Internet, Detecon offered its expertise. Finally, the aspects of the
ICT-infrastructure could specifically be addressed by T-Systems and Nokia-
Siemens-Networks (cp. Figure 8.2).
Mobile Advertising
Mobile Portal Provider
Marketer
(Allesklar)
(InteractiveMedia)
Consultancy on
Identity and Privacy
(Deloitte)
Telco Business
Consultancy
(Detecon)
The data acquisition through the expert interviews was comprised of several
preparation tasks, the actual interview, and the processing of the interview re-
sults. Firstly, initial contact to the organisation and eventually to the interviewee
was established by either e-mail or telephone. Only persons working for several
years in a specific field or domain were considered experts. Once the potential
interviewee agreed to the interview, a common understanding about the inter-
228 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
view aspects was established. For this, the interviewee was provided with a
PowerPoint presentation consisting of five slides, which illustrated a basic con-
text-sensitive Mobile Advertising campaign scenario to be supported by a mo-
bile media market platform (cp. Appendix C). Once the interviewee and the au-
thor of this work came to a common understanding of this scenario and its de-
fined prerequisites, an appointment for the actual interview was arranged.
The actual interview was conducted following a prepared interview guideline
(contrary to open interviews), which was comprised of multiple questions de-
rived from the developed hypotheses (cp. Appendix A). It consisted of three
parts: The first part motivated the interviewee to address the potential of con-
text-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns in the near future. Subsequently, the
second part was concerned with the existence of impacts of context information,
the utility of an engineering recommendation framework, as well as the general
technical and legal feasibility of developing a mobile media market platform
based on the proposed engineering recommendations. Finally, the third part en-
couraged the interviewees to address open or not yet covered aspects relevant to
this interview.
Following this guideline, either a personal interview at the organisation or a
telephone interview was conducted. Interviews never took any longer than 90
minutes. They were not electronically recorded since no interviewee gave their
consent. Instead, the author of this work took written notes. These were detailed
out shortly after the interview and sent back to the interviewee for review and
confirmation.
In total, seven interviews in six organisations were conducted between 1st May
2008 and 1st December 2008. For T-Systems, two employees of different de-
partments participated in the interview. In total six interviews were conducted at
the organisation of the interviewees, whereas for InteractiveMedia, a telephone
interview was conducted. The interviews were solely conducted in German and
the interview guideline was developed in English. When applicable, the wording
(not the actual questions) of the guideline was refined incorporating the experi-
ences of the last interview and finally being conformed to the wording of this
thesis.
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 229
The first hypothesis was concerned with the planned integration of context in-
formation into Mobile Marketing campaigns in order to substantiate its rele-
vance in the context of this work (cp. Section 2.5):
For Hypothesis H1, the interviewees were presented with three questions. The
first question was concerned with the kind of context information provided by
the mobile network and currently used by Mobile Advertising campaigns.
For the predominant number of interviewees location information about mobile
users is currently the most applied type of context information for Mobile Ad-
vertising campaigns. Time and identity profile information was considered rele-
vant only in niche applications. Although, not directly provided by mobile net-
works, the observable online behaviour of users on mobile websites (e.g. entered
keywords or clicked links) was considered as relevant context information as
well.
The second question was concerned with the kind of context information
planned to be integrated into Mobile Advertising campaigns in the near future.
The interviewees predicted a strong trend towards location and identity informa-
tion about mobile users. Although other context information was also considered
to be potentially beneficial, the market is not considered ready for this yet.
63
For more information on Microsoft Excel 2007, refer to: http://office.microsoft.com/de-
de/excel, accessed 2010-02-04.
230 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
The first question was concerned with whether or not existing traditional mobile
advertising platforms such as Google AdSense (Google Corporation 2009d) or
Yahoo (Yahoo Corporation 2009b) were capable of enabling context-sensitive
Mobile Advertising campaigns, without offering incentives to mobile users in
exchange for their disclosure of context information.
The predominant opinion of the experts was that the active disclosure of per-
sonal information requires the provision of directly perceivable incentives to
mobile users. In this case, monetary incentives have been considered the most
prospective form. However, the experts think that a mobile portal should pref-
erably be able to provide benefits intrinsically for the mobile user in exchange
for disclosing their personal information (e.g. via the personalisation of mobile
content based on context information).
The second question was concerned with whether or not a common understand-
ing about the semantic meaning of the applied context information, between all
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 231
Based on the identified and analysed impacts of context information on the tra-
ditional commercialisation of mobile attention, engineering recommendations
232 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
have been developed. Thereby, the central recommendation concerns the re-
source allocation mechanism for the mobile media market. Since other recom-
mendations (i.e. for business model and ICT-infrastructure) directly depend on
the resource allocation mechanism design, the corresponding questions of the
expert interviews focussed on the proposed need for the individual pricing of
mobile attention as well as the requirement of Mobile Marketing Providers to
maintain a certain relevance of Mobile Advertising campaigns for mobile users
(cp. Section 6.4.2).
The first question involved static pricing mechanisms such as the CPM model
and their appropriateness to price offered context-sensitive mobile user contacts.
Since context information is able to individually describe the momentary usage
situation of individual mobile users, is a traditional auction model (e.g. that of
Google) or static pricing still reasonable? Are different pricing models required?
The interviewees uniformly proposed the need for a dynamic, interactive pricing
mechanism for context-sensitive mobile user contacts for Mobile Advertising
campaigns. This gives advertisers the opportunity to express their individual
WTP. However, it was also stated that static pricing models would still be valid
to some extent, since Mobile Marketing Providers simply might want to sell
context-sensitive mobile user contacts for a static premium.
The second question aims at exploring if advertisers would take the opportunity
to express their individual WTP as participants in an auction for context-
sensitive mobile user contacts.
The majority of interviewees represented the opinion that advertisers will use
context information to determine the relevance of individual mobile user con-
tacts. In other words, context information allows filtering out irrelevant mobile
users (e.g. those too far away from a certain POS). The remaining mobile users
are expected to be acquired at a premium price. However, advertisers are con-
sidered to welcome auctioning as a pricing mechanism for less relevant mobile
user contacts.
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 233
The third question was concerned with the required relevance between mobile
users and Mobile Advertising campaigns. Is it reasonable to sell mobile user
contacts always to the highest biding advertiser, or does a Mobile Marketing
Provider have to weight the submitted advertiser bids for an auction, in order to
maintain a certain level of relevance between Mobile Advertising campaigns
and mobile users?
Although the interviewees represented the opinion that Mobile Marketing Pro-
viders should influence this process to some extent, the ideas for the actual im-
plementations were rather diverse:
• Auction bids should be weighted by Mobile Marketing Providers.
• Advertisers should compensate the low relevance of their Mobile Advertising
campaigns with incentives for mobile users.
• Mobile Marketing Providers should solely focus on highly detailed profiles
of mobile users.
• Mobile Marketing Providers should limit the number of Mobile Advertising
campaigns per mobile user and period of time.
In conclusion, this conglomerate of proposed concepts for maintaining the rele-
vance underlines the necessity for Mobile Marketing Providers to install a re-
spective mechanism, although the actual implementation remains unclear.
Finally, the proposed MoMeMa framework was evaluated for its feasibility to be
technically implemented in practice. First, this concerned the ability of the ICT-
infrastructure to support to the MIdMS requirements of mobile users, with a
special focus on the management of context information (cp. Section 6.3.1.2.2).
In addition, the processing capability of current ICT-infrastructures in order to
deliver Mobile Advertising campaigns within an appropriate time was evaluated
(cp. Section 6.4.3). Finally, the legality of processing the context-sensitive mo-
bile attention profiles for Mobile Advertising campaigns was analysed from a
practical perspective (cp. 6.2.3).
The first question was concerned with an existing Mobile Marketing Provider’s
technical ability to process market transactions for context-sensitive mobile at-
tention. In other words, is the recommended mobile media market platform de-
sign capable of storing and processing context-sensitive attention profiles based
on current state-of-the-art ICT-infrastructures?
The interviewed experts certify that current state-of-the-art ICT-infrastructures
in general have the capability to cope with the requirements of processing and
managing context-sensitive attention profiles of mobile users. However, most of
them still demand either minor or major upgrades. IdM systems operated by
mobile network operators are genuinely predestined for this task, since the used
primary context information originated from the mobile network. However, their
distributed storage architecture makes it currently difficult to compile all avail-
able mobile user information into one mobile user profile. In this regard, one
expert demanded to separate storage of context information from other identity-
related data to minimise the risk of privacy violations. Furthermore, one other
expert was not sure how to deal with the huge amounts of data resulting in the
storage, processing and monitoring of context-sensitive mobile user profiles. As
a possible solution, the expert simply suggested ignoring or filtering irrelevant
context information about mobile users.
The second question addressed the capability of current ICT-infrastructures to
cope with the increased complexity and performance load imposed by process-
ing context-sensitive attention profiles. In this regard, the experts uniformly
agreed that ICT-infrastructures of today are completely capable of processing
this kind of information. However, the experts stressed that this processing has
to be accomplished at a reasonable cost and has to prevent privacy violations for
mobile users. In the end, this may always be a compromise between perform-
ance and occurring costs, which Mobile Marketing Providers have to balance.
The third question was concerned with the legality of processing context-
sensitive mobile attention profiles with regard to the corresponding European
Data Protection Directives (cp. Section 6.2.3). The uniform opinion of all ex-
perts was that it is legal if a Mobile Marketing Provider complies with the re-
spective EU directives and corresponding national implementations, regarding
the protection of personal data. Thereby, the experts stressed the outstanding
Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework 235
importance of acquiring the consent of a mobile user in order to use their per-
sonal data.
Based on the summarised results for each hypothesis, the following section dis-
cusses the implications of this evaluation in the relation to the defined research
question.
For Hypothesis H1, one can conclude that it has been confirmed by the experts.
Context information in the form of location and identity information are already
in use. An increasing use of context information is expected by most experts in
the near future. Consequently, the expected increasing targeting effectiveness of
Mobile Marketing campaigns outweighs the named obstacles.
The evaluation of the potential impacts of context information on the traditional
commercialisation of mobile attention in mobile media markets (Hypothesis H2)
has been substantiated by the interviewed experts. The central reason for this
constitutes specific characteristics of context information. It results in the neces-
sity of Mobile Marketing Providers to provide incentives for mobile users in ex-
change for context information. This contrasts with traditional mobile marketing
campaigns in which the online behaviour of mobile users is solely passively ob-
served. Furthermore, a common understanding about context-sensitive attention
profiles of mobile users has to be established among all market participants
through – for instance, based on an identity standard. For traditional mobile at-
tention, there was no need to archive this understanding for mobile users since
they are simply being observed rather actively disclosing personal information
to Mobile Marketing Providers. Finally, with the availability of context informa-
tion, the value of mobile user contacts for advertisers is increasingly determined
based on the relevance of an individual mobile user, rather than on the mobile
content a mobile user is consuming. Consequently, the individual attention of a
mobile user becomes increasingly the preferred economic good in mobile media
markets once context information is available.
236 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
pecially in the near future. Furthermore, they acknowledge several central im-
pacts of context information on the traditional commercialisation of mobile user
contacts or mobile attention respectively in mobile media markets. Finally, the
proposed engineering recommendations, in order to address these impacts, were
found to be reasonable as well as technically and legally feasible.
Although, the evaluation substantiated the utility of the MoMeMa framework
from a practical point-to-view, several limitations of this evaluation have to be
disclosed in the following section.
64
For a general overview about the limitations of empirical research methods, refer to Bortz
and Döring (2006, p. 16ff.)
238 Empirical Evaluation of Engineering Recommendation Framework
aspects of the proposed MoMeMa framework have been evaluated rather than
the complete framework concept.
Summarising the outlined limitations, one can conclude that the evaluation
shows that the experts did not see any unreasonable engineering recommenda-
tions and technical or legal obstacles, which could not be overcome by Mobile
Marketing Providers. However, the utility of the entire MoMeMa framework
could not be demonstrated. This will be possible once context-sensitive Mobile
Advertising campaigns start to take off in practice and empirical case study-
based evaluations or user surveys become feasible. Thus, the MoMeMa frame-
work, as an IT artifact, outlines a proposed possible set of engineering recom-
mendations for Mobile Marketing Providers to commercialise context-sensitive
mobile attention.
oped and evaluated. It provides the foundation for the understanding of this
problem field and contributes to feasible solutions.
At first, Chapter 2 gave an overview about the state-of-the-art advertising-
financed media applied to marketing campaigns. Along with the historical de-
velopment of this media, the distinctive features of advertising-financed tradi-
tional, online, and mobile media as vehicles for conducting marketing cam-
paigns are presented.
In particular, mobile media constitutes the latest communication channel to ad-
vertisers for their recipients. Its main feature currently exploited by Mobile
Marketing campaigns is that it is more personal than any other media. Besides
this intrinsic feature, context information provided by the mobile network offers
knowledge about a mobile user’s current location, identity and time of day.
Therefore, advertisers are enabled to target Mobile Marketing campaigns to the
momentary usage situation of a mobile user. However, the potential benefits for
advertisers (effectiveness) and mobile users (relevance) have to be bought, at the
expense of several impacts of context information on the traditional commer-
cialisation of mobile media performance from the perspective of Mobile Market-
ing Providers. These impacts originate from the specific characteristics of con-
text information in relation to Mobile Marketing campaigns. Although, several
basic context-sensitive Mobile Marketing campaigns already exist in practice,
these impacts had not been comprehensively analysed yet.
In order to explore and analyse the impacts of context information on the tradi-
tional commercialisation of mobile media performance, Chapter 3 presented the
development of a conceptional analysis framework. For this, a paradigm shift
away from mobile media performance towards mobile attention, as scarce re-
source in mobile media markets, was introduced. Based on this perspective, all
aspects relevant for the commercialisation of mobile attention have been incor-
porated into the analysis framework. It comprises the characterisation of mobile
attention as an economic good in mobile media markets, the characteristics of a
Mobile Marketing Provider’s mobile attention value chain as well as the influ-
ence of mobile attention in mobile media markets, from the perspective of net-
work economics.
Conclusion and Further Research 241
propriately. Thus, the potential impacts of the market competition on the tra-
ditional commercialisation of mobile attention or its characteristics as an eco-
nomic good, can be considered prior and during the development of the mo-
bile media market platform.
• Analysis of the Commercialisation of Mobile Attention for Mobile Mar-
keting Campaigns in Mobile Communities: Equipped with rich mobile user
profiles in combination with a high attention of mobile users, Mobile Com-
munities Providers own a prospective position to commercialise the mobile
attention of the users for Mobile Marketing campaigns. However, due to the
fact that mobile users access community sites in order to communicate with
other individuals rather than getting informed, the corresponding Mobile
Marketing spendings do not live up to these exceptations. Nevertheless, the
business model for most mobile community sites strongly relies on this kind
of revenue streams. Therefore, the question has to be raised how one can tar-
get the attention of mobile users mainly spend on communicating with other
users rather than spend on consuming traditional mobile content bundled with
Mobile Advertising campaigns (Kahl and Albers 2010).
• Aggregation of Distributed Mobile Attention Profiles of Mobile Users:
Due to the potential existence of competitors in the market, it cannot be as-
sumed that Mobile Marketing Providers can acquire and own all relevant con-
text information about a mobile user. By observing the fixed as well mobile
Internet, one can state that mobile users typically have multiple partial identi-
ties. These represent only part of their real identity, which is currently re-
quired in the prevailing application context (FIDIS 2006, p. 20). This imposes
additional research questions on how Mobile Marketing Providers can acquire
these distributed identities of a mobile user, and aggregate them to a mobile
attention profile commonly understood by all mobile media market partici-
pants.
• Analysis of Context-sensitive Mobile Attention in the Supply Chain: The
analysis of context-sensitive mobile attention has been conducted along with
the mobile attention value chain, which was derived from the way value crea-
tion in two-sided mobile media markets is conducted. Thereby, mobile users
have been considered as attention suppliers, Mobile Marketing Providers as
attention manufacturers, and advertisers as attention consumers. The aim of
246 Conclusion and Further Research
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Appendix A: Expert Interview Design 269
Research Question
Are the proposed engineering recommendations for mobile media markets of
context-sensitive mobile attention appropriate?
H3: The occurring impacts of context information with regard to the allocation
of context-sensitive mobile attention can be addressed by the developed en-
gineering recommendations for a mobile media market platform.
H4: The proposed engineering requirements for a mobile media market platform
are technically and legally feasible.
270 Appendix A: Expert Interview Design
• Which are the current drivers and/or obstacles for integrating context informa-
tion into Mobile Advertising campaigns?
• Has a common understanding between the mobile user, advertiser and Mobile
Marketing Provider, about the underlying identity (attributes) of a mobile
user, need to be established? Do we need a new identity concept?
• Are ICT-infrastructures of today able to cope with higher complexity and per-
formance load caused by context information?