By Emeka Aginam
Tigo , the innovative mobile advertising service,  in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent,  permission-based mobile marketing solution, are targeting mobile advertising market in Ghana.

The solution  enables Tigo’s customers to share information with Tigo about their preferences and  in turn  receive interactive text messages containing important news, promotions, discounts and exclusive offers from their preferred brands.

With this, advertisers can thus be confident that their messages arrive at a receptive, responsive and engaged audience that is keen to hear from them.

In Ghana, like in other African countries, advertising investments have traditionally gone first to billboards and radio rather than the Internet (online ads)  due to lack of PC ownership.

Today, however, we see that mobile advertising is poised to compete with more traditional media for advertising dollars – driven by high mobile phone penetration and the resulting ability to target specific audiences.

To promote this exciting new service, Tigo and Alcatel-Lucent are now launching a special programme for advertisers allowing them to “buy-one-get-one-for-free”.

The offer  will allow brands who buy one mobile advertising campaign to receive another one, at the same value, for free.

The promotion applies to any type of sector (fast-moving consumers goods [FMCG], financial services, automotive industry, NGOs, etc.) and enables advertisers to target their desired audience (gender-, age- and interest-based). Tigo Ads and Optism™ have already seen proven response rates as high as 45% for campaigns run on the service.

Both Tigo and Alcatel-Lucent believe this service is one that benefits consumers, retail brands, advertisers and network owners in Ghana alike. As a matter of fact, Alcatel-Lucent plans to extend the Optism™ solution to other mobile operators in Ghana in an effort to aggregate audiences across multiple mobile service providers.

Excited with this offer, Rosy Fynn , Consumer Manager, Tigo Ghana said that , “Our approach to mobile advertising takes into account the desire of both the consumer and the advertising communities.

We are literally putting the brand in the hands of mobile subscribers, providing them with exactly those products they want to receive information about.”
Similarly, Haadi Bawah, Marketing Manager of Auto Parts Ltd, distributor of Nissan automobiles in Ghana, added that , “The mobile campaign we ran with Tigo Ads brought us to a wider audience than any other form of digital advertising in Ghana.

“The response rates to the Nissan Patrol campaign were extremely positive, and we gained insight into consumers’ needs that we can use to shape future campaigns” he added.