Bates, Infotechs partnership to promote mobile internet advertising

Shirajiv Sirimane

ADVERTISING: Catering to the modern day demands Internet mobile advertising was introduced to Sri Lanka with the officially launched DotMobi site in Colombo. Infotechs and their marketing partner BatesAsia designed this website which is totally home grown.

It is also primarily an advertising medium bringing on-demand information access for consumers on the move.

Chairman of Infotechs, Susantha Pinto, the site owner, said that DotMobi is a new development of made-for-mobile Internet sites. “This is one of several key sites we have registered and will develop to meet various needs from shopping and healthcare to tourism to foreign employment.”

Mobile phones are growing exponentially in Sri Lanka with annual growth rates of over 50% and over 5.4 million mobile subscribers to-date. Most mobile phones are GPRS enabled. There are a growing number of subscribers, both pre-paid and post-paid, who are connected to GPRS services of the mobile service providers.

The current estimate is about 1 million GPRS users and that number is bound to grow rapidly as useful DotMobi sites are developed and offered. “This is the reason for us to launch this site,” he said.

The mobile phone, which is constantly in the hand of the consumer, is an ideal vehicle to deliver an advertising message and the main advantage is that it can be delivered simultaneously to all over the world. “So for advertisers, providing useful information and offers for consumers to call up on-demand is the way to go to catch the consumer on the go,” he said.

CEO of BatesAsia Nimal Gunewardena said that today’s consumer is mobile and elusive and this site provides the opportunity for various service-providers and retailers in Colombo to be literally on-hand when the consumer decides he is in the mood to buy.

Michelle Pinto, who heads project development at Infotechs said that the site lists and categorises include restaurants and shops of various types, hotels, pubs, nightclubs, gyms, salons, spas, taxis, hospitals, pharmacies, airlines, real estate buys as well as emergency services.

“It promises to provide constant updates giving the latest events and offers from these institutions.”