T-Mobile and Yahoo! today announce a strategic partnership which will see the first graphical advertising appear on T-Mobile’s pioneering Internet service. Web’n’walk, which was the UK’s first service to offer people unlimited access to the whole internet on a mobile phone, is set to carry a variety of innovative graphical ads exclusively sold and served by internet giant Yahoo!.

Mobile advertising is revolutionising the market by allowing advertisers to deliver more targeted messaging to consumers on their mobiles when on the move. As pioneers of the Internet on your mobile, T-Mobile and Yahoo! will combine their expertise in the industry and knowledge of consumer habits, to enable advertisers to offer consumers targeted graphical ads when using the web’n’walk service . Mobile advertising is unique in allowing consumers the ability to interact and respond directly to the messages that advertisers try to deliver to them, when they are out of the office or home. T-Mobile and Yahoo! intend to roll out the first mobile advertisements on web’n’walk in the first half of 2008.

Phil Chapman, Director of Marketing at T-Mobile, said: “Mobile advertising is a key area of development for TMobile in 2008 and this partnership with Yahoo! shows our commitment to making this strategy succeed. With conventional mobile marketing tools limiting the levels of interaction, banner advertising through the Internet on your mobile creates many opportunities for potential advertisers to adopt innovative marketing campaigns. We regard Yahoo! as a leader in display advertising, and with its deep understanding of the mobile space and the potential that mobile advertising can offer clients, we’re glad they are on board as our partners.”

"This partnership with T-Mobile demonstrates Yahoo!'s continued focus on mobile and extending our leadership in graphical advertising across multiple platforms," said Geraldine Wilson, VP of Connected Life, Yahoo! Europe. "Advertisers are fast recognising the value of mobile advertising as a core part of their digital campaigns, and we are excited to work with T-Mobile to create superior experiences that deliver great value to advertisers and mobile users alike."

Thomas Husson, Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch, said in a recent report*: "The mobile channel enables advertisers to interact with consumers at different and unique peak times when they are relatively more difficult to reach through other media. More than any other medium, mobile can be leveraged to make the most of unique contextual, individual, and behavioural targeting.*”

T-Mobile has been at the forefront of the mobile Internet since the launch of the web’n’walk Internet service in 2005. Web’n’walk allows users access to the real internet, to surf the Internet when they want and how they want, T-Mobile have a number of price plans for Contract and Pay as you Go customers ranging from 50p per day with the 5 day pass for £2.50 to £7.50 per month for unlimited web browsing.

Yahoo! is focused on creating the monetization engine for the mobile Internet: enabling publishers to monetize their services, and advertisers to reach their target audiences at large scale and with impact.

Notes to Editors
Contacts:
Sophia Parviez
T-Mobile PR Manager
+44 (0) 7908 208 417

Chloe Graf
Yahoo! European PR Manager
+44 (0) 207 131 161

Brands2life
+44 (0) 207 592 1200

Web’n’walk mobile internet timeline:
November 2005 - T-Mobile launches web‘n’walk - the UK’s first simple, open Internet experience with the freedom to browse the entire web, just like you use at home and at work
April 2006 - T-Mobile is the first UK operator to charge a flat rate per month plan for unlimited mobile internet browsing and e-mail
August 2006 - T-Mobile launched web’n’walk for pay as you go customers - with a unique new charging mechanism - with browsing costs capped at a maximum of £1 per day, however much you surf
October 2006 - web’n’walk Plus and Max launched providing an enriched web experience via a handset modem or laptop card, and access to the full range of Internet calling services (e.g. VoiP)
July 2007 - T-Mobile announce half a million customers are regularly using T-Mobile’s mobile internet service, web’n’walk
October 2007 - T-Mobile launches web’n’walk 3.0 allowing users to personalise their homepages and have one click access to their favourite websites
November 2007 - T-Mobile becomes the first operator in the UK to offer pay as you go broadband, offering customers super fast internet access without a contract for no more than £4 per day
November 2007 - T-Mobile announce its 5 Day Pass for £2.50, enabling pay-as-you-go customers access to the whole internet for just 50p per day

*According to a report produced by JupiterResearch entitled ‘Mobile Advertising in Europe’: “Mobile Internet advertising seems to raise the highest of hopes. Of Marketers having used or planning to use mobile marketing, 64% planned to use banner advertising on mobile portals, and 68% planned to use banner ads on off-portal mobile Internet pages during the next 12 months. These marketers also consider the mobile Internet to be the most service enabling future growth of mobile advertising revenue (58%).”

 

About T-Mobile UK
T-Mobile is one of the world’s largest mobile operators with more than 112 million customers worldwide and in the UK it is the network of choice for approaching 17 million customers, making it one of the largest networks.

T-Mobile has a range of innovative products and services such as Flext, a unique tariff with flexible pricing; U-Fix, a tariff that combines pay-as-you- go and a monthly contract and web'n'walk, which enables customers to surf websites on the move. TMobile's network coverage is among the best in the UK (over 99% of the UK population) with one of the lowest dropped call rates. It offers the largest worldwide Wi-Fi network, with over 1,000 HotSpots in business-friendly locations in the UK and 21,000 worldwide, and offers the fastest HSDPA network across the UK with speeds of up to 1.8mb per second.
For more information about T-Mobile UK, please visit www.t-mobile.co.uk [1]

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
For more information on Yahoo! Mobile please visit mobile.yahoo.com [2].