However you say it, Get Mobilized, Jouez La Carte Mobile, Mobil Werben or Get Mobilised, the time for mobile is now! With our Get Mobilized website now available in 3 new languages there has never been a better time for your business to join the mobile revolution. Don’t feel left out Japanese readers, you can モバイル最適化のおすすめ too! Your version is due to drop soon, keep your eyes on this blog for more information.

You just have to look around you to see how smartphones are radically changing the way consumers connect the real world with the online world. They are out and about, their smartphones are with them 24/7, they need your services and 82% of US smartphone users notice mobile ads. Is your business ready for them? They are searching more and more, in fact, at Google, we are seeing mobile search grow at an exponential rate, increasing five-fold worldwide in just the past two years - a rate comparable to the early days of desktop Google Search. No matter what your business size, you can get started with a few some simple steps to connect with your customers and grow your business with mobile advertising.

From tips on optimizing your mobile campaign performance to how to drive more calls to your business, there’s lots of getting started resources with short videos explaining the benefits of each key mobile ad solution. Want more clicks? Want more calls? Want more customers in your store? We’ll show you how.

Begin on the path to mobile advertising success by watching this introduction to mobile advertising video and don’t forget to Get Mobilized!

Posted by Jon Garwood, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

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India’s wildly popular MTV “Hero Honda” Roadies emulates the tried-and-true reality genre that has existed in some form almost from the get-go in television programming. Now in its eighth season on MTV, the youth-based show—with multi-lingual participants conversing in a mélange of Hindi and English—has expanded beyond the borders of India to encompass seasons in Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Africa, and, most recently, South America. When MTV wants to pique interest and engender buzz about the latest series, they now turn confidently to Google AdMob—one of the world’s largest mobile-advertising networks—to reach their core show audience of 18 to 24 year olds.

AdMob reaches the roadie
Roadies’ Gen Y version features a mismatched group of guys and gals and their adventures as they dash around a country—on eye-catching Honda motorbikes no less—completing myriad tasks and challenges. These consist of “Money tasks,” “Advantage tasks,” or “Immunity tasks,” the third of which grants immunity from the dreaded “vote-out” at the hands of their team members. Tasks can be either individual- or team-based and the final surviving “roadie” happily pockets the cumulative cash.  
 

MTV Roadies ad opens to an interactive experience

 
Reaching a young, mobile-savvy customer
In debuting MTV Roadies 8—set in exotic Brazil—the producers based their marketing campaign on Google AdMob to generate online excitement in the imminent launch. Targeting their core demographic of young smartphone-wielding males and females with a predilection for reality TV, the marketers created compelling banner ads that appeared across screens of a variety of downloadable apps. Users who clicked through to the mobile-optimized Roadies website could either view show previews, download special content, or participate in a relevant contest with goodies and vouchers.
 
Because the targeted audience comprises the heaviest users of mobile handsets in India, MTV’s marketing team confidently expected healthy return-on-investment (ROI) for their advertising efforts. The data gleaned from Google Analytics exceeded their predictions. One quarter-million cellular users clicked through to the Roadies site and 80% of those, almost 200,000, then took the time to download show content or play different contests.

"We’re thrilled that we were able to capture so much attention during ourlatest mobile campaign and know that our Google mobile-ads strategy was instrumental in these results,” says Aditya Swamy, Senior Vice President MTV India.  “From the tremendous online interest garnered before the first episode, we’re now predicting that our eighth season could well be our strongest.

Based on these results, there will be no “vote-out” for Google AdMob as MTV plans its next mobile ad campaign for the popular show’s 9th season.

Post by Mahesh Narayanan, Google India

Here’s a question for all of you smartphone owners out there: If someone asked you whether you’d rather give up your phone or your TV, what would you say?

Earlier this year, Google teamed up with IPSOS Research to learn the answer to this exact question (and many others) by asking 30,000 people in 30 countries about how they use their smartphones, and where (on the bus? at the office?). It’s the first time anyone has asked this many people the same questions, for free: that means we can compare and contrast behaviour and trends across different age groups, different cities, and even countries.

So what did we learn about Australia? To start with, those of us at Google Australia were particularly proud to discover that Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world -- ahead of the US, UK, and Japan. This is a recent achievement for the land down under. The majority of smartphone owners we surveyed had bought their device in the preceeding 12 months, which means that Australia went from lagging to leading the worldwide smartphone revolution in just one year. We estimate that each month, 1-2% of the entire population of Australia buys a smartphone.

Here are a few other fun facts we found when we took a look at the numbers:

• Not just on the go: You may think that your smartphoneis an “on the go” device, something you can use to kill time in line at thegrocery store or check email on the train. But our survey found that 81% of Australians used their smartphones at home during the past 7 days--compared to just 66% on the go. Nearly 1 in 2 use their smartphone while watching TV, while 1 in 3 use smartphones and another Internet-enabled device at the same time.
• Smartphones are good for business: 49% use their smartphone to research and then call businesses--while 45% visit a business they’ve found using their smartphone.
• We can now indulge our obsession with real estate 24x7: 1 in 5 Australians we surveyed had looked for an apartment or house with their smartphone--a figure 33% higher than the US or UK.
• Search is big on smartphones: 2 in 5 of Australian smartphone owners use mobile search daily--more than the UK or Germany, and almost as high as the number who use desktop search daily.
• Apps, apps, apps: our Australian survey respondents had 25 apps on average per smartphone--that’s versus 23 in the US & UK. They’re not just free apps, either; Australians averaged 8 paid apps per phone.
• And now, the answer we’ve all been waiting for... 1 in 5 Aussie smartphone owners would rather give up their TV than their smartphone.

So what does this mean (aside from smartphones at the dinner table)? First, Australians are buying more smartphones, faster, than the rest of the world--and they’re using them more, too. Second, as more and more of us embrace the smartphone revolution, we’ll be watching more videos, searching for more businesses, buying more apps, and sharing more via mobile. In other words, there are a host of new opportunities for developers, web publishers, video creators, retailers, and advertisers to build and grow their businesses on mobile.

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If you want to learn more, stay tuned: we’ll be making our global survey results public, in their entirety, for everyone who wants a closer look at the global mobile revolution.

Posted by Jason Pellegrino, Head of Mobile Ads, Google Australia and New Zealand