The Independent mobile site is intended to help the newspaper to capitalise on the growth of the mobile Internet, extend its reach, diversify its revenue streams and attract new mobile customers to the brand and content. The deal is the first to result from YOC’s acquisition of Bluestar Mobile, combining Bluestar’s customer portfolio and range of services with YOC’s technology offering, media network and ad sales expertise. Bluestar will design, build and manage the mobile site for the newspaper, creating mobile marketing campaigns to generate awareness and drive traffic to the mobile site, greatly strengthening its position within the publishing industry as a mobile marketing specialist.
“The growth of the Internet has invoked an enormous change in the world of publishing, and now the ubiquity of mobile handheld devices and the evolution of the commercial model surrounding them has finally made the medium a viable one for publishers,” said Bill Swanson, Digital MD at The Independent. “We’re keen to meet this evolution head on with the launch of our mobile site; allowing our readers to access our news and content anytime, anywhere. We see Bluestar and YOC’s new collaborative approach as the right combination to help us do this.”
Bluestar Mobile will enable The Independent to enter the mobile market by creating a mobile portal that will allow its current 240,000 mobile browsers to access The Independent’s content on the move via a dedicated mobile site. The mobile site will provide content tailored specifically for the mobile channel and will enable The Independent to cater for its readers’ increasingly time pressed and mobile lifestyles, as well as allowing it to extend into new demographics. Adverts on the site will be carefully targeted to the individual reader, offering advertisers a healthy return on investment and boosting advertising revenues for The Independent.
“Our acquisition by YOC Group has enabled us to present a completely unique offering to our clients, combining Bluestar’s strengths in designing and developing highly successful mobile internet and marketing services with YOC’s mobile advertising expertise. It’s a proposition which is unrivalled in the market,” stated Oli Roxburgh, Managing Director of Bluestar Mobile.
YOC’s recent acquisition of Bluestar Mobile, which already counts newspaper titles such as The Sun, The Times, The News of the World, The Mirror and The Guardian amongst its customer portfolio has enabled the mobile marketing agency to marry Bluestar’s portfolio with its extensive UK media network which serves over 170 million page impressions each month, offering its clients enormous reach and great targeting capabilities.
Christian Louca (pictured), UK Country Manager & Head of Publishers at the YOC Group said of the partnership: “The Independent’s move into the mobile domain clearly demonstrates how the medium is moving into the mainstream as a publishing tool; sitting alongside traditional media outlets as a successful and cost effective method of reaching the consumer. Having recently expanded our services with the acquisition of Bluestar and offering one of the largest media networks in the UK, we are ideally placed to run The Independent’s mobile site.”
About The YOC Group
YOC says: “The YOC Group is one of Europe’s leading full service providers of advertising, information and transaction services for mobile phones. The Berlin-based group works for international brands, media houses, Internet portals, mobile phone service providers and financial service providers. The YOC Group offers three business areas: mobile marketing, affiliate marketing, and mobile B2C services. Within the mobile marketing segment, the YOC Group provides services and solutions for the efficient use of mobile marketing, mobile advertising and mobile Internet technology.
The YOC Group employs over 150 employees across seven different countries, including the following subsidiaries: YOC Ltd. in London, Moustik Sprl. in Brussels, and Sevenval AG, Moustik GmbH, Brutus Media GmbH and belboon-adbutler GmbH in Germany. Clients include: Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Kraft Foods, Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures, BILD, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Gruner + Jahr, IDG Media, Haymarket Consumer Media, Prisma Presse, Accuweather, Teletext, Qeep and 123play.com."
