Sprint Nextel to Use Web Mobile Advertising

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Sprint Nextel customers need to get ready for ads on their web service. Enpocket will power an ad-delivery system for Sprint Nextel's mobile Web portal, selling advertising space on navigation pages and other locations. Sprint looks to be the first operator partner with a marketing firm to sell advertisements on its deck, selling the space itself and pocketing the revenues.

While limited in scope—the agreement is said to support only WAP ads, leaving applications such as mobile video or music unaddressed—the move signals a dramatic shift in how operators view wireless advertising. Carriers are still concerned about sharing consumer face time with other brands, of course, and remain terrified of consumer backlash against ads that may be seen as intrusive.

It appears they can no longer afford to keep mobile marketing at arm's length, however. Wireless advertising is expected to explode into an $11 billion worldwide industry by 2011, according to figures released last week from Informa Telecoms & Media. Perhaps more importantly, ad revenues increasingly are expected to support next-generation services that have gained only moderate traction thus far.

Third Screen was one of a handful of marketing firms Sprint considered as a partner for its wireless Web marketing initiative; online marketing company Accipitor Solutions Inc. was also in the running. But while Boston-based Third Screen was rumored to have been passed over in favor of Enpocket, Burgess said his company took itself out of consideration after Sprint Nextel said it was looking for an agency to develop mobile marketing software to the carrier's specifications.