3 rents out ad space on laptop users’ screens

Mobile operators are getting ever more inventive about where they can sell advertising, with UK disruptor 3 this week opening up its mobile broadband dashboard to advertisers.

The dashboard acts as a mobile broadband user’s connection manager and launches every time a user connects to the internet. 3 said it will be visible to more than one million mobile broadband users, accounting for more than 30 million impressions every month.

3 UK’s sister network in Austria is already running campaigns with brands such as VW, Suzuki, Kia, Peugeot, Mazda, Honda and Land Rover, and claims that companies advertising in this way are seeing a click through rate of up to 6 per cent.

The UK operator is looking for an initial set of exclusive advertising partners and claims launch brands will receive in the region of one to three million impressions each month.

While not specifically targeted at the mobile handset user, 3’s move does lend credence to the claim that in-application advertising is going to be an important part of the evolution of advertising.

Check out our feature on in-application advertising