Richard Jackson is Business Development Director of Muzicall, the provider of outsourced ringback tone (RBT) services to carriers, media companies and content producers. Formed in 2004, Muzicall has become one of the leading players in the RBT sector. Here, he explains why RBTs should no longer be overlooked.

Why does Muzicall focus solely on ringback tones? Surely it’s not the most glamorous – or widely deployed – area of mobile content?

Inbound callers to European mobiles currently listen to about 710 years or 375 million minutes of traditional RBT brrr-brrr tone every day. The market perception of RBTs in Europe is that they won’t work. We believe that they will.

We focus solely on RBTs because it’s a very significant opportunity and requires dedicated focus from a specialist provider in order to generate the maximum revenue. RBT delivery is complex and it resides at the heart of Telco operations. Our proposal to operators is simple: outsource the RBT service to Muzicall and we
will manage the entire revenue development for you. As a virtual product management and marketing team, we will manage it to maximise revenue for both “on” and “off” deck sales. RBTs need constant and consistent marketing – you have to keep reinforcing and educating the user base as to what they are and what RBTs can
do for them.

There is obviously complexity in delivering this massive opportunity; so we act as the glue that holds it all together for our customers, such as Vodafone.

Why has take-up been so low to date?

One of the main reasons is that direct to consumer providers (D2C) have been unable to sell RBTs. If you take the European market, we estimate that less than 2% of it has been addressed so far, but other territories are having success. In South Korea 45% of users have enabled a ringback tone, while China Mobile’s statistics for 2005 came in at ten times Informa’s estimate for that year. RBTs generated US$427m for China Mobile in 2005 and one tone was downloaded 16m times. China is, of course, a different market with just two operators and a massive population, but everyone wants to personalise their phones, and Europeans are
no different.

What needs to happen for the European market to take off?

The priority is that the market has to be opened up to all mobile phone users and all potential retailers of RBTs, which includes corporates and branding agencies. To do this operators need to work with a specialist provider who can engage with all these parties in the supply chain across the territory. It has to be looked at from a country perspective rather than an operator one. With regard to RBTs, Europe is a fragmented market, at the moment. Most operators have different brand names for them, they have different pricing structures and different features, and that can make RBTs a very confusing proposition to users.

What opportunities do RBTs present for branding campaigns, sponsorship and the corporate market?

By 2010, consumer entertainment and personalisation could represent only 30% of the opportunity. Corporate branding and advertising will probably become 70% of the market. Does that mean we will all be plagued by annoying ads every time we call someone? No it doesn’t. But it does present Operators an opportunity to offer their customers some innovative packages. For example, if a 16-24 year old on prepay wants to get their monthly credit increased from £10 to £15 they could opt in to carry advertising as their ringback tone. RBTs at 15 seconds are comparable to radio ads, so it would be more of an opportunity for big brands to get very simple messages across.

For corporates there are additional opportunities. For instance, they could have branding messages or pre-pick up messages for their customers.

How can Muzicall break down the barriers to uptake?

Muzicall addresses this in two ways. Firstly through operators outsourcing their service to us, to maximise revenues for RBTs amongst their customer base. We have good customer insight and as a result we know what works and what doesn’t. Secondly through the Muzicall RBT.4.ALL Programme, which is being introduced this year. This enables the D2C vendors to sell RBTs “off deck”. The RBT.4.ALL Programme will drive new revenue streams for operators, content owners and of course the retailers. Our offering centres on managing the total service for the benefit of all parties and marketing clearly to customers.

How do you see the RBT sector developing in the next two years?

You’ll see existing services outsourced to specialist providers like Muzicall. We’ll see more operators launching a service and we’ll see the market opening up to more retailers, offering users a greater choice, as a resultthere will be greater market awareness. Importantly we’ll also see RBT extending beyond the entertainment proposition into other areas such as corporate branding and advertising. In Europe we listen to 375 million minutes of ringback tone every day. We’ve been listening to the same ringback tone for 130 years, isn’t it time for a change?

click to download

Published by STREAM Magazine, Europe's leading magazine for mobile content delivery - Vol 4, Issue 1