A pilot program relating to advertising on mobile phones carried out in the Czech Republic by T-Mobile was completed in June 2009. This project confirmed the above-average effectiveness of this kind of communication with customers. A total of 22 advertisers including Coca-Cola, Nestle, L’Oreal, Ford, Komercni banka and Eurolines participated in the pilot project. On the other hand, a total of 3,133 advertising recipients among T-Mobile customers were contacted. The average successfulness of individual SMS/MMS campaigns was approximately 27 times higher than in the case of internet banner campaigns. Even the results of the least successful campaign surpassed the response rate of 0.1%, which is common for Czech internet campaigns.

The goal of this pilot operation was to make it possible for the advertisers to test this new kind of communication, to evaluate its effectiveness in comparison with other communication channels, to compare the effects with respect to various products/services, as well as different forms of campaign implementation, and finally to collect reactions from the recipients. During the pilot operation, a total of 22 advertisers out 32 advertising campaigns and the average response rate was 2.72%.

In the case of the most successful campaign, the response rate was 11.78%. Even the least successful campaign had a response rate of 0.29%, well above the internet average.

Representatives of the two target groups participating in the mobile-advertising pilot project carried out by T-Mobile: 1,392 women aged 26-50 living in urban areas formed the first target group. The second target group comprised 1,741 young people under the age of 26. A total of 3,133 customers received free SMS or free minutes for their participation in the project.

Based on the above-average results of the pilot projects and based on the satisfaction of the advertisers, T-Mobile has been considering launching the SMS/MMS mobile advertisement in the 4Q of 2009.