Статья для intermediate и выше с русскими подсказками

Marketers hail (приветствовать) the mobile phone as advertising's promised land
ADVERTISING on mobile phones is a tiny business. Last year spending on mobile ads (реклама) was $871m worldwide compared with $24 billion spent on internet advertising and $450 billion spent on all advertising. But marketing wizards (кудесники/волшебники/гении) are beginning to talk about it with the sort of hyperbole (преувеличение) they normally reserve (приберегать) for products they are paid to sell. It is destined (ей предназначено), some say, to supplant (вытеснить) not only internet advertising, the latest fad (популярный товар/увлечение), but also television, radio, print and billboards, the four traditional pillars of the business.
At the moment, most mobile advertising takes the form of text messages. But telecoms firms are also beginning to deliver ads to handsets alongside video clips, web pages, and music and game downloads, through mobiles that are nifty (здесь: навороченный) enough to permit such things.
The 2.5 billion mobile phones around the world can potentially reach a much bigger audience than the planet's billion or so personal computers. The number of mobile phones in use is also growing much faster than the number of computers, especially in poorer countries. Better yet, most people carry their mobile with them everywhere—something that cannot be said of television or computers.
Yet the biggest selling point of mobile ads is what marketing types call “relevance” (актуальность). Advertisers believe that about half of all traditional advertising does not reach (достигает) the right audience. Less effort (and money) is wasted with online advertising: half of it is sold on a “pay-per-click” basis, which means advertisers pay only when consumers click on an ad. But mobile advertising through text messages is the most focused: if marketers use mobile firms' profiles of their customers cleverly enough, they can tailor (приспособить) their advertisements to match (соответствовать) each subscriber's habits.
In September Blyk, a new mobile operator, launched a service in Britain that aims to do just that. It offers subscribers (подписчикам) 217 free text messages and 43 free minutes of voice calls per month as long as they agree to receive six advertisements by text message every day. To sign up for the service, customers must fill out a questionnaire about their hobbies and habits. So advertisers can target (нацеливать) their messages very precisely (точно). “Britain is the largest, but also the trickiest European ad market, so if it works here it will work everywhere,” says Pekka Ala-Pietila, chief executive and one of the founders of Blyk.
Last year America's Virgin Mobile tried something similar with its “Sugar Mama” programme, which offers subscribers the choice between receiving an ad via text message or viewing a 45-second advertisement when browsing the internet in exchange for one free minute of talk time. Those who spend five minutes filling out a questionnaire online get five more minutes. Sugar Mama is proving popular: at the end of August Ultramercial, the company that manages the scheme, reported that Virgin Mobile had given away more than 10m free minutes.
Vodafone, a big mobile operator based in Britain, sees mobile advertising as a potentially lucrative (прибыльный) source of additional income. For the time being (пока/в настоящее время), most of the ads on its network are still text messages, although it has begun displaying ads on Vodafone live!, its mobile internet homepage, through which subscribers access the internet and download videos and music. Earlier this year, subscribers in Britain were given the option of downloading footage (кадры) from “Big Brother”, a reality-TV show, in exchange for (в обмен на) viewing a promotional video clip.
Most mobile advertising strategies now rely on (надеются на/опираются на) text messages, since few customers have taken to more elaborate (замысловатый) services that allow them to download music, games and videos and to surf the web. Only 12% of subscribers in America and western Europe used their mobiles to access the internet at the end of 2006. Most people think mobile screens are too small for watching TV programmes or playing games, although newer models, such as Apple's iPhone, boast bigger and brighter screens.
That is not the only problem. While consumers are used to (привыкли к ) ads on television and radio, they consider their mobiles a more personal device (устройство). A flood of advertising might offend (оскорбить/вызвать отвращение) its audience, and thus undermine (подорвать) its own value. Tolerance of (терпимость по отношению к) advertising also differs from one market to another. In the Middle East, for example, unsolicited (незатребованные) text messages are quite common, and do not prompt (вызывают) many complaints. But subscribers might not prove (оказаться) so open-minded (непредубежденными) in Europe or America.
Another hitch, says Nicky Walton-Flynn of Informa, is that operators have lots of databases with information about their clients' habits that would be of great interest to advertisers. But privacy laws (законы, охраняющие неприкосновенность частной жизни) may prevent them from sharing it. Moreover, advertisers, operators and middlemen (посредники) have not agreed a common format for this information, nor worked out how to share the revenue (выручка) it might yield (принести).
Some think these obstacles (препятствия) will confine (ограничат) mobile advertising to a niche for years to come (в ближайшие годы). But others see a whole new world of possibilities, as more people use their phones to access the internet and consumers grow used to (привыкают к) the intrusion (вторжение). Mobile phones, some of which are now equipped with satellite-positioning (спутниковая навигация) technology, could be used to alert (оповещать) people to the charms (чары/прелести) of stores or restaurants they are walking or driving past.
Tying ads to online searches from mobile phones is another potential goldmine (золотая жила). A subscriber typing in “pizza” for instance, could receive ads for nearby pizza parlours along with his generic (основные) search results. Such a customer, mobile operators hope, is likely to be more grateful (благодарен) than annoyed (раздосадованный) by the intrusion. What could be more relevant (уместный/насущный) than that?