Villagers use mobile phones to advertise businesses

Kismat Ali (left) and Lallan Idrieshia (right) are mobile phone merchants in the village of Rampur-Mathura. The co-owners use the network to advertise and have increased business by 50 customers since the exposure. | Photo by Jennifer Gotrik

Story by Elisabeth Loeck

People in remote Rampur-Mathura villages are using mobile phones to learn news about their community. Now local businesses are starting to use the network for advertising.

In the 20-kilometer radius that the news service reaches, Sunil Saxena, the program’s founder, said that most people do not have access to television and cannot read newspapers.  Mobile phones are the first device they can use to actually communicate information in a language they can understand. The trick will be figuring out how to make the service pay for itself. Advertising may be an answer.

Two reporters file audio stories from the community, which are distributed to 250 subscribers via their mobile phones. It costs 20,000 rupees a month to transmit the stories, but subscribers pay just 10 rupees a month for the service. Beginning in March 2010, the network began running advertisements from local businesses, and in July, it began to charge 20 rupees a month for the exposure.

Saxena believes that his experiment with advertising proves that businesses can be persuaded to use mobile phones as an advertising medium. If he can attract enough subscribers, he says, he may in turn attract enough advertisers to support the network and sustain the project.