THE CALLS YOU HATE

SINGAPORE - Mobile phones are a potential gold mine for advertisers because they are the most personal and intimate way to communicate and engage with subscribers - more than two billion of them and counting worldwide.

Yet the advertisers' two-liner text pitches have largely fueled a growing hate club, with recipients quickly equating the messages with the unsolicited spam they abhor on desktops.

Now, thanks to improved technologies, advertisers believe they have struck upon the formula for getting their messages across without irking consumers.

Several blue-chip brands such as Nokia Corp. and McDonald's Corp. have been experimenting with interactive ads on cell phones, taking advantage of the devices' ability to know where you are. Customers requesting driving directions on certain Nokia phones, for example, have the option of finding the nearest retail or restaurant outlet with the press of a key.

Others are partnering with search engines and e-mail services to slip in a targeted ad or two along with keyword search results and e-mail messages delivered on the cell-phone screen.

Better handsets and faster networks mean "more brands utilizing mobile devices for more advanced marketing and advertising initiatives," said Laura Marriott, executive director of the Denver-based industry trade group Mobile Marketing Association.

The search-based advertising model seems to be working in Japan, a mature mobile-phone market where the bulk of the 98 million mobile-phone users have phones with Internet capabilities.

Japan's mobile-advertising expenditures are expected to reach $1 billion by 2011 - more than three times the $328 million recorded last year, according to an April report from media and communication think tank Dentsu Communication Institute Inc.

Although subscribers had felt they were wasting their time and money going through ads while conducting searches on their phones, those concerns have diminished with faster speeds and flat-rate pricing for Web access, said Akira Miwa, the report's author.

Yahoo Inc. took the plunge in June with a mapping service that combines search and location-based mobile technology. All one has to do is to enter a keyword to search, and advertisers registered on Yahoo's database pop up on a digital map.

The advertising industry is mindful of earlier mistakes, including inundating consumers with pop-up ads on the desktop and text messages on the phone. Many agree that preserving a good customer experience is critical.

"Push marketing and spam have a very short shelf life," said Frank Brown, director of the mobile marketing and technology firm Sydus.

He said people needed to feel that they had specifically invited the pitch or were engaging with the brand in a relevant and entertaining way.

Rebecca Ye, 22, a Singaporean, said she would not mind having ads sent to her phone as long as she had subscribed for them, like "a notification on upcoming sales."

MobileOne, Singapore's second-largest mobile-communications provider, promises to cater only to the "willing customer."

Subscribers can choose to receive offers, free news headlines, and advanced functions with an interactive ad-based text-messaging service, but if a customer declines, "he continues to send and receive [text messages] the way he does today," chief executive officer Neil Montefiore said. "It is completely under the control of the customer."

Wireless carriers, meanwhile, are starting to loosen restrictions on third-party ads, which they had resisted for fear that annoyed customers might defect to competitors. Until now, most mobile ads have been found on content producers' own Web sites, which are accessed through a mobile browser rather than through the carrier's mobile-phone menu.

Yum Brands Inc.'s Pizza Hut and KFC are among the first to advertise through a free, ad-based e-mail service from Southeast Asia's largest operator, Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.

"Our customers are fully aware that they will be receiving the ads, and, from our initial findings, they aren't disturbed by them at all," SingTel spokeswoman Tricia Lee said.

Analysts say slowing revenue growth and saturation in developed markets have forced wireless carriers to reconsider, which is good news for advertisers that want to target specific groups. After all, the carriers have the key to a treasure trove of customer demographics: where they live, their ages, and what games they play on their phones.

"Carriers today are now focusing on targeted advertising and personalization capabilities," said King Yew Foong, research director of Gartner Singapore. "The crucial point is whether carriers understand their customers well enough to execute this flawlessly. They will have to develop better customer intimacy."