For example, let’s suppose the operator wants to create a market segment of customers who used a music app on their phones at Glastonbury Music Festival, or customers who visited sports websites on an iPhone at a specific football stadium this month.  In order to do this, it needs to be able to create a database containing this information based on how customers have actually been using their phones.

Or, suppose the operator wants to send a promotional message to customers at the exact moment they are using their music app at the festival, or visiting the sports website on their iPhone.  This requires a real-time BDA system to tell it when to send the campaign for each customer.  

Real time insights – out of the box

The answer is an out-of-the box Big Data solution that contains the relevant hardware, software and database platforms, and can be easily integrated with the network, as well as the relevant push channels.

And there is such a solution readily available for those operators that want to move fast to take advantage of the value held in their customer data.

This is the approach China Mobile has taken with AsiaInfo’s C³ product – a Big Data appliance that includes hardware, software and databases all packaged in a single box.

Fig 1: C³ from AsiaInfo is Big Data Appliance including hardware, software and databases all packaged in one product

The three ‘Cs’ in the product name stand for Context – a real-time understanding of where customers are and what they are doing on their mobile devices; Content – the ability to create very specific marketing messages and campaigns; and Control – the ability to target precisely defined customer segments and give end customers real-time control over their opt-in preferences.

China Mobile is using C³ to trigger real-time promotions and personalized marketing offers, to precisely targeted audiences at the ideal moment for each individual customer - and is having great success with this. Such targeted campaigns have been found to be two to three times more effective than regular untargeted Internet advertising, with a 4.3% click through rate.

The platform processes data from mobile networks to produce insights into behavior and real-time knowledge of each customer’s context. Customers who opt in will receive relevant and personalised marketing campaigns based on real-time knowledge of their mobile context.

A further benefit of the system is to make customer data usage transparent, so it is clear which apps generated specific data charges on the customer's bill. As a result of exposing data usage details to customers, China Mobile has significantly reduced support calls about data bills.