Mobile Advertisers Team Up to “mGive” Time, Ad-Space for Haiti Donations


For those in Haiti, recovery efforts are underway. The devastating earthquake will take an unprecedented amount of time and money to repair. Even though early text message donations have raised over $30M, more can still be raised… with the right amount of advertising to remind people to donate.

mGive, the mobile donation company that is powering the American Red Cross donation campaign (Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10), asked major mobile ad players AdMob, Eyeblaster, Jumptap, Microsoft Advertising, Millennial Media, Ringleader Digital and other networks to join in on the donation promotion. These mobile partners are now donating their time and ad-serving fees to enable the campaign across multiple publisher sites that donated the inventory for their campaign.

“Through this targeted mobile advertising campaign, consumers are able to immediately act upon their will to donate via the same device they are using to keep up-to-date on the events in Haiti,” said Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner, Inc., in a statement.  “By providing consumers with a convenient avenue to donate to this cause, this campaign is aiding in the relief effort via a medium that continues to grow as the dominant avenue when accessing the Web.”

Mobile phone donations are just starting Gartner recently reported that by 2013, the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will exceed 1.82 billion units and be greater than the installed base of PCs. While the amount raised for Haiti via mobile is huge, the next disaster — wherever it occurs — will likely bring in even more funds via mobile donations, which means mGive is learning and growing about disaster donation relief by this unfortunate event.