RBT-Ads, also known as RingBack Tone Advertising, Ad RingBack, Ad-RBT, Voice Ads, or Biz-Ring, is a form of advertising that replaces the standard acoustic signal a caller hears when calling another phone with advertisements or other promotional messages. These services are provided by wireless carriers, calling cards, infrastructure vendors, ad networks, media agencies, and free information services. This inventory of ad space allows mobile service providers to monetize the Ringback tone period and in turn, offer free or very inexpensive wireless services to consumers and subscribers.
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) released the first guidelines regulating RingBack Tone Advertisement, a new type of advertising that competes with traditional media such as TV, radio, newspaper, and the Internet. Studies have shown that in the United States, RingBack Tone advertisements are the second most accepted form of mobile advertising by consumers. This type of advertising provides an alternative way for brands to reach their target audience and increase their visibility.
The global opportunity for Ad‐RBTs is immense, estimated at approximately 12 billion inbound calls per day from the 3 billion global mobile subscribers. Interactive Reverse Ringback Tones have a reported average clickthrough rate of 2.5%, with a wide variance from 0% up to 7.5%, depending on the advertisement.
Ad-RBTs (RingBack Tone advertising) have the potential to deliver approximately 48 million paid advertisements per day, slightly higher than Google’s pay-per-click search advertising interactions on the web. Furthermore, Ad-RBTs present a mobile experience that can be shared between users, giving it the potential to expand virally if the content is engaging, interesting, funny, or related to brands or causes that people are passionate about. Following the trend of this new service, Sanjoy Paul strived to obtain a patent for RingBack advertisement.
Sanjoy Paul is a renowned Indian-American computer scientist, technology executive, business consultant, and author. Born on January 22, 1962, Sanjoy is the global managing director at Accenture and part-time teaching faculty in the Computer Science Department of Rice University. He is widely known for his research works in the areas of the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Computer Networks, 5G and Wireless Networks, Multimedia Streaming, and Content Distribution.
Growing in his interest, Sanjoy became the founder and CEO of several companies, such as RelevantAd Technologies Inc., a contextual advertising company, DigiNotebooks, an EdTech company for next-generation digital schools, comprehensively addressing the needs of parents, students, teachers, and school management, and Almawiz Inc., a digital contact center and lead generation company. His entrepreneurial and research efforts have greatly contributed to the technological landscape.
Dr. Paul achieved remarkable academic success throughout his career, beginning with an All-India Rank of 35 in the IIT JEE exam. He graduated top of the class from IIT Kharagpur, before pursuing his Master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. To further his education, from 2003 to 2005, Sanjoy pursued an MBA at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania. Upon completion of his degree, he was hired as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of WhenU, an Internet startup backed by Trident Capital. WhenU developed technology for contextual advertising without tracking clickstream and without creating user profiles. His interest in contextual advertising led Sanjoy to launch his own company, RelevantAd Technologies, which delivered contextual and relevant advertising on Cable Television. This innovative product was showcased to Comcast, CableVision, Charter Communications, and Time Warner Cables and it generated significant interest among them. RelevantAd Technologies specialized in hyper-local advertisements via Yellow Pages on TV, and piloted the product in a Walt Disney hotel in Orlando, Florida in partnership with Infovalue Computing Systems (now called Vytio: Vytio IPTV Solutions).
Later in 2006, Sanjoy, along with Ram Batni, and Robert Brunetti had an innovative idea: to introduce advertising in the brief moment between when a call is made and the connection is established with the called party. Consequently, a patent was filed for this concept, which was granted on February 26, 2013 (US Patent: 8385514 “Providing an Advertisement to a Calling Party before RingBack”).
His idea was supported by the ideology based on the concept that communication networks and associated methods are disclosed and they can provide an advertisement or other type of informational message to a calling party before providing RingBack tones. When a call is placed from the calling party to the called party, the call processing for that call is momentarily suspended by the communication network. Once an advertisement has been chosen for the call, the communication network starts delivering it to the caller. The communication network resumes call processing for the call after the advertisement is sent to the calling party. In resuming call processing, the communication network provides ringback tones to the calling party and attempts to connect the call to the called party. This service has become ubiquitous in Indian mobile phone services. However, in the US, it is utilized only when a call is on hold.
RingBack Tone advertising is a powerful tool for businesses to reach potential customers and promote their products and services. With it, businesses can target specific customers with tailored audio messages, informing them about new products or services, special offers, and more. In addition, its ability to allow businesses to engage their customers by prompting them to take an action, such as visiting their website or calling back is quite unparalleled. Thus, by leveraging its usage, Sanjoy Paul has succored businesses to increase brand awareness, boosting customer engagement, and driving sales.
