Huge Group announced the launch of its latest operating subsidiary, Huge Media, in Johannesburg this week. Huge Media aims to enter the rapidly emerging digital media arena, positioning itself as a media owner on the edge of the digital technology curve.



Huge Media has signed a distribution agreement for South Africa with mobile phone technology provider Eyeballs Mobile Advertising, giving it the rights to distribute the “Eyeballs” mobile advertising technology in South Africa.



Duncan Palmer, Group Marketing Manager for Huge Group, says Huge Media was formed to take the Eyeballs technology to market in South Africa. “Huge Media will become a ‘media owner’ – it will build and own the access to a mobile phone subscriber base, to which it will be able to serve advertising.”



The Eyeballs technology utilizes the “interaction-initiation” time on users’ mobile phones to display customized advertising, content and information to the user. The technology has been developed in South Africa over several years. Currently the technology solution runs on Symbian-based smartphones, across all networks, with BlackBerry compatibility next in the development queue and due for release in early 2010.



Justin Lavers, Sales and Marketing Manager for Huge Media, comments, “Cellphones are South Africa’s primary and ubiquitous form of communication, with a pervasiveness not seen in any other medium. It makes perfect sense that this will soon be the most valuable real estate in the media world, as well as possibly the most fickle.”



On the subject of local media support, Lavers is enthusiastic: “We have had widespread and positive response from the advertising industry as a whole. The market is ready for a game-changing development. Advertisers are really keen to give this new technology a try.”