The UK consortium for mobile payments and ads is finally named: ‘Weve’

You may remember that we reported back in March that the UK’s three biggest mobile operators have joined forces to launch a new advertising network to provide targeted services for brands and it finally has a name – “Weve“.

The trinity of EE, Telefonica UK (O2) and Vodafone UK covers over 80% of UK customers, so it’s a pretty huge audience to start aiming adverts.

According to Weve, the joint venture was formed to accelerate the development of mobile marketing and wallet services in the UK. It also should mean that there will be some form of standardisation for the technology without duplication.

Initially the project was said to be more about mobile payments and m-commerce, but now it seems that the venture is a little more focused on mobile ads.

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As the Register points out, this means that the companies invested in this work will have a shot at undermining the likes of Google and Facebook when it comes to making money on mobile devices through advertising.

So – why the odd name? Naturally this comes from an agency strategy. SomeOne, the London-based design practice outlines the thinking behind this on its site:

Weve offers a single point of contact, a single point of focus. The coming together of all things mobile and mobile commerce.

The name and brand reflects this. The duality of the name means that Weve can talk about the partners, and the benefit they offer together. “Weve come together to make mobile communications easier…” as well as the inference of “weaving together” what were complex mobile offers.

So what does Weve actually do? According to its site this morning, the description is somewhat open.

Everything from the consumer opt-in process to text-based, rich media and app-based promotions, voucher integration / redemption schemes and comprehensive payments and loyalty processes are designed to feed back into this circle; ensuring that the more participants there are, the more efficient and innovative the system becomes.

So, geotargeted ads and vouchers with payment and loyalty schemes for now.

Though this might look like a step forward for mobile marketing, there’s something missing in the mix so far; a mention of NFC. The original pitches appeared to have a bigger focus on NFC but this latest description appears to be more about marketing and ads than mobile payments through near field communication.

The darling of mobile technologies is not listed in the descriptions from Weve at the moment. So although it might be trying to position itself as a ‘single point of focus’, it might be missing a trick where Google and others are playing a longer game with touch payments via NFC.

Image Credit:  Junko Kimura /Getty Images