ANCL launches e-mobile Adz

Chairman ANCL, Bandula Padmakumara CEO of Mobitel Kapila Chandrasena. Senior General Manager Dialog Axiata, Fariq Cader, CCO Etisalat Robert Lee addressing the ‘e-Mobile Adz’ event

The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL), in collaboration with leading Telecom operators Dialog, Mobitel and Etisalat has launched 'e-mobile Adz', a convenient new SMS-based portal to place classified advertisements in the Sunday Observer, your favourite Sunday English newspaper. Ads can also be placed in Sinhala in our sister newspaper Silumina.

The new system is as easy as dialling #429# on your Dialog, Mobitel and Etisalat phone (post-paid or pre-paid). After replying with a unique reference number, the system will guide you through the next few steps in the ad placement process with a series of prompts (name of newspaper, date of publication, classification of advertisement - eg. cars for sale and input of advertisement text in English or in Sinhala using English characters).

If the date you prefer is not displayed in the drop-down list, you can specify a new date as well.

The system is remarkably easy to use, with instant SMS confirmation of your advertisement once accepted by the ANCL ad review team. Charges vary according to the number of words and each ad can contain up to 45 words. Apart from the cost of the advertisement(s) itself (deducted from your bill or credit), there are no other charges.

With e-mobile Adz, there is no need to visit an ANCL ad centre or a newsagent to place your classified ad(s), which saves travel time and costs (the walk-in option will continue to be available). An e-mobile Ad can be completed in 10 minutes. Any mobile phone which has text/SMS can now be a gateway to ANCL Classified Ads, though ANCL is developing native apps for Android and other smartphones with its software partner.

ANCL, the pioneer in classified advertising hopes to widen the range of e-mobile Adz to include its other weekly and daily Sinhala, Tamil and English newspapers.

Officials from ANCL and the three mobile companies described the e-mobile Adz project as a remarkable new opportunity for readers of the Sunday Observer and Silumina to advertise their cars, house and property and other goods/services to a wide islandwide readership with a just a few clicks on their mobile phones.

It was also the first time that the three leading cellular operators had collaborated on a project of this nature with a single, easy-to-remember three digit gateway number. ANCL hopes to introduce more such simple technological solutions and services that will benefit both readers and advertisers in the future.