Mobile advertising is definitely the hot thing right now, I think most would agree, but what actually is it? Let’s take a look at what ‘mobile’ covers and see how it can actually benefit advertisers and users as there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding in the market.
There’s SMS, which almost always feels like spam. Bluetooth messaging, which is almost as bad as SMS but at least it is specific to your location. Then we start moving more in to more widely accepted mobile media which is standard ads on either mobile web or mobile apps; these tend to be very basic in their appearance and have the feel of web banners from over ten years ago where they either have one static creative, or a few messages that rotate.
Over the past three years we have seen a slow transition from purely mobile content advertisers (ringtones, wallpapers etc.) to more mainstream companies seeing mobile as a direct response medium where they are enticing either downloads or registrations of some sort.
Steve Jobs tried to revolutionise the industry by creating iAds (via the acquisition of Quattro Wireless in 2010), which was meant to combine “the storytelling power of TV with the engagement and utility of digital”. So far, it has had a tough time to really succeed. This is mostly down to a confusing pricing metric that is a mix of both CPM and CPC, and had minimum budgets for campaigns way in excess of where the market would support. Anyone that views the iAds product when an advertiser really harnesses the full power of it cannot fail to come away impressed by it technically, but the question remains – why should advertisers really embrace this medium and how should they do it? If, as a marketer, you understand that your audience is forsaking other mediums for mobile devices, your brand must surely follow suit, yet the disparity between media consumption on mobile and % of total ad budget on mobile is so vast and in real terms is actually growing larger as the uptake for smartphones and tablets increase.
The real opportunity for both consumer and marketer will be tablets. Tablets, in essence, are big interactive canvases with which media owners and brands can create rich and truly immersive experiences for consumers. Innovative publishing houses must, in the future, create the next generation of magazine titles solely for use on tablets.
It’s easy to imagine that in the next ten to twenty years, print titles will pretty much be a thing of the past, and tablet magazines with video and interactive content being here. Consider what it could be like to buy that car magazine on your tablet, and watch the journalists put the cars through their paces, take a look around the interiors and even hear what the engine might actually sound like.
Now, consider how an advertiser could really engage with those readers to show off their latest model and locate their nearest dealer and then Skype the dealership to arrange for a test drive later on that week. Maybe digital media will learn a thing or two from its print grandfather regarding pricing metrics and audience selling, rather than being commoditized in the same way the online has. Everyone in the industry benefits by being accountable, however advertising was never intended to be boiled down to the rather ugly metrics of clicks and post click sales. We have the opportunity to make advertising in the digital space sexy and amazing, retain the wow factor of incredible outdoor campaigns with the (sometimes highly emotive) narrative that’s possible within TV, and really utilise the technological capabilities of these amazing devices.
Many people are trying right now, including News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch, who early on launched an iPad only title called The Daily – it’s done well critically, but with over 100 staff, looks like it has so far struggled to be the commercial success such bravery potentially deserves. Whatever happens next in this truly exciting space will come down to the publishing world being willing to dive in to this brave new world with gusto, and advertisers and their agencies willing to give it the financial support and intellectual guidance over what they would like to see done with the medium.
Other questions still remain over where does this leave the smartphones and their audience; here, it may come down to how easily the assorted technologies can create more standardisation so advertisers can buy across all the operating systems and handsets (there seems to be a clear winner right now in the tablet market with Apple currently ever-increasing their 68% marketshare).
In short, we are still pretty much at the dawn of mobile advertising as an industry, and it will come down to those companies that truly attempt to innovate, and listen to what consumers want, that will win the day.
