Developing the mobile advertising market
It has been an interesting 12 months in mobile advertising. Go back much further than two years and mobile advertising in Europe was but a mere twinkle in the eye, so the growth of interest and revenues in mobile advertising is even more impressive in the context of its lack of longevity. James Davis, head of mobile commercial development for News Group Newspapers.
In the space of little more than a year we’ve seen the launch of ad funded MVNOs, all the main operators roll out display advertising strategies and a flurry of new ventures all claiming to be able to enable and traffic advertising on mobile. Hardly surprising that the big agencies and the big brands they represent are now beginning to sit up and take note.
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Whilst its undoubtedly exciting out there in the world of mobile advertising, its still an ecosystem firmly in the thralls of a tempestuous evolution, there are possibly more models, theories and big ideas being thrown at mobile advertising than the market, and the users can handle. Luckily, there is a precedent of sorts in the form of the fixed internet. At the basic level, what we are seeing now broadly mirrors the internet advertising experience; its just mobile is getting there a lot quicker.
There is no doubt that display advertising in the form of banners, text links, interstitials, overlays, pre and post rolls, messaging and so on works. Big brands are committing their bucks to the space, conversion and click through rates are high, and so mobile ads currently command high rates. However there is an inherent evolutionary danger here, as rates fell on the internet as users became immune to ad creatives, the same could happen on mobile, but at a faster rate as a still limited pool of users learn to filter out ads. Compounding this is the rush to enable inventory across the mobile net, leading to possible over supply.
The mobile internet now needs to go mass market, and new handsets and better technologies together with sensible pricing plans are certainly helping that. Operators and large mobile publishers have a role in converting more users to the mobile internet. At the same time, the nascent mobile ad industry need to start pushing engaging real world advertising models, that walk the tightrope of both harnessing the unique personal nature of the phone, but offering models that users will accept.
We are probably still a little way off from the time, place and social context based interactive advertising the mobile phone allows, simply because consumers are not there yet in terms of perceptions about privacy and intrusiveness, but it will come. A speedy evolution, offering users a more engaging experience based around intelligent display and messaging models that utilise more detailed profiling, will keep the sector moving forward.
