Mobiles…everywhere, at any time, in every country…what a perfect medium for advertising! Well…not so simple actually. Most studies tend to show that interactive mobile advertising is becoming a huge medium of communication. However, today there are still some problems due for the most part to intermediaries the marketers must deal with.
With mobile advertising, the possibilities of targeting consumers are in theory huge. The problem is: how can we have access to personal data? Mobile advertising also tends to show a great rate of consumer response, it’s an effective direct marketing tool.
Just for a basic review of interactive mobile advertising, Here is a
summary of a report from the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) from July 2007: "
A mobile Advertising overview"
IAB platform status report
A mobile advertising overview
This report was edited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in July 2008. It focuses on the emerging platform that mobile represents for interactive advertising. It argues that mobile communication devices will become the next great advertising medium because it is instant gratification, when you want and where you want.
This article will answer the following questions:
-What is mobile advertising?
-What does the ecosystem look like?
-How can marketers reach the mobile consumer?
-What does the future hold?
Market Review
The article provides a brief review of the mobile market today. About the market size, in the US, 84% of the mobiles were wirelessly connected at the end of 2007, and thus represented potential target for interactive advertising.
As regard the target consumers, the article stresses that companies must not focus only on the younger generation. For example, 85% of US mobile users between 30 and 49 years old have already use mobile data service being then an audience for advertising.
Market segmentation: the three faces of mobile:
The most interesting segmentation shown in this article was the different profile of consumers according to the type of mobile they have. This way, we can divide the consumers in 3 groups:
Mobile pioneers. 15%
-Use very often advanced features
-Majority<35 years old
-Tends to be male and single
Mobile Wannabes. 25%
-Have tried some advanced features
-Interested in using more of them
-Less then half under 35 years old
Mobile Traditionalists. 60%
-Use mobile just for phone calls and text messages
-2/3 over 35 years old
Consumers habits:
The authors argue that consumers use mobile interactivity for one of two main reasons:
1: To save time
2: To fill time
As a consequence, marketers must adapt their communication depending on those two types of use. For example, it’s seems obvious that the consumer who tries to fill time will be more open to entertainment an advertising. He may even expect it.
The article then focuses on mobile display advertising and divides it in two forms:
-On device Mobile display advertising: comparable to the ads we have on PC internet such as banners, text, video etc.. They can be interactive and demanding a direct response.
-Off device Mobile display advertising: is directly link to off line advertising and demand an interactive and measurable call-to-action. For example text messaging could be asked as a direct response to a TV ad.
This represents a huge opportunity for marketers. Because not only is it interactive and ask for a direct response but it is also much more personalized and customized that any other channel. It’s a new way to think about direct marketing.
Why should we use this channel for an advertising campaign?
As we’ve seen before, mobile advertising shows much more direct response that classical internet ad. For that reason, marketers should take advantage of that medium to make direct marketing campaign and aiming one of the following:
-Collecting personal data
-Driving calls to a call centre
-Driving click through to an informational page
-Delivering coupons
-Fielding surveys
-Offering a store locator
Mobile is also a good medium to build brand awareness thanks to simple banners (animated or static, interactive or not), text or videos (most important growth rate expected in the coming years). Of course, marketers and designers have to keep in mind the very special format of mobile phones. Communication tools have to be adapted to be effective.
Where should we use mobile display ads?
-Dominant context: browser pages. The particular advantage of mobile is that there is no clutter so the ad has much more impact if the mobile creative has been thought separately from the rest of interactive media
-Games: banners during the game or interstitials shown
-Downloadable applications
-Push publishing environment (for media properties that have their own phone resident application)
-Passive display (screen saver)
-P2P messaging (in text messages for example)
How to target consumers?
For the time being, it’s quite difficult to target precisely the consumers due to the important number of intermediaries. However, mobile advertising can offer in the future the best targeting practice of all media. It is thus a very important challenge to find out a way to access the data of consumers. For the moment, marketers can target based on handset, by carrier, geographically.
They can also ask special agencies or go directly thought intermediaries (see Nokia link in the post)
Opportunities
The article sheds light on three opportunities that marketers should consider:
Þ Drive response and brand relationship
Þ Deliver more personally and locationally targeted messages
Þ Gain early experience in a rapidly expanding market
Here are also some interesting links showing what we can do thanks to mobile advertising:
Nokia Interactive Advertising:
http://advertising.nokia.com/about
Nokia has developed its own agency for mobile advertising, proposing marketers solutions for mobile campaigns. You can find on this web site some interesting case studies of companies around the world using this service.
Mobile advertising: The next Big thing The Economist, Oct 2007
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9912455
An article from the Economist dealing with the huge potential of mobile advertising.
Volvo: mobile advertising in their show rooms
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=MipLlLzzrgE&feature=related
Another application of mobile advertising. Volvo is using wireless in their showroom for sending information and interactive ads to their visitors.
Using Bluetooth for “spaming” mobile users in the streets
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=lSufHbsBe98&feature=related
It seems like gaining early experience in this medium of communication could give companies a real competitive advantage. At the time of advertising clutter in the Internet, mobile advertising can be an important opportunity not to miss.....
Mc Donalds and Coke in a Zombie game.......relevant?!!!!
