Mobile Experience

The Great Divide in Mobile Advertising

There is significant experimentation underway today in mobile and social advertising.  Unlike many emerging markets, it's primarily the big brands that are leading the charge.  In fact, 2007 has been declared the "year of trial" for how advertising may transform to accommodate digital and social media.  Even with this innovation, however, there is still the constant drum beat from all the major media players for standards, for measurement and ROI rigor. 

iO sponsored an executive panel and another in its series of Mobile Experience Leadership roundtable discussions at last month's Advertising Research Foundation Conference and Expo.  It's here that the leading thinkers, media researchers and advertising practitioners gather to discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with consumer engagement and relationship marketing. 

Advertisers as Gift Givers

David Haskins, in his Computerworld blog, recently likened advertising on mobile phones to bulldozing a rain forest to put in a strip mall.  There is clearly a debate on the value of mobile advertising as evidenced by the comments to this blog.  There are a few key themes that always come to the surface -- relevancy to the individual, lack of intrusiveness or invasion and the imperative to always deliver value to the individual.  Our advisor, Bill Harvey, who is a veteran in measuring advertiser ROI in digital media describes an alternate approach to mobile advertising. 

Elizabeth Chaney

Transaction or service ... it's all about the consumer relationship

Every day it seems there is a different approach under experimentation in mobile advertising.  Advertising effectiveness pioneer and iO global advisor, Bill Harvey points out in his posting here, what's called for is a new relationship between the advertiser and consumer.  An always-on connection between the individual and the advertiser will ultimately transform the traditional advertising paradigm from transaction to relationship, from targeting to serving.  In the end, advertising effectiveness will be measured by the value and sustainability of that relationship. 

Elizabeth Chaney

No Cost or Higher Value -- The consumer will be the judge

Hotly debated at almost every mobile content and mobile marketing conference these days is how advertisers should participate in the very personal mobile medium.  The discussions have evolved from "if to advertise on mobile" to "how to advertise on mobile".  There is significant experimentation in either full or partial subsidy of content and even entire cellphone services in exchange for viewing ads or participating in brand surveys.  The recent article in the January 19, 2007 International Herald Tribune suggests that at least some percentage of 18-24 year olds would find this exchange an acceptable arrangement. 

Making Mobile Advertising a Business

In the dawn of the Interactive Age there were popular sayings like, "You'll be watching TV and suddenly you'll decide to click to buy the Indiana Jones hat you see on the screen."  This was repeated ad nauseum. 

Today there are corresponding cliches for mobile.  For instance, the example in Brandweek, 8 January 2007, individual checks weather... sees snow in the forecast ... gets Aruba pop-up... books trip.  Sure this will happen sometimes.  Making mobile a business depends on playing the odds, not in talking oneself into believing that incidence rates for instant big-buck sales will be significant enough to justify high CPMs for interruptive ads on mobile devices, even when the targeting is exquisitely right.

A New Age of Advertising?

2006 was the year of innovation and significant imagination in advertising.  I saw advertisers and branding initiatives experiment in sponsored, advertising-as-service-delivery, and social advertising arenas.  The common theme throughout, of course, is connecting to and through the individual to magnify brands, establish new relationships and to grow revenue. 

Less "Tarketing" ... More Serving

The title of an article on mobile advertising on November 30th WSJ.com, "Vodafone Gives Mobile Advertising a Push", made me hopeful that indeed Vodafone and Yahoo were on to something.  With "push" in the title, I enthusiastically expected to learn how they were going to "push to preferences and activities".  In the on-the-run consumer space this equates to serving.  However, this seems to be another effort to apply traditional advertising techniques and metrics to the mobile device screen.