Annual mobile ad spend to pass $1 billion in 2008!
HAMPSHIRE, UK: April 15th, 2008 - Mobile streamed and broadcast TV services will become the most lucrative delivery channels for mobile advertising by 2010, according to a new report by Juniper Research.
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?page_id=2134
The Shostek Group say the global mobile advertising market could reach $9.6 billion worldwide by 2010 - 20.4% of $47 billion online advertising spend.
The Australian mobile market is expected to reach $250 million by 2010 - 8.3% of projected $3 billion online advertising spend.
But people detest mobile advertising don't they? Just to dispel a few myths, according to Vodafone research performed on 1500 respondents last year (May 2007) were asked. Would they want to receive generic advertising on their phone = 68% said no, but then change the question to: 1a; Would you want to receive and ad that was linked and relevant to you = 71% said yes! It gets even better with: 2. If the ad involved an incentive would you be interested to receive it = 76% said yes.
So how do you get a piece of the pie?, There are a multitude of advertising and profile building opportunities for those smart enough to give the users what they want. Mobile ad banners are the most obvious form of advertising at the moment, text message advertising is the largest segment and mobile advertising is predicted to become huge. Viral is certain to have huge impact and what about premium content, its already a multi billion dollar industry.
How do we keep up when we haven't even got our heads around digital and web? How do we get our clients involved? What options are available? Where is the technology going? How does social media fit into all this? The facts that make mobile such a unique and attractive advertising medium are:
- The enormous penetration - 99% of Australians have a mobile and 3G will happen fast
- You can reach and interact with consumers anywhere, anytime.
- Its immediate and personal
Mobile internet
With the advent of better mobile devices will come better mobile web applications, the examples that I spoke about earlier are just a taste of what is to come. Apple has registered some 200,000 developers that are developing for the iPhone already. Phone applications that are linked to the internet will probably become more prevalent than the actual web browser that we are used to seeing. Internet enabled mobile applications will become available for specific tasks. The web will still exist but pages will be optimized for mobile devices and advertising associated will take a different form. Consumers want beneficial, non-intrusive and relevant advertising.
Mobile web banners
Many companies are developing systems to deliver banners to mobile web pages, Google and Yahoo both have these services and AdMob claim they have just delivered their 20 billionth mobile ad. Check these links out for more:
Google Now Offering Mobile Banner Ads
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/google-now-offering-mobile-banner-ads/
AdMob Serves 20 Billionth Mobile Ad
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=2077
Mobile video ads
In the Juniper Research we saw they estimate that mobile TV will be the most lucrative service in mobile advertising by 2010 ($2.5 billion in 2013). As mobile internet access speeds increase and the quality of the viewing experience gets better people will watch far more video content on their mobile phones. It is an obvious place for mini tv commercials to appear along with sponsored content and advertiser viral content.
Beam advertising
Beams are a new technology provided by BeamMe.Info, they allow a website publisher to put a button on their site that allows a user to send content from the site their mobile. As an advertiser there is an opportunity to sponsor these messages and place adverts which include links to mobile URL's within the messages. The ability to drive traffic directly from these ads to specific mobile destinations is a great way to promote mobile services.
Location based services (LBS)
LBS allow advertising relevant to a users location such as time based campaigns based on proximity to a location. The technology has reached a point where it is beginning to live up to its hyped promises over the past few years. There are two primary technologies at work here, GPS and network triangulation. GPS operates via satellite but is currently a bit dodgy due to the time it takes to locate you and also the fact that it is unreliable when you are indoors. Network triangulation finds you by figuring out where your signal is coming from within the mobile phone towers you are between. The more towers the more accurate the position. The drawback to this technology is that it can only locate you within a 1000 metres or so in an urban area and even further outside. Both these technologies combined have started to show some promise, just check out the My Location feature on the Google Maps mobile application.
http://www.google.com/mobile/gmm/mylocation/
LBS technologies are now starting to be found in dating services where people have their mobile linked to their profile. If somebody matching their profile is within the vicinity they are alerted. For advertising services local search on mobile will obviously take one step further.
Unique SIM identity
A mobile phone number gives a much more powerful identifier than an email address or user ID. One a users SIM is identified this can than be used to build a profile. Everything they have been doing online, purchases they have made, websites they have visited will all be carefully measured, input into an algorithm, weighed against the content of the information being published and then have a relevant advertisement attached the SMS alert and the mobile destination pages. These adverts will then wait for a click or visit from the user and send even further data back to the profile and the advertisers tracking system which will then trigger if a purchase is made, possibly again using the mobile device.
Viral marketing
People who receive interesting content on their phones love to share it. Sharing from a mobile however is a tricky business. Forwarding MMS messages is the most common form at the moment. Good quality sponsored viral mobile content is a powerful tool to get in touch quickly with a specific demographic.
Mobile search
Mobile search at this stage is limited to Google and Yellow Pages style searches which are based on their website counterparts, the mobile experience however will be driven by location based search as well. Whoever gets mobile search right will be a big winner. Check out the following article:
The Real Threat to Google
As more consumers browse the Web on their cell phones, the No. 1 search engine must cope with less space to place ads
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080427_580014.htm
All of the big players are making developments in the mobile space. They are all creating advertising and marketing opportunities that will become very sought after in the next 12 to 24 months.
These guys are developing what is called off deck media. On deck is un-metered content that exists on a carriers network. Eg Telstra Bigpond mobile sites, Vodafone Live etc. Off deck browsing is charged at the full data rate however the value of the new content developed is starting to out weigh the cost of accessing it in a consumers eyes. Everyone who is building mobile assets at the moment is under utilising them. The big players are pouring a lot of money into developing mobile assets yet there is little traffic and they are asking why. The problems lie in the infrastructure and user experience. As mentioned earlier the speed is too slow and the cost is too high and the sites are just replications of the web - the mobile Internet will evolve to become a different creature.
As the infrastructure problems get sorted out, these guys will pretty much have the content market figured out and sewn up. These guys haven't spent all this money and developed all this content for nothing, their research shows that soon they will have a huge market and millions of eyeballs. Those of us investing in understanding mobile advertising now will be the winners in the future.
"Online and off-deck media will become huge and change the way people behave and their relationship with marketing..." Matt McGrath - CEO, You and Rubicam Brands
As far as mobile advertising is concerned there are some key learnings that we must take away from this information in that mobile advertising must be:
- Targeted - be relevant to the users activity
- Entertaining - and suitable for the mobile medium
- Non-intrusive - don't show a user something unless they want it
- Beneficial - give them the information they want quickly
- Complementary - to whatever the user is doing
- Incentivised - give something in exchange for the right to advertise
- Participatory - interactive and sharing
