Time to Take Mobile Advertising Seriously

There was a time when “mobile advertising” consisted of downloading cool ringtones or texting votes for American Idol contestants.

That was before smartphones came along. Blackberry brought in the era of hand-held email, particularly for business users. But Apple’s iPhone has created a new and robust mobile advertising marketplace. (Never mind the kazillion apps, which is a burgeoning marketing opportunity in and of itself.)

Now, with the introduction of more new smartphones like the Palm Pre and the recently launched Android, built around Google’s operating system, mobile advertising promises to become strategically important.

A recent Gartner Group report put worldwide mobile ad spending for 2009 at a little over $910 million – not huge in the greater scheme of things, but a whopping 74 percent increase over the previous year. Gartner said worldwide mobile ad spending would exceed $13 billion by 2013, led by the Asia-Pacific region and followed by North America and Europe, according to Online Media Daily.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s A Mobile Advertising Overview, while somewhat dated (July 2008), is a document worth reviewing. According to this overview, even two years ago, the active audience for text messaging was over 100 million, and for mobile web it was over 34 million. (As a matter of context, the iPhone was introduced in June 2007; the data reported was as of November 2007.)

The overview quotes the 2008 Pew Internet Life study, indicating the following percentages for individuals with a mobile phone using one or more mobile data services: 96 percent of 18-29 year olds; 85 percent of 30-49 year olds, 63 percent of 50-64 year olds, and 36 percent of Americans older than age 65. I was surprised at the relatively high percentages for individuals 50 and over. It bodes well for mobile marketers.

The IAB defines mobile advertising as having two major forms: “display ads delivered on the device itself (within a mobile Web browser or some other phone-based application), or display ads in other media that feature a mobile call-to-action (typically sending a message via text messaging shortcode).” On-device ads include text ads, banner ads, and video. Common off-device usage of mobile advertising includes mobile coupons to drive purchase at a retail outlet, mobile PINs to drive traffic to a web page, and mobile ticketing for events. Not surprisingly, major advertisers routinely include mobile advertising as a component of integrated campaigns.

The IAB Overview includes this sub-head at the end of the document, “The iPhone: Smarter phones drive even greater usage.” In July 2008, IAB refers to the iPhone as “the future.” Things have moved quickly: The future is here. Online advertisers need to embrace it, and start making the move to mobile advertising.

About Barry Silverstein

Barry Silverstein is a freelance writer/marketing consultant. In addition to writing for ReveNews, he is a contributing writer to Brandchannel.com, the world’s leading online branding forum. He is the author of three marketing books, The Breakaway Brand (co-author, McGraw-Hill, 2005), Business-to-Business Internet Marketing (Maximum Press, 2003) and Internet Marketing for Technology Companies (Maximum Press, 2003). Barry ran his own Internet and direct marketing agency for twenty years. You can find Barry on Twitter @bdsilv.

Website: http://www.barrysilverstein.com