Mele’s Musings

Mobile Ads: Slow to Take Off

Slow because we are treating cell phones like every other media!  Consumers don’t really want ads on their cell phones – they want relevant content.

Article excerpt:  Advertisers are shying away from mobile phones until they get clearer data on whether promotions on the small screen pay off . Even as ads on cell phones become more common, advertisers are holding off on a full-blown embrace of the tiny screen as a marketing tool.  There’s no denying cell-phone users are seeing more ads. A Mar. 4 study by Nielsen found that 58 million U.S. wireless subscribers had viewed an ad on their cell phones in the past month. The problem is that advertisers don’t know what users are doing, if anything, when they see the ads. And until advertisers find out, they may hold off on committing more precious marketing dollars to the mobile medium. “Advertisers that are used to full accountability are left in the dark,” says Farhad Divecha, director at London-based ad agency AccuraCast.  The hesitance is understandable. In the online world, determining how well a campaign is performing is easy. Web sites embed tracking software known as cookies on your personal computer. Those cookies monitor your browsing activity and pass the information to advertisers and the ad-placement networks that distribute their ads across the Web.

The rest: businessweek.com 

Musing:  The article correctly states that measurement plays a big part in why marketers are slow to advertise.  But that’s not it.  There is the fact that the phone is personal, and the space for ads is limited, so it requires a paradigm shift in what we think of as advertising.  I, for one, would love to see a cookie-like tracking system for mobile, but that doesn’t change the fact that we need to figure out HOW to use the platform correctly.  Mobile has to be about utility, speed, communication – and sometimes, time wasting, I suppose… but we shouldn’t expect a lot of TV watching on our phones.  When marketers begin offering useful content to mobile users, then the value of mobile marketing will be obvious.   Whadda you think?