Mele’s Musings

What’s Holding Up Mobile Advertising?

I have a feeling this will be a subject of interest we cover all year.  Everyone is hungry to do more and more mobile, but what will it take for mobile to really take off?  Value!!

chart: eMarketer.com 

Article excerpt: Are mobile marketers moving ahead or merely spinning their wheels? ”2007 was not ‘the year of mobile marketing’ that it was advertised to be,” says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Mobile Advertising: After the Growing Pains. “And 2008 won’t be either.”  Even though mobile marketing and advertising didn’t break into the mainstream during 2007, with events such as the iPhone launch and other under-the-hood improvements, mobile marketers did take strides to move past the experimental stage of development.  In fact, eMarketer forecasts that worldwide mobile advertising spending will reach $19 billion by 2012.  ”The vast majority of the spending will be based on text-messaging campaigns,” says Mr. Gauntt, “with mobile display advertising and mobile search constituting the rest of the main market.”  However, compared to other interactive platforms, mobile still remains extremely small in overall spending.  ”A basic problem facing mobile marketing and advertising is that, while the business proposition cuts across many industries—telecom, technology, media, marketing, retail—it affects the economics of each industry differently,” says Mr. Gauntt.  emarketer.com

Musing: The article spends some time talking about the challenges of mobile in regards to targeting and customer data.  I think that will be an important issue because mobile phones really are a personal space.  However, as I have said before, mobile advertising – at least in terms of text-based advertising – is different.  To get users to be interested and engage, we are going to have to offer them something of value.  And, I wonder how much mobile advertising will end up looking like current digital advertising once next-generation phones and applications make the experience more web-like than it currently is.