The following is a guest post from Tony Nethercutt, General Manager, Mojiva.
Mobile technology will “mature”
Development of the mobile ecosystem has been a process, rather than “the moment we’ve all been waiting for.” Online advertising took the better part of a decade to establish itself and, within an astoundingly short period of time, mobile marketers are already able to do many of the things they can already do in online advertising: Location-based advertising? Check. Highly-targeted coupons? Check. Rich media creative? Check.
But, we’re only about 80 percent of the way there, mostly due to the fragmented nature of the industry by platform and device. But the audience will continue to grow and technology will continue to evolve to meet the demands of media buyers, in turn increasing the amount of ad spend that will support that progress.
Publishers and advertisers will take larger roles in the mobile space
If you’re a major media company and are not at least dipping your toes into mobile, what in the world are you waiting for? Your audience has become untethered and so should your content!
While some have begun development of their mobile content environment, others have gone all-in, most notably The Daily, a new iPad newspaper developed by News Corp. It will be the first of its kind, but certainly not the last — publishers will use this as a test case and develop their own strategies for their mobile content. For advertisers, this means that many more opportunities to put ad spend to good use.
Explosion of sophisticated ad units using video and rich media
This past Consumer Electronics Show gave us a glimpse into the future of mobile devices: big, bold and beautiful. Analysts are already seeing how big this can be — more than 50 million tablet devices will be sold in 2011, according to a recent study by Goldman Sachs. These larger mobile screens and more sophisticated hardware give marketers the chance to really make a splash with their creative, whether it is through video or additional rich media opportunities.
Mobile creative must, and will, adapt
Mobile ad strategies often do not take into account the mindset of a user who is online versus on their mobile phone: They are more “committed” when they are in front of computer, whereas mobile is more of a transactional, fast-paced relationship.
The advancement of tablet devices and netbooks toward mobile PCs blurs the line a bit, but the result still remains: Creative needs to be short, sharp and punchy to really take advantage of the medium.
No mo-bull
Advertisers will be spending close to $1 billion in 2011 according to the most recent predictions, which means they will want analytics to justify their ad spend. Greater transparency, and of course results, will be vital in order to continue giving confidence to brand clients that mobile is indeed where the action is at.
These are just a few of the exciting developments that are going on within the industry in 2011. The introduction of additional platforms and new devices introduces nearly endless possibilities for mobile marketing; with that said, let’s make it happen.
