This story from MediaBuyerPlanner has Gartner predicting that mobile advertising will pass a whopping $13 billion by 2013 up from $913.5 million this year. The piece also cites a Parks Associates study into mobile advertising, similarly predicting growth "despite possible early consumer resistance to mobile ads."
So on that note, if we assume mobile advertising is going to be big, what's the current evidence about its effectiveness or otherwise. A few studies that seem to be doing the rounds:
T-Mobile in the Czech Republic claims that mobile ads by 22 advertisers including Coke, Ford and Nestle had an average response rate of 2.72%, with a range of 0.29% to 11.78%. Even the worst performing mobile ads did better than the average for Czech Internet banner advertising where the response rate is 0.1%.
The Internet Advertising Bureau (iab) talks about a study that shows that "mobile display advertising can increase brand awareness and recognition." It's important to note though that the most successful mobile ads had a competition element - 51% of respondents said they were more likely to interact with mobile advertising "if something was offered to them."
A Nielsen study from Q4 2007 - yes a long time in mobile terms - said that only 10% of US mobile data users thought that mobile advertising was "acceptable", yet 32% were open to it if it "lowers their phone bills" (source, marketing charts). Hardly a ringing endorsement...
However the incentive point is also supported by Harris Interactive research from March 2008. 56% of teens would be interested in mobile ads with incentives, as would 37% of adults. When asked what that incentive should be the top answer was not surprisingly cash, though teens were also open to downloads (61%) and free music (57%).
With Swedish music streaming service Spotify just having had its iPhone app approved, that is of course exactly the model it uses to fund itself - listen to ads (or subscribe) in exchange for free music.
So consumer inducements in some shape or form are fine. What doesn't seem to be such a good way forward though are intrusive page blocker ads of the type you used to have on web pages. Writing on econsultancy, Graham Charlton says: "While these ads are annoying on the Internet, they are even worse for the user experience on a mobile.
"If you are looking to read some news on variable Internet connections, loading up full page ads like this wastes time and could end up being a frustration for many users."
Funny how as marketers we insist on almost repeating the same mistakes over again, as soon as we progress onto a new medium.
- Report: iPhone App Market is Already Worth $2.4B? (cultofmac.com)
- Advertisers, Consumers Disagree on Ad Effectiveness (marketingvox.com)
- Most Users Peeved by Internet Ads (marketingvox.com)
- Out of all ad formats, display ignored the most (thisisherd.com)
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