NEW YORK – Here’s something you probably haven’t heard before: this is not the year of mobile advertising. And next year may not be either.
Executives at the Mobile Marketing Forum last week dispensed with the usual talk of hockey-stick projections and tipping points, opting instead to address some of the biggest hurdles the space faces. Dorrian Porter, CEO of Mozes Inc., a mobile messaging company, used the stage to poke fun at an industry that every year claims to be on the verge of greatness.
“When it comes to mobile marketing, it seems every year we grab the groundhog, we get in our trucks and we drive it over the cliff,” said Porter, comparing the annual hype-fest to the plight of Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day.” “We have to start thinking about consistency. . Don’t think about what’s going to make the vice president (of your company) happy, think about what’s going to make the consumer happy.”
Lack of focus on user experience
Indeed, several speakers cited a lack of focus on the user experience as one of the anchors weighing down wireless advertising. Campaigns that are too simple – a banner WAP ad that leads to a plain landing page, for instance – are unlikely to have much impact on users who are accustomed to seeing compelling marketing efforts on the Internet.
Instead, cross-platform efforts that encourage users to interact with brands and celebrities are showing promise, according to Chris Murphy, who directs digital marketing for Adidas U.S. Murphy outlined the shoe company’s 2007 “Brotherhood” campaign, which used TV commercials and online messaging to encourage fans to send a text message from their phones. Consumers who sent the text receive voice calls from NBA ballplayers such as Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady; half of those who received voice messages from the players actually returned the calls, leaving voicemails of their own.
That kind of campaign may not result in massive numbers, Murphy warned, citing mobile’s lack of reach – a shortcoming other speakers addressed as well. But it can spur interaction between users and brands that other media can’t match.
“Mobile cannot be the way you start a conversation with a consumer, it has to be something that’s not stand-alone for it to work,” Murphy maintained. “I’m OK reaching a smaller audience if they’re engaged.”
Difficult to spend and make money
Other speakers bemoaned a lack of metrics in the space, leaving advertisers in the dark as to how effectively their mobile marketing dollars are being spent. And carriers have yet to come up with ways to share valuable demographic information that would allow advertisers to deliver targeted messages and give operators an entirely new – and potentially vast – revenue stream.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for mobile, though, is to make it easier for would-be advertisers to spend money on the stuff. While big brands and ad agencies appear willing to invest in the nascent marketing medium, the value chain remains too complex and the space too confusing for those on the outside looking in.
“People are looking for excuses not to buy mobile, and we’re giving them a lot of excuses,” said Vladimir Edleman, CEO of Ansible, a New York-based mobile marketing agency. “It’s got to be simple for that 22-year-old junior planner” to buy inventory and other mobile advertising vehicles.
Part of simplifying that process will require better communication and decreasing the number of players required to deploy ad campaigns. (Murphy noted that that it requires “30 vendors to send one text message.”) While that kind of tightening will surely come as the market matures, the sooner the industry can make it easier for rank-and-file staffers and creative types to understand the logistics of adding mobile to the mix, the more quickly mainstream ad agencies will embrace the new medium.
“There are not enough players in the entire chain talking to each other in a creative way,” Edleman said. “Until mobile becomes as simple to buy and plan . as traditional media, it’s never going to hit the scale” of other platforms.
