May the Best Ad Win – Period.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article called “Giving Mobile Ads a Makeover.” The gist of it being that with all the hubbub surrounding the iPad, on-the-go advertising may soon become a mainstream advertising technology.
Haven’t we heard this before? With this new different ad sizes, interactivity options, CPC/CPA/CPM, etc., all of our mobile ad prayers will be answered. Here’s my question. Does this same story deserve all of the hype it’s been getting over the last few months? The iPad may well mean a renaissance for mobile advertising – which would be fantastic. But, is a new ad type of size/shape really the nirvana that deserves this much ink?
Reaching your customers and prospects in this fragmented multichannel on-the-go world is what we should be talking about. Let’s spend our cycles discussing and solving those problems for the industry rather than looking/expecting to find a silver bullet in the ad space. The variety of channels marketers now have to address to reach consumers presents a huge challenge and I would love to see more press and op-ed articles helping us solve that business issue. Not only do marketers need to craft messaging that works in the context of each individual channel, they also need to keep an eye on ROI and track user engagement within each technology vertical.
It’s no longer a world of the Internet and email only. Now mobile, social media and portable gaming devices are a part of the daily fabric of people’s lives. Even my refrigerator is a connected device… How best to insert brand messaging into that web of technology and habits? And what types of messages, in what permutations, will actually stick – and be effective? Look for some interesting announcements in the coming quarters from Waterfall as we take these issues head on!
It’s no secret that the big guys, as well as the start-ups, have been nipping at the heels of marketers in the technology space, hoping to be the company/technology/app that takes mobile advertising from “small banner ads and spammy texts” into the big leagues.
What the news media has failed to recognize is that with all of these new technologies, there has to be a unified sense of consistency and brand unity, whatever the media. It’s also worth pointing out that not every mobile user actually has access to the mobile internet, let alone the iPhone, or the latest gadget of the moment, the iPad. A diverse digital messaging strategy that doesn’t alienate potential customers is sound policy in this fast-moving situation.
Let me step off my soapbox and get back to the original point of this post. Bottom line,: yes, mobile advertising will fully mature, and it will do so in line with market demand. Relevance needs to go hand-in-hand with media and creative. In short, may the best ad win and let’s get back to work.
