2. What’s all the fuss about?
1.2 billion mobile Web
users worldwide 5.9 billion mobile subscribers
(87% of the world population)
More than 55m iPads sold worldwide, and around
5m in the UK
Mobile broadband
Mobile devices account for 8.49% of global outnumbers fixed
Website hits. broadband 2:1
M-commerce is
predicted to
PayPal expects to see $7 billion in mobile payments reach US$119
in 2012 billion in 2015
12. Thank You
Resources
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/12/mobile-advertising-smartphones?CMP=twt_fd
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Why-are-businesses-ignoring-the-mobile-opportunity-_11949851
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/why-mobile-will-dominate-the-future-of-media-and-
advertising/258069/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/this-graph-is-disastrous-for-print-and-great-for-
facebook-or-the-opposite/257857/
http://www.mobilephoneemulator.com/
Rob Weatherhead
Head of Digital Operations
rob.weatherhead@mediacom.com
@robweatherhead
Editor's Notes
I head up the digital function for MediaComI’m going to take you through a few of the barriers to greater adoption and why more isnt being done in the channel from a media perspective
These are some of the numbers which make mobile advertising, and the potential it represents, such a talked about topicNumbers like this create the predictions of ‘mobile is the future’ ,’we need to be doing mobile’ and generate a bit of a gold rush around mobile as a marketing channelAs an industry we are always future gazing and looking for the next big thing or ‘the future’ and at the moment mobile and social are those channels. But despite the growing user numbers media budgets are flowing towards mobile as people would expect which creates this whole debate.For more and more people the mobile device is now their primary (or only) portal to the internet and these people, unless you can reach them via mobile media, are no longer available to some advertisers
This graph comes from a recent presentation at the All Things D conference in May of this year.The graph shows the disparities in media between time spent consuming and advertising money spent.It was presented as a potential future shift is media budget (away from print) but also justification for the opportunity which remains within mobile – the numbers quoted claimed this represented a $20B opportunity in US ad spendThis sparked a raft of blog posts and debate which a number of people getting on the bandwagon of the numbers presented, but also an interesting counter argument in the guardian about why the numbers were a mirage some of the points made, I raise in this presentation.Obviously it is not as linear as saying if time is spent, money should be spent, but I do believe it represents and opportunity which isnt currently being tapped. I am going to take you through the barriers I believe which are stopping this opportunity being realised.
The world of mobile media is still very young. Companies and advertisers are not quite sure who consumers want to be engaged:Do they want to receive branded messages?Will they engage with mobile adverts?Is there another mobile specific advert type that will be created?Uncertainty means that few want to be the first to move and are happy to sit and wait for the channel to develop further and things like smart phone penetration to increase before they make their move.When they do move it will likely to produce a wave of new advertisers to the market and the numbers will start to catch up with time spent.
Which brings me on to my next point, prioritisation. We live in a busy world where companies are constantly having to prioritise they efforts as they don’t have endless money to do everything they would like.So back to a stat from my first slide about 8.49% of website traffic coming from mobiles, where would you prioritise your time?Even if your own website stats are more like 15-20% it is still more effective to spend your time on the 80% of customers.So mobile gets deprioritised – but there will come a tipping point where it can no longer be ignored. It is on the companies and marketers to decide where this tipping point is and act before the market gets away from them.
In a similar vein companies are unable, or unwilling to invest in the future until they absolutely have toThis goes for clients and advertising agencies alike as without the skill set and resource on both sides, mobile is unable to grow effectively as a channel
And so without the skillset, and without the time and resource we always do what we have always doneWe become mechanical in our input and output as we now the process and now the relative results it will bringAs a media agency this means brief goes in, plan comes out. But the same curse affects clients too. They get their sales targets for the year, put it through the machine, and a media strategy emerges using all the same channels they always have done.This to me represents one of the curses of the industry and is a short term approach. As an agency you become a commodity if you follow this process and as a client you are never going to improve your performance or future proof your activityThe only way to improve learnings and to increase expertise is to keep changing and keep testing. I am not suggesting you rip up the plan every time and start from scratch. But starting to introduce emerging channels and new routes to market will help put you in a stronger position in the future.
On to some of the more practical elements of mobile as a media channel one of the first challenges we get hen proposing mobile activity is that the client doesn’t have a mobile optimised web presence.You don’t have to look far to see big brands without a mobile optimised website or the means to capture mobile customers. And in many ways this is going to one of the key tipping points for mobile media moving forward.At the minute I see the market as being in a period of mobilisation. Companies are starting to get their assets together to make sure they have a suitable mobile presence and once we are through this period more ad spend should follow. But until we do, it will be a major barrier to some of the largest spending companies in other media channels.
Another barriers is the lack of understanding of what mobile media can do. Many people just think it is delivering sms messages and don’t think about the possibilities smart phones and tablets representThis comes back to lack of expertise a little but I think it is on the media owners and agencies to educate marketers about the options within mobile media and how it is not just about sending a text message.
Having said that, I do think there needs to be more innovation in the mobile advertising options that are available to advertisers.I took this line from the article about the $20B mirageI really think media owners need to come up with new ways of monetising mobile content rather than just making the banners smaller. As an advertiser, formats like this are not very appealing. What you can get across in such a small space is not going to work for either the advertiser of the user so we need to come up with new ideas.At an IPC event last year they were talking about mobilisation and their mobile options around beauty titles and content. When you looked at it there was no way you would buy such a small ad at the price they wanted. But if they had been presenting the option to sponsor the whole mobile beauty channel, and content, with some co-branding and other options, then it starts to become more appealing.Media owners need to stop just trying to replicate the web, on mobile. Once they do, they start to make mobile more appealing to advertisers.
You might not believe it having listened to me moan on about the barriers for 10 mins but I really do believe in mobile as a channel.There is a lot to overcome but as the users flow, advertisers will be forced to follow. As media planners we need to embrace mobile as a new channel and present it to clients where applicableAs clients we need to try and dedicate some time to understanding the channel, what it means to me and my customers and how can I at least start making steps to entering into this world so I am not behind the competitionAnd as media owners we need to stop trying to recreate the web on mobile with our advertising options and create something which is more appealing to advertiser in what is, a very different environment