Mobile-Ability
It seems that wherever you go these days you are confronted with press accounts of how mobile communications are going to revolutionize the world in which we live. With close to 300 million mobile phones and upwards of 15 million iPads and/or tablets in use in the United States alone, it is easy to see why mobile devices, and why advertising on such units, are continually making headlines. Earlier this year research firm OVUM, in conjunction with the IAB, conducted a study among 300 marketers at major U.S. corporations to provide insight into mobile ad practices from a buyer’s perspective. Following are pertinent highlights from this study.
Marketers are quite cognizant of the value of mobile advertising in the marketplace. All one has to do is walk down the streets or ride the subways or buses of New York, Chicago or San Francisco to observe how engaged users are with various cellular devices. Given the ubiquity and user inseparability of these units, 52% of manufacturers feel that mobile ads are highly important from an audience engagement perspective. In addition, more than half of marketers polled feel that immediacy (57%) and cost effectiveness (54%) are key performance indicators within a mobile advertising campaign. Add to this the ability to reach highly targeted audiences in a location-based setting and you can begin to see why the mobile option is starting to play a larger role in the marketing media mix.
Most media campaign strategies today support brand awareness objectives and mobile advertising is, more often than not, a part of the equation. The survey sponsors found that a full 93% of marketers wished to raise brand awareness as a result of using mobile ad strategies. Eighty-six percent wished to use mobile in the mix to increase audience engagement and drive specific promotions, while 83% wanted to drive sales in general. A full 77% wished to use mobile to drive customer relationship marketing.
Many marketers have moved beyond the experimental stages of using mobile advertising. Several different types of mobile inventory have already been used by many survey respondents. Approximately 83% of marketers have actually created a mobile website, while 77% have placed mobile display or banner advertising. More than 59% have used branded ad applications, while 53% have used SMS messaging tactically. Forty-four percent have already experimented with one or more of the following: in-application advertising, MMS, mobile video ads or mobile search. Electronic barcodes and/or coupons have been implemented by roughly 42% of the marketers surveyed.
Gugelplex TV recognizes that new consumer technologies have been breeding new media Touchpoints at an accelerating rate. Media plan implementation is no longer simply a matter of placing advertising in one or two media types in the hopes of reaching an elusive target audience. Today, media planning and buying agencies must evaluate literally thousands of media Touchpoints to adequately build communication plans that reach increasingly fragmented audiences at times during the media day when they are most receptive to receiving the advertising. Only 24% of OVUM survey respondents were completely satisfied with their media agencies ability to support mobile advertising objectives as part of this initiative. Over 54% were reasonably satisfied, while 22% were reasonably or totally dissatisfied with the performance of their agencies in this regard. Thus, while most media planning/buying agencies still have some catching up to do, it appears that today’s media practitioners are at least headed in the right direction. The world of mobile-ability awaits!
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