Hundreds of mobile professionals gathered last night at MIT’s Tang Center to discuss the current state of mobile advertising and ultimately where it’s headed.
After about an hour of networking and chatter, the MoMo crowd entered the auditorium where the panel of speakers was set up. Adam Towvim of Cambrigde-based Jumptap moderated the discussion and pitched some interesting questions at the panel of five mobile and advertising industry experts. Panelists included Stephen Bagdasarian of Hill Holiday, Brett Leary of Digitas, John Phenix of Nexage, Brenna Hanly of Mullen, and William Nann of Crisp.
The night’s conversations centered around the amazing potential for mobile advertising, the tech restrictions and fragmentation that limit the space today, and the exciting new developments such as Apple’s iAd that are quickly influencing how brands and advertisers are viewing the mobile medium.
The hype around mobile advertising is definitely growing. The panelists all shared an appreciation for it’s potential but at the same time “kept it real”. Despite the fact that mobile phones far outnumber the number of PC-based internet users, the panelists made it clear that mobile still has to mature a bit before it can garner a more sizeable share of advertising budgets (currently, mobile accounts for roughly 1% of online ad spending).
The technology and infrastructure to support large-scale ad campaigns is quickly improving, but we’re not quite there yet. Some of the tools (such as cookies) that advertisers regularly rely on to serve and measure ads on the web simply don’t exist on most mobile devices.
Fragmentation in mobile is also slowing things down. Brands and advertisers find it difficult to have to deal with different device types, operating systems, app stores, etc. Should we run a SMS campaign that’ll hit candybar phones or banner ads that’ll only work properly on iPhone and Android? Apple’s iAd, was a hot topic for the panelists for just that reason. Although it’ll only work with Apple iOS devices, iAd is the first to give advertisers and app developers a taste of what they want: a one-stop-shop to easily serve rich media ads across a large population of active mobile users.
Another thing the panelists made clear is that although mobile advertising is similar to online advertising in many ways, it’s also very different. What might work well in an online ad campaign doesn’t necessarily transfer well to mobile. Context is king – the most affective mobile campaigns need to be smarter, more relevant, and take into account a user’s location, habits, etc. Dancing baby banner ads just won’t cut it on mobile…
Where you at the event? What were your key take-a-ways?
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