IAB Releases Mobile Buyer’s Guide at Mobile Conference

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released a first-of-its-kind Mobile Buyer’s Guide for mobile marketing agencies at the IAB Marketplace: Mobile Conference on Monday.

The guide explains the medium of mobile advertising in detail and offers valuable information for mobile marketers to help them create and run mobile marketing campaigns successfully. The guide contains everything you need to know about mobile advertising – key terms and definitions, an overview of the U.S. market, a look at the key demographics, tips to create and run mobile marketing campaigns, and a number of examples to illustrate the intricacies involved in such campaigns.

You can take a look at the guide here.

Personally, I think this is a great initiative by the IAB. Though a lot of experts predict a big future for mobile advertising, it is still in its nascent stage and an unbelievably huge number of people are completely unaware of its potential. This kind of a detailed guide will definitely help people understand the value of advertising on mobile phones.

Mobile Marketer, AdMob, Mindshare, ESPN, HBO, NBC Universal, Nestle, AIG, Deutsch, IKEA, CNN Digital, Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Pandora, Citi, and Nokia Interactive Advertising were some of the names involved in the conference. The future of mobile marketing was discussed in detail and the general feeling among both business owners and marketers was that mobile marketing as a medium is poised for huge growth.

Some of the important points raised at the conference include

• The click through rates of mobile display ads are five to ten times more than the click through rates of banner ads on websites.

• Online advertising has reached a point where almost every other website is filled with ads and people have started ignoring a majority of those ads. Advertising on mobile phones, on the other hand, is still in its nascent stage and a lot of consumers show interest in it.

• Microsoft, which has been trying really hard to dominate both the online and the mobile space, has had very good success with mobile ads so far. Compared to their online ads, mobile ads have performed exceptionally well so far. As a result, Microsoft is planning to invest a lot of money in mobile advertising.

• At the time of recession, mobile phone advertising can help businesses irrespective of their size. Mobile advertising campaigns are easy to create, easy to manage, and give excellent results. The response rates of these campaigns are usually way higher than the response rates of traditional advertising methods.

• A lot of companies have yet to try mobile coupons, location based advertising, and other types of mobile marketing which give very good results. However, experts believe that the situation will change slowly as more and more people are becoming aware of the potential of advertising on mobile phones.

Based on what I have seen and heard so far, I am of the opinion that mobile advertising, as a medium, will break through to the mainstream in a few years from now. What do you guys think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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More about CBS and Loopt’s location based mobile advertising campaign

I’ve already blogged about Loopt and CBS experimenting on location based mobile advertising technology. This, however, is considered a very important step in mobile advertising industry by many. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly, not everyone is very enthusiastic about location based advertising. There are lots of concerns over issues like privacy and spam. With this being the case, this step is considered a very important one, based on which others might follow suit.

Second, the way Loopt and CBS have made things easier for customers in this mobile ad campaign is very impressive. To get an ad, you should turn on the locator button in your phone. The locator button will help advertisers find your location, even without GPS facility, as the technology pings cellphone towers and finds the location. Then, when you check out mobile websites like CBS News or Sportsline, you’ll get a banner ad based on your location. The idea of banner ad has a couple of advantages. First, it doesn’t clutter your phone’s inbox and second, it doesn’t interrupt you with rings.

You can turn it off at any point and you can opt out of the service any time you wish. What this means is – you opt in for the service, you get ads only when you want, and you can stop it any time you wish.

With this kind of a setup, Loopt and CBS are hopeful that customers will find this ad campaign interesting. If everything goes well, this might be the most prominent step in taking location based mobile advertising to customers on a large scale.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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JupiterResearch’s report on mobile advertising and mobile internet

A recent report released by JupiterResearch says that the growth rate of mobile internet has been impressive so far. In 2007, over 16% of mobile users accessed mobile internet and the number could grow by five percent this year.

The report says that mobility is an issue that can have a great impact on advertising and can improve the CPMs to a great extent. It is also predicted that mobile advertisers will spend more than $2 billion in mobile messaging and search advertising.

But the most important thing in the report, at least according to me, is something an analyst told about mobile ads. When asked about the performance of mobile ads in general, Julie Ask, a Jupiter analyst, had this to say – “We are finding ads with location tags are selling at five to tenfold premiums over basic ads.”

I’ve emphasized on location based advertising time and again and with each passing day, my take on that is getting substantiated.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Web.

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Location based mobile advertising from CBS finds takers

A few days back, I blogged about CBS’ partnership with Loopt to experiment with location based mobile advertising. I am of the opinion that their mobile advertising campaign, despite the recent uproar on privacy issues concerned with location based advertising, will find a lot of takers, as they have very good arrangements to make sure customers don’t feel that their privacy is being taken for granted.

Now, it seems people tend to agree with me. Erik Larkin says that people will not find it intrusive and might opt in for it. Wait; did I hear someone say ‘wise men think alike?’

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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CBS joins hands with Loopt to bring location based mobile advertising

A few weeks back, CBS announced that it will experiment with location based mobile advertising and based on the results, will think about taking the advertising campaign to the next level.

It was announced that CBS Mobile unit will team up with Loopt, a famous social networking service, in this advertising campaign. The team has got two tailor-made mobile websites to run this advertising campaign – CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports.

As of now, these ads will appear on your mobile screen only if your phone has GPS capabilities and if you are a customer of Sprint Nextel or Boost Mobile, who have signed deals with Loopt. However, CBS is confident of getting more carriers sign a deal with them to reach out to a larger customer base.

Loopt’s GPS based technology will help advertisers send targeted ads based on the mobile users’ location. Now, to stay clear of controversies and privacy issues regarding location based advertising, CBS and Loopt have announced that this advertising service will be made available strictly on an opt-in/opt-out basis. Meaning, if you are interested in getting the ads, you can opt in and you can opt out of the same at any time. Also, they have announced that the mobile ads will be delivered anonymously and they will not store your location history.

Something that Cyriac Roeding of CBS said made a lot of sense to me. When asked further about the importance of adding value in mobile advertising, he said that this is a game in which the customer should win at the end of the day, for if he doesn’t, there is no game to be played. Spot on, I should say!

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Social Networking.

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