Day 3 Mobile Advertising

The third day had a smaller group of participants locked into an intensive few hours focusing on Mobile Advertising. The great thing about this day was that every speaker was well informed and engaging, with some involvement in Mobile Advertising locally. This made for a relevant and informative day for all involved.

Amanda Brook from Sensis mentioned the mobile advertising agreements that Sensis has with Publicis Mojo, OMD & the WPP group. Amanda’s presentation was full of interesting information that painted a picture about the current mobile environment “Yellow Mobile took 5 months to generate the level of usage it took Yellow Online 5 years to achieve”, and insight into the future as Sensis see it “Mobile codes will be the greatest innovation in print advertising since the printing press”. Amanda also raised some of the challenges faced by BigPond & Sensis to educate users that mobile ad sites are free to browse. This is not a challenge they should have to face alone – surely an industry wide standard would best serve the user?

Rob Belgiovane from BWM was inspiring with his quote “2.7 Billion users could be potentially reached on the same device, potentially simultaneously”. Food for thought.

Rob threw heaps of engaging advertising campaigns at us, barely focusing on mobile, but making the point that it’s NOT the channel, but the insight that matters. If you capture the hearts & minds of people, the method of communication is irrelevant. Devices & technology just make it easier to share & pass messages on.

Chris Noone from NineMSN told us that Mobile is far more worthy a core for an integrated campaign than TV. I look forward to seeing that philosophy adopted by local advertisers. He also threw out the challenge that any outdoor campaign without an SMS interaction is not working hard enough for you.

Chris’ tips for mobile include using a mobile call to action on all media, using high penetration access methods to drive traffic to your mobile destination, ensuring low page weights with relevant content and easy response mechanisms. Use phone specific features and give customers a reason to return.

NineMSN are launching mobile advertising on MSN Messenger & Hotmail on July 1 and promise that demographic targeting will be available soon. On the grapevine I’ve also heard that NineMSN have offered select local advertisers the opportunity to be part of the launch of advertising on Hotmail & Messenger.

The panel on Making Mobile Advertising into a Viable Revenue Stream was lively and animated. Chris Taylor from BigPond commented that all the media buying groups are asking about the granularity of targeting that is available in mobile. While I agree that targeting is one of the key advantages of the mobile channel, there is still a gap between the expectations of advertisers and the limited reach they are likely to gain by being too granular in their targeting. Angus Beattie from 3 Mobile agreed that Advertisers can have unrealistic expectations and that the industry as a whole need to work on common metrics & measurement.

Peter Birch from Network 10 discussed exclusivity of content and the fact that an Australian user would have to sign up to three different networks to access exclusive content on Big Brother, Australian Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. That’s not an ideal situation for Network 10 and they are open about their desire to give their content away for free to the customers of all carriers and use advertising to monetise it.

Peter encouraged advertisers to move away from the word ‘trial’ in their mobile advertising. He amused me with the following statement “Mobile Advertising is already here – just not enough people are doing it”. Too true!

Richard Mergler from MIA asked the panel which part of the agency ecosystem they think mobile advertising budget will come from. That’s a really smart question and the answers, in my opinion were illuminating. Digital agencies tend to tack on mobile advertising to their online & branding budgets. That’s not necessarily the most logical fit to the mobile channel. While branding campaigns have a place in mobile, the direct response nature of mobile translates perfectly to direct marketing and I would like to see more DM campaigns being extended to include a mobile component.

Network 10 seem to have grasped the DM fit, with Peter Birch announcing a mobile vouchering system they are soon to launch which has “huge potential to make a ton of money for whoever gets it right”.

Angus Beattie presented the successful Ford campaign run by 3 Mobile over several years and showed how the campaign has been tailored over time with a commitment from both parties to an ongoing relationship. 3 Mobile believe in creating a solid partnership with advertisers in these early days, rather than distancing themselves through media-buying agencies & CPM based campaigns. He also noted that 3 Mobile are in the final stages of an Ad-Serving RFI. I wonder if 3 Mobile’s philosophy will change once they have an ad serving capability in place..?

Dave Mallam from COGS media talked about his new online content network & ad serving business and the opportunities it presents to translate to mobile. COGS media is focussed on monetising compelling content and they believe the industry needs to educate creative agencies to build an array of content that is ‘size’ agnostic (ie. channel agnostic) so that it can be repurposed easily.

Kerry Field from Mindshare gave an honest & informed presentation on Mindshare’s experiences in the mobile space, and the successes (and otherwise) that they’ve had recently. Kerry mentioned the WPP mobile alliance which incorporates several of WPP’s companies in Australia. The mobile alliance has made a formal commitment to the mobile channel, and it will be interesting to see what comes out of this commitment and how the various companies can work together. Kerry also talked about the need for the mobile advertising industry to work together to build the space for all of us. Many in the room echoed her sentiments and I personally believe we as an industry should tackle both formal & informal solutions to address that need.

Jim Shomos from Forget The Rules chaired the final panel and ended the day on a high, asking panelists what they would do for mobile advertising if they had a magic wand. Here’s what they had to say. Give users unlimited data plans. Think about the handset as an extension of thought. Educate adver
tisers to think about brands uniquely – they’re not all the same. Use mobile as the glue to integrate cross media campaigns. Allow agencies to be engaged earlier so they have time to deliver great results in mobile.

And my final quotable quote from the day “The biggest barrier to the take up of mobile advertising, is that most marketers don’t have high-end handsets”.

In the words of Andrew Grill from London Calling, if you want to be in mobile advertising, you need to walk the talk.