It is inevitable, and with the launch of a closed beat for mobile AdSense, the market for advertising on smartphones is going to explode over the next few months. Looking ahead, eMarketer is predicting that roughly 17% ($2.4 billion) of the world's advertising budget is going to be via mobile devices come 2011.
Read on in the full article.
Google are actually a little late to the game here, AdMob for instance have served up almost 4.5 billion mobile adverts so far, mostly on the mobile web from what I can see.
AdMob's homepage has a fascinating live adverts section indicating who the latest ad was delivered to, showing their phone model, their country, and their mobile network.
I guess adverts are just one of the things competing to snatch a little of the larger screens on modern S60 devices...
You just have to love those "analysts" and "researchers":
In the eMarketer article, towards the end, in the table "Mobile Entertainment Revenues Worldwide, ..." one can find the estimate that the total revenues in 2011 will be $38,124,570,000.
I mean, if you want to top that, you have no other chance than estimating by the cent those 2011 revenues. You won't get any flowers if you just object and say, "Wait, no, I think will be 10'000 dollars more..."
Ewan's post raises valid points and gives food for thought, but who will profit from nonsense like that table in the eMarketer article?
We already have enough spam in this world. I will give up the smartphone and revert to the most basic speach / text phone I can get if this starts. I already have a "marketing" message from Vodaphone today about so called cheaper European calls.
These marketeers are wild optimists (I was once a Marketing Director) - with maturity one realises that all this spam like "marketing" simply annoys potential customers and puts them off the product.
If you look at the "normal" Internet marketing on the big screens, it took many years of trying different things until Google came up with the search-driven little text ads and turned them into a billion-making cash machine. In hindsight, it's obvious, and now of course emulated as well, but then it problably took a little spark of genius to come up with it.
It might well be that on the phone, something similar is possible: Something that does not disturb the phone users too much, works, and generates real profit. I am pretty sure however that it's not yet clear exactly *how* this is going to work, and I really don't expect to find *that* brilliant idea in those eMarketer research paper.
Just "analysing" how many billions of dollars will be made and then hope and pray that please somebody makes it possible somehow by inventing a new way of advertising good for phones is not very creative.
Simply the type of ads served are still a question mark. Is it a 10 second spot? A 15 second spot? An audio signature with some type of text link that can be selected for more information? Agencies are completely oblivious as to the magic combination, which makes it even more difficult to sell to a savvy client.
Advertisers and agencies lack experience in short form audio production as well. Google went so far as to garner google qualified audio production companies to help ease the uncertainty of creating radio spots.
I would say that those figures are wildly optimistic. Once there is a sound model, and let's say that takes another two years, as mobile sms audio delivery is at the very least that old, the we're already knocking on 2010. Even as a marketer, I don't see it exploding with such intensity. The mechanisms are simply not there yet.
What will the user get in return for this advertising?
With magazines, TV, radio, newspapers etc advertising keep the price down. Same with websites, advertising makes it possible to run a usefull website so most people put up with it. Most people tolerate a little advertising, witness Gooogle's success. But people expect to get something for free if they have to put up with advertising, and ATM nobody's giving them the freebee, or telling them what's it is going to be.
Sander van der Wal
mBrain Software
In india , MyToday , is one such service which sends free SMS according to your interests. Just includes a small ad at the bottom. But thats ok, I have subscribed to "Word of the day", "news" , "cricket" all for free 😃
For more services check out MyTodaySMS
PS: Only available in India
- Avinash Rathod