Today on Brandweek.com, an article clearly written for the advertising professional, claims, “Despite Promise, Mobile Ads Come Up Short.” The gist here is that despite big bets placed by Google and Apple, as well high response rates, mobile advertising is falling short of expectations.
These expectations include richer, more interactive ad formats necessary for when the “novelty” factor contributing to high response rates for simple text links wears off.
“…mobile will only convince marketers to make serious commitments if it moves beyond the focus on scale with standardized, run-of-the-mill units. The risk is mobile will follow the same path as the PC Internet and become dominated by direct marketers rather than advertisers used to creating demand via TV ads.”
That statement stands out among all in the article as pointing to a reality advertising professionals should adjust to sooner than later to ensure a seat at the mobile marketing table. And that is mobile already is an extension of the PC internet, especially on smartphones, and is perhaps the ultimate direct response platform ever conceived given immediate, “on the go” integration with location based services and the mobile web.
Even if, and when, ad units become more standardized, traditional views of interactive advertising will struggle in the face of strategies geared toward calling consumers to action in-line with their behavior. Today and for the foreseeable future, that has less to do slickly produced, screen hogging visuals and more with relevant messaging integrated wisely with other mobile channels.
