Just the other day we blogged about the hype around mobile advertising created by recent acquisitions.  We’ve also covered issues surrounding mobile ad metrics.

We’re keeping close tabs on developments in this area for our customers so they understand where to prioritize mobile advertising alongside their broader customer engagement charters inclusive of SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, smartphone applications and social media.

An integrated approach to mobile channel marketing – akin to creating more effective mobile ads – is an innovation which greatly increases the likelihood your mobile marketing efforts won’t suck.

Mobile advertising, just like traditional web ads, is an exciting area because of the reach and audience segmentation possibilities.  In parallel with significant investment moves by Google and Apple to get involved via acquisition, the hype around mobile ads is at a fever pitch right now.  I’m afraid customers and investors who fixate here are in for some disappointment down the line, however.

Click through rate, or CTR, is the measure by which mobile and traditional online ads alike are gauged, and the article highlights global research showing that the unlikely Symbian platform is the leader in offering high CTRs, even in the U.S. where it’s not as dominant in terms of market share.

Clearly, a lot of advertisers are thinking “I have to be on Symbian” yet the hype and press would never point an ad buyer at this platform as opposed to the iPhone or a Google Android device.

Advertisers need to remember as well, where are those who click through going to?  A mobile optimized landing page or website?  A smartphone application download?  A coupon or bar code for redemption at the point of sale?  If the answer to any of these is “none of the above” and instead “we’re just happy to have lots of eyeballs seeing our message,” a huge opportunity to drive sales, engender loyalty, or cultivate brand affinity is wasted.

Viewing mobile as an engagement channel that allows businesses to create highly personal interactions that induce action on the part of customers is the real opportunity represented by mobile advertising.  It needs to be viewed as just one part of the value equation, which is why marketers are increasingly coming to Interactive Mediums to leverage our mobile customer engagement platform and expertise around creating effective mobile dialogues with customers across SMS text messaging, mobile web, apps and social media.

While that sounds like a terrific step or opportunity for consulting firms, as I point out in a comment on the post I don’t see many marketers taking advantage of APIs to this end.  Instead, I see:

• Marketers partaking in mobile advertising across multiple networks without any expectation at resolving the metrics across them, at least not at first.  All forecasts predict that mobile advertising will explode in the next few years, suggesting marketers are either unconcerned or unaware of the issues described in the blog post.
• Because marketers generally are drawn to mobile because it is among the most trackable and accountable channels, they soon may bump into the metrics integration issue.  Those marketers who do will fall into two camps: those who lack the resources or business case for integration regardless of API availability and those who will integrate because mobile advertising directly supports sales.

Let me explain: Many businesses utilize mobile advertising for awareness, branding and demand generation.  If resolving metrics across networks becomes an issue, I expect many marketers to narrow their network partners to one or two that offer access to the most targeted group of potential customers – to undertake an integration exercise is simply not worth the effort.  Other businesses that can drive sales via mobile transactions, however, will find it imperative to integrate metrics and tie these back to sales since the advertising directly supports the business.

With awareness/branding and demand generation representing arguably the largest mobile ad market opportunity, it suggests that mobile networks as a segment will narrow to 1-3 leaders with others either acquired or rendered irrelevant.  Thus, pretty quickly a consistent view of mobile ad metrics should happen almost automatically.

When it comes to engaging customers in the mobile channel, there is a strong analogy.  A single system which allows marketing objectives to be tailored to the mobile channel, executed and tracked, should be high on marketers’ priority lists in 2010.

Technology-wise, I am talking about SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, mobile applications, mobile email and social media.  In practice, marketers enabled with a solution that stitches each of these together will have a significant advantage over those who don’t.

For example, imagine engaging your customers via SMS text messaging, let them forward the invitation response to their Twitter followers, send text responders a thank you email, point them to a mobile website to redeem a coupon or to download a mobile application designed for their handset to enhance the shopping experience.  And, track this activity across all these mobile channels in a single system that easily integrates with the only system that matters — the one registering sales.

The article describes three “divides” that will make it difficult for 2010 to be the vaunted “year of mobile.”  I propose a fourth divide but first the three cited.   One is a knowledge and resource gap facing marketers; both in terms of best practices but also how to gauge success.  The second is the delta between consumers with multi-media savvy Smartphones versus those without.  The third is potentially most troubling for marketers; a gap between consumer preference or responsiveness to mobile advertising and the amount of dollars and efforts flowing into a form of mobile marketing especially in vogue now given Google’s high profile acquisition of AdMob.

“As consumers’ usage of mobile devices has grown more sophisticated, their attitudes toward mobile marketing have become more negative.  BIGresearch’s ‘Simultaneous Media Usage’ study indicates that relative to last year, more consumers now dislike receiving text ads, video ads, and text voicemail ads, and more feel that mobile ads constitute an invasion of privacy.”

It is for this reason a fourth gap exists which will challenge the mobile marketing industry in 2010 – confusion between advertising and Active Customer Engagement (or more generally targeting customers in the mobile channel).  Although mobile and online ad networks will garner much press over the coming months, marketers who approach mobile as an interaction channel and map their marketing strategies appropriately should achieve the best results.

It’s easy to buy a keyword or place a banner in a mobile application or website, but it’s an entirely different challenge and likely more rewarding one to call customers to action at the point of device.

Continuing with this theme, radio stations are looking beyond text to other mobile marketing techniques to bring their content to “on the go” consumers.  Radio as an advertising platform no longer is limited to the airwaves, as more stations bring content online via real time streaming.  Even so, this recent post on MarketingForecast.com titled, “Brighter Outlook for Radio Advertising” suggests the opportunity relative to overall ad revenue may be small.

“Research concern SNL Kagan predicts that online radio revenues, which should reach $441.4 million or 2.7% of the industry total this year, should grow to $827 million by 2013.  At that point, online revenues would comprise close to 5% of the industry total.”

Yet, the post mentions as well that the future of radio is closely tied to a consumer behavior similar to what we are seeing in mobile applications.

“In 2009,  consumers said 19.4% of their media consumption related to radio, an increase of nearly 3% from 2008…U.S. consumers say they find TV to be the most credible information source.  However, radio ties with newspaper for second place with each media form claiming 6.3% of the total share.”

Obtaining news and information is probably among the most used mobile applications so it’s not surprising to see as well researchers suggesting mobile applications are on radio station radar screens as much as online investments:

“…they’ll be embracing online streaming and mobile apps to drive their local base to their multiple platforms.”

As radio marketers provide access to their content in convenient ways that map to the mobile customer (across online, text and mobile apps), they should continue to attract a strong audience ripe for ad messages, as pointed out in the post:

“Marketers who want to broaden the reach of their messages  may continue to find that radio represents a unique and effective way to deliver consumer attention.”

While that sounds cumbersome and unappealing, the implication is that Apple may be seeking to subsidize in part or fully the cost of iPhones and other devices via “ad supported hardware.”  The article cites recent word that Apple was in discussions with AdMob before it was acquired by Google as evidence the company is interested in moving in this direction.  It’s also tacit acknowledgement that the real money is in advertising, ala Google, as opposed to creating costly proprietary hardware and software.  With ownership of its ecosystem, Apple would seem positioned well to execute on this strategy.

Should this happen, it would be very hard for device makers like Motorola to earn a profit.  You might imagine Google getting into the device business at some point, following a similar strategy.  For marketers, it would offer a much more visible presence on consumer handsets, elevating the value of such advertising to levels seen in the wired web world.

The most interesting conclusion I found was the future switch from a “many-to-one” to “one-to-many” relationship between advertisers and consumers.  Today, consumers are engaged by multiple devices and channels whereas in the future there will be mode/medium transparency between advertisers and consumers; the device or channel won’t matter and today’s barriers between delivering a consistent experience for consumers across all interaction channels will be broken.  The consumer’s preferences and message relevancy will rule, with technology relegated to the background.

Whether or not this happens in the future, it goes without saying that consumers today would benefit from this kind of experience.  All players in the mobile ecosystem are working hard to deliver as close to this ideal as possible and Interactive Mediums is no different in this regard.

Where Interactive Mediums does differ, is that we are working today toward many of the capabilities described in the report:

• Metrics and Value: As we have blogged about, marketers need to focus on the value of the mobile interaction as much as the cost to reach the largest audience possible.  The report similarly states “With the establishment of industry agreed metrics, the next development along the way to 2020 will be that Reach will be overtaken in terms of Value for advertising measurement.”
  - Marketers Drawn to Interactive by Low Cost Must Remember that it’s about Value per Interaction as Much as Cost to Reach
  - Value per Interaction, Not Cost per Message, Should be Litmus Test When Evaluating Mobile Marketing Providers
• It’s all about the Data: We have also described the creation of a Mobile Consumer Data Asset that should be at the core of any marketer’s foray into mobile marketing, as it serves as the foundation for understanding customer behavior to inform more targeted, relevant and ongoing interactions.  The report likewise states “In order to achieve this transition from Reach to Value it is essential that more is known about the audience.  Here we will see a greater reliance on preferences.  Profiles will be garnered through a wider dialogue with the end users.”
  - The Mobile Data Asset and the Channel Agnostic Customer View
  - Forrester Reports Increased Mobile Marketing Adoption; Strategy for Success Grounded in Understanding Customer Preferences

The future of mobile marketing will no doubt be exciting, especially as bandwidth escalates and no longer becomes a limiting factor on mobile devices, as the report states.  Yet, brands, stores, agencies and others have options today to begin taking advantage of the mobile channel with an eye toward the one-to-many relationships between consumers and marketers of the future.