Mobile Ads - More to Ponder

To take the mobile ads post – DOA or the next big thing - one step further... Although a rational and viable channel for us as marketers, there still seem to be concerns about user acceptance. And despite stats that show high views, recall and response rates, there are still opposing stats that show only 10% of mobile users find mobile advertising acceptable. This latter stat, though, can probably be influenced but I suspect it will come at a cost in terms of plan costs, richer content and ability to “close the deal” so to speak with content delivery.

And if acceptability is not an issue, then are they making sense? Per a recent article in Mobile Insider, there seems to still be a bit of confusion around the relevancy topic. I think that, in the end, reality is most likely somewhere in the middle and varies by audience/age. Regardless, if we ignore the consumer as "boss" and don't find a better way to finely target the mobile audience, we may find that the boost and sprint customers mentioned in the Ad Age article keep the phone's locator buttons disabled intentionally.

In the last couple of days, emarketer also published two articles in a strikingly similar vein: "Mobile Ads Still Taking Baby Steps" and "What's Holding up Mobile Advertising". Worth a read.

Just curious, is anyone else having deja vu to articles written 10 yrs ago about the internet and email with similar acceptance, privacy, measurability and technology concerns??

Hubbard ‘88