The chasm of understanding between buyers and sellers in the U.S. mobile marketing and advertising domain still remains at a significant distance, and may actually be growing. Vendors of services and products continue to address their audience assuming that they are much further up the learning curve. They use philosophical approaches, nouveau jargon and fancy animated presentations.
However, these sales pitches go way over the heads of buyers at many companies in the U.S. who have yet to create a mobile campaign of any kind. These buyers, interestingly, continue to hear how powerful the mobile channel can be, and due to a seeming unending flood of mobile options and disparate information, they do not know what is real or best. They are left with a very basic and common dilemma: How do I get started, today?
Why isn't mobile here already?
As we are currently in the third consecutive "year of mobile," it would seem as if mobile marketing is widely understood and utilized effectively. The audience is there, with over 250 million users in the U.S. The usage is there, with shocking numbers of text messages being sent at over 50 billion per month, and continued growth in the number of consumers accessing a version of the web through their phones. This should be an opportunity that any marketer could not pass up. But by observing the number of brand campaigns that are visible in everyday life, it is clear that mobile investment continues to be a very small fraction of overall media spending. Just as with the internet a decade ago, buyers need to understand the basics of this medium before they can extrapolate concepts and advanced engagements. This is where many vendors and agencies fail their perspective clients.
Ironically, companies in and around mobile advertising fight each other blindly for the existing crumbs of potential revenue. Instead of meeting the needs of clients today and pushing the growth of the overall medium, many look and plan for tomorrow. Inside the mobile industry, companies continue to jockey for position in offering the next generation of advertising platform. "The next way to access the consumer." "The future of targeted engagements." As the language and conversations continue to evolve inside, these companies have overlooked those outside their realm. These sellers have forgotten how to speak in the fundamentals of mobile marketing and address for potential clients what can be executed effectively right now. This misstep prevents many companies from joining the mobile evolution and stagnates the overall industry.
Throughout this process, the technology and service suppliers continue to collectively gripe about the lack of revenue growth, despite all the hoopla and promise of mobile. They continue to miss their contrived financial projections, and turn the blame to other parties in the marketing chain. These companies seem to miss the simplest conclusion: they themselves are not addressing their audience appropriately. Ad agencies play their role in the confusion as well, acting as a middleman translator. Since the underlying brands have interest in mobile, agencies are pressured to include it in their pitches. They do so even if they do not understand how to use mobile effectively and do not know where to find the best return for clients' investments in the current marketplace. The result is that they often mystify their clients -- and frequently themselves -- during the planning and execution, and deliver lackluster results.
On the other side of the equation, buyers are getting flooded with many mobile advertising options, each claiming to be the key avenue to the end consumer. With companies offering mobile marketing, mobile advertising, mobile banner ads, mobile websites, direct-text campaigns, in-call media, mobile search placements, pre-roll mobile video, on-deck promotions and interactive television options, to name only 10 subsets, it is easy to understand why a first time buyer gets lost. But even listing out these possibilities gives a fuller view of the overall market landscape. From even a very basic economic point of view, there is clearly a great deal of supply and not nearly as much demand. In short, it is a buyer's market for mobile, and an ideal time for brands to try out the medium.
Now back to the question of how a brand can get started in mobile to take advantage of the current opportunities.
Next page >>
