Anyone who still believes that mobile advertising is just online advertising but smaller should leave now. In fact, anyone who thinks that banner advertising is effective should also go. Advertising is about engagement and story telling. No-one likes being SHOUTED AT, everyone likes a story.
As Gilad de Vries says in an excellent Forbes critique of display advertising:
Don’t believe me? Try this quick exercise. What was the last great commercial you saw? Any come to mind? I’m sure several do. Now close your eyes and try to tell me about a display ad you saw lately. Anything? Hard, isn’t it? That’s because it’s almost impossible to tell a story in a banner.
A couple of stories this morning caught the eye and took this thought further. First, was this one from Business Insider in which a senior Google Guy, Tim Reis, describes very well just how personal a mobile device is. Take the test – do you sleep with your mobile next to the bed? See? That means that the opportunities for advertisers are huge, but with it comes a challenge. A phone is so personal that to put messages on it means that you are inside “the circle of trust” and within that comes responsibility and a need not to SHOUT at people. In other words, display ads will not work and you are in danger of being banished from the circle. Count how many times Google Guy uses the word ‘help you’ (do stuff) and you get the point (see also, BV: Can Telcos Monetize Trust) – getting into – and defending – that circle of trust is the next big opportunity for telcos.
Circles also form the core of the new multi device world that is emerging. We know, because we have often repeated, Nielsen’s finding, that using a second screen while watching TV increases brand recall by 69 percent, desire to purchase by 72 percent. Google has also looked into this multi screen phenomenon. They discovered that it is now commonplace for people to use multiple screens, mainly sequentially, to turn an impulse into a well-researched purchase. Given this, advertisers have a compelling opportunity to lead customers further into their brand stories. Catch the attention on one device, provide insights on the next, deliver education and engagement on another.
If Mark Zuckerberg reckoned that if he had come up with Facebook now it would have been a mobile app, then maybe he would have gripped the mobile challenge earlier. Right now, we are not seeing Facebook doing anything cool or intuitive in the mobile ad space. Not yet, anyway.
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