Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market

From Cautious Optimism to Contextual Nirvana

Chapters

1. A Brief History of Advertising

Learning lessons from the past is important—hence Chapter 1. As new technologies have driven new media, it has always taken awhile for the technologists and advertisers to understand each other. In putting mobile advertising into a basic historical framework, we hope to show that the basic objective of getting people’s attention and trying to influence their behavior has not changed. All that ever changes is the way the objective can be reached.

2. A Perspective from the World of Web Advertising

In Chapter 2, we look at the powerful dynamics that the Internet drove around digital advertising and consumer control, and their overall impacts to the world of media and advertising. There were critical tipping points on the Internet that helped large-scale digital advertising become possible. The advent of a true digital age, as defined and driven by the Internet, is a powerful, positive, undercurrent for the eventual success of mobile media and advertising. We begin to lay out a baseline of how mobile advertising is affected by these dynamics and how we can leverage them.

3. A Five Points Framework

Once the world moves to digital media, a whole new set of metrics can be applied. In Chapter 3, we cover the measurement effects of the powerful new baseline shift toward digital that was put in place by the Internet advertising ecosystems. With this powerful paradigm shift comes media audience fragmentation. And new media rock stars, the analytics geeks. We have a new benefit of mobile interactivity being rolled out and combined with the new consumer paradigms of engagement and viral media sharing and have come up with a five-points measurement paradigm for reach, targeting, engagement, viral effects, and transactions.

4. Introduction to Mobile Advertising

In Chapter 4, we discuss the basics of mobile advertising and dive into what is working today in the world of mobile advertising. Mobile has some unique aspects and differentiators as a media platform versus other media. Mobile phones are high volume, personal fashion statements. They are always carried and always on, unlike computers. They enable unique user input experiences of cameras and voice, and they have built-in payment mechanisms. In theory, these have powerful enabling effects for mobile media and advertising, but we are not yet fully realizing them. Throughout this chapter, we begin to lay out a fabric of underlying issues as well.

5. Challenges And Accelerators for Mobile Advertising

The major structural issues and mobile market accelerators are discussed in Chapter 5. All is not the glossy, hype-happy smiley picture painted in many analyst or industry media reports around mobile advertising. There are some major, perhaps irreversible, structural flaws in the way of campaigns getting from experimental budgets of $50,000 to over a million and running many of those in parallel. The potential is huge, and the mobile-specific accelerators are massive, but the realities are complex, confusing, and sometimes involve head-popping implementation and measurements or metrics problems. Despite these issues, mobile presents some amazing accelerators. To get to these accelerators, we need to remove major barriers and hurdles.

6. Mobile Advertising Models

In Chapter 6, we cover the various business model shifts that have to happen in mobile media to get to massive consumer usage scales. These eyeballs will then be the base for attractive advertising to major brands. When it all comes in right as a model, a consumer value proposition, and a revenue generator—it can be massive in its impact.

7. Case Studies from Around the World

Mobile advertising is geographically complex and looks very different in many regions of the world. In Chapter 7, we provide several case studies discussing facets of mobile advertising such as user experience, and off- and on-deck. The studies include companies from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and India,. We hope these examples give you a good sense of the potential and creative and technical elements of various campaigns.

8. Technology: The Lifeblood of Digital Advertising

Technology is the lifeblood of digital advertising. In Chapter 8, we delve deep into the technology issues that need to be resolved and the processes that will need to be put in place to kick-start the industry. We discuss the opportunities available to entrepreneurs, operators, and other players in the industry who will innovate and solve some of the thorny technical problems.

9. Mobile Advertising - What Comes Next?

In Chapter 9, we take a look at “a day in the life of” consumers—what will their advertising experience be like in the future? We also discuss the major trends that will have a significant impact on the business of mobile advertising. The convergence of “three screens” and the “always-on” era is upon us and their role in changing the user experience will be profound. A focus on youth will continue to drive advertisers to use the new mediums creatively. We also discuss the tensions in the ecosystem and how they might evolve in the next few years.

10. Perspectives

Over the course of this project, we had the good fortune to confer with the key movers and shakers in the industry. Some of the top-notch executives also contributed to the project. Chapter 10 complements our work with thirteen thought-provoking pieces from some of the most brilliant minds in this emerging industry. The reader can gain insights from executives at Ogilvy, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm, Rhythm New Media, Reliance Infocomm, Yahoo!, Nielsen Mobile, Diageo, Vodafone, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Disney, and MTV Networks.

11. Conclusions and Recommendations

This book is about the journey of the mobile advertising industry from the phase of cautious optimism to the transcendental state of contextual nirvana. This medium provides context, immediacy, and personalization like no other. In Chapter 11, we summarize our thoughts with a review of the text as well as offer recommendations for key constituents of the value chain.