Mobile advertising is big business. Ever since 2000, when a small Finnish newspaper offered free, advertising-sponsored news headlines via SMS, businesses have been trying to cash-in by advertising on the mobile platform.
Fast forward to 2010 and mobiles are owned by 98% of the UK population, outnumber desktops by 5 to 1, and the mobile advertising industry is worth $546 million. This is currently made up of just under two thirds SMS text ads, one third display ads (including in-app) and the rest mobile search. Even Google and Apple endorse the platform with their respective purchases of AdMob ($750 million) and Quattro Wireless ($250 million).
A recent report from UK-based research company Coda predicts that mobile advertising will grow to $2.2 billion in 5 years. The numbers are more than respectable; however, the same report expects mobile commerce to grow by 65% annually to reach $24 billion in 2015, or 7.7% of all ecommerce revenue. For so long mobile advertising was heralded as the best way for brands to leverage the mobile channel, but recent reports seem to suggest that while mobile advertising is in a buoyant state, it is m-commerce that that will rule the time of the mobile.
Mobile commerce has come a long way from the days of buying ringtones from premium rate numbers. As phones became more powerful and 3G more prominent, larger goods and services started to be sold over the mobile network. First it was intangible goods such as games and applications. Then fast food companies such as Starbucks and Papa John’s started accepting takeaway orders through their mobile websites. Major players eBay and Amazon brought the platform to the mainstream, selling tangible goods analogous to their main site through their dedicated mobile channels. In fact, in October 2009 eBay announced it had already made $380 million in sales through mobile commerce, including a $750,000 Lamborghini!
As well as location independent shopping, m-commerce has the potential to be used to streamline any transaction. In Vienna, Austria, people regularly pay their parking meters via mobile. Stayed over your 2 hours? No problem, just text the meter – this is starting to take off in the UK too. In Lagos, Nigeria, migrant workers use mobile phones to transfer money without exorbitant transaction costs. And in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, The Red Cross raised $7 million in mobile donations within 3 days of the earthquake there.
Back in the UK, Marks & Spencer recently rolled out a new bespoke m-commerce store, and Argos are busy finalizing theirs, but why, this time, are companies so sure m-commerce is here to stay? Because this time the paradigm is user driven. Mobile commerce is not a passing fad or technology for its own sake; it is the natural result of consumers’ desire for convenience and location independent transactions. As long as the internet is within reach there is no reason why full commerce shouldn’t be too. And these days the internet is always within reach.
Mobile commerce has been growing steadily for a while, but now both businesses and consumers are ready and able to embrace it: the time of m-commerce is here.
Mark Laskey
Multimedia Developer
Showing posts with label mobile apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile apps. Show all posts
Friday, 21 May 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
The Future of Mobile - apps, AR and more!
The future of mobile – can anyone really accurately predict it? It’s a tough one as mobile usage trends throughout the world vary considerably. However, with the exciting technological advancements of recent years, the once, seemingly unachievable and futuristic predictions of mobile experts, are now one by one, fulfilling their prophecy.
So what are the most notable mobile trends for 2010 and beyond?
Mobile Apps
It had to come first in the list right? Still a huge growth area, the flexibility and uses for mobile apps never cease to amaze. With over 100,000 applications in existence and in excess of 1bn downloads, iPhone applications are very much leading the pack in terms of sophistication and popularity. With diverse uses; from the Sleep Cycle app, which monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in a lighter sleep stage, ShapeUp, which helps you track and plan daily calorie intake, through to HootSuite, for managing your social network updates, such as Twitter, LinkedIn etc; iPhone applications really are penetrating every aspect of our professional and private lives. How long before we have an app which tracks our children’s whereabouts or allows us to scan the barcodes of empty cartons to reorder our groceries?
Augmented Reality
It’s still early days in terms of the practical application of many augmented reality applications, but the potential when mobile meets AR is pretty exciting! A few recent apps have started to show more than just a novelty appeal and are actually beginning to be useful too. Some of the best include:
TwittARound – the application takes your view of your surrounding via your iPhone camera and overlays nearby tweets over the image – not sure how useful it is right now, but very cool!
Nearest Tube – it does just what it says on the tin! It helps you find your nearest tube station and identifies your location based on what the application sees through your iPhone camera.
TAT Augmented ID – almost scary in its capabilities, TAT Augmented ID uses facial recognition technology from Flickr to identify a person’s face and then display information such as their contact information and online profiles from various social networks – possibly more novelty than useful at this stage but the potential with this type of technology is huge!
Mobile Commerce
Mobile ecommerce is an area which has received a lot of air time recently, with many discussing the merits and potential that it holds for retailers. With mobile ecommerce a largely untapped market, retailers that take note of the growing power of mobile will gain huge competitive advantage over their rivals. Waitrose / Ocado was the first grocery store to launch an iPhone application (July 09) that allows you to do your grocery shopping on the move, regardless of whether you have an internet connection, and I suspect others won’t be too far behind – this is definitely a case of ‘watch this space’.
So there you have it, a quick summary of what I see to be the most exciting areas of the future of mobile for the year ahead – I am certain we are going to see many great things appearing on our mobiles, and I for one, can’t wait to give them a go! Anything that makes my life easier, saves me time or money, or just gives a bit of entertainment is a hit in my eyes!
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby
So what are the most notable mobile trends for 2010 and beyond?
Mobile Apps
It had to come first in the list right? Still a huge growth area, the flexibility and uses for mobile apps never cease to amaze. With over 100,000 applications in existence and in excess of 1bn downloads, iPhone applications are very much leading the pack in terms of sophistication and popularity. With diverse uses; from the Sleep Cycle app, which monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in a lighter sleep stage, ShapeUp, which helps you track and plan daily calorie intake, through to HootSuite, for managing your social network updates, such as Twitter, LinkedIn etc; iPhone applications really are penetrating every aspect of our professional and private lives. How long before we have an app which tracks our children’s whereabouts or allows us to scan the barcodes of empty cartons to reorder our groceries?
Augmented Reality
It’s still early days in terms of the practical application of many augmented reality applications, but the potential when mobile meets AR is pretty exciting! A few recent apps have started to show more than just a novelty appeal and are actually beginning to be useful too. Some of the best include:
TwittARound – the application takes your view of your surrounding via your iPhone camera and overlays nearby tweets over the image – not sure how useful it is right now, but very cool!
Nearest Tube – it does just what it says on the tin! It helps you find your nearest tube station and identifies your location based on what the application sees through your iPhone camera.
TAT Augmented ID – almost scary in its capabilities, TAT Augmented ID uses facial recognition technology from Flickr to identify a person’s face and then display information such as their contact information and online profiles from various social networks – possibly more novelty than useful at this stage but the potential with this type of technology is huge!
Mobile Commerce
Mobile ecommerce is an area which has received a lot of air time recently, with many discussing the merits and potential that it holds for retailers. With mobile ecommerce a largely untapped market, retailers that take note of the growing power of mobile will gain huge competitive advantage over their rivals. Waitrose / Ocado was the first grocery store to launch an iPhone application (July 09) that allows you to do your grocery shopping on the move, regardless of whether you have an internet connection, and I suspect others won’t be too far behind – this is definitely a case of ‘watch this space’.
So there you have it, a quick summary of what I see to be the most exciting areas of the future of mobile for the year ahead – I am certain we are going to see many great things appearing on our mobiles, and I for one, can’t wait to give them a go! Anything that makes my life easier, saves me time or money, or just gives a bit of entertainment is a hit in my eyes!
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Mobile Apps Advertising - could be better?
So this week's New Media Age lands on my desk this morning and I read, with a certain level of surprise, the cover article, outlining recent concern on the use of mobile application advertising.
The article highlights, that whilst many well-known brands are embracing the opportunity that advertising in iPhone and other mobile apps may bring, their approach could not be described as particularly well-thought out.
That is not to detract from the 5% of brands that appear to be doing it right, but what of the other 95%?
NMA quoted fairly shocking figures, with up to 30% of ads within mobile apps linking to flash sites which cannot be displayed on an iPhone, and the majority linking to sites not optimised for mobile. If only 5% of advertisers are actually linking to a mobile-enabled site, what sort of user experience are the other 95% giving the consumer?
In a world where both time and financial resources are increasingly scarce, it seems crazy to waste both, with a poorly planned and executed advertising campaign that just doesn’t make sense. So how has this happened?
In defense of the brands, it appears that Google’s launch of AdSense for Mobile Apps has caused this potential issue, with all ads booked via Google automatically running within apps unless the advertiser opts out.
Google probably should have made this clearer to advertisers upon launch to ensure the appropriate changes could be made to the search campaigns. However, contrary views suggest that mobile browsers are sophisticated enough to handle standard, non-mobile-enabled sites, therefore suggesting no change is required.
But if they are offering anything but the best possible user experience throughout their campaign, surely brands should not settle for this?
Marketing budgets are often fought very hard for, both to get and to retain, and if achieving anything but the highest possible ROI, they are certainly not doing their budget-holders, brand or objectives any justice. More worryingly, they could also be causing damage to their brand.
It will be interesting to see how industry bodies respond to the COI’s request for guidelines on advertising in mobile apps.
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
The article highlights, that whilst many well-known brands are embracing the opportunity that advertising in iPhone and other mobile apps may bring, their approach could not be described as particularly well-thought out.
That is not to detract from the 5% of brands that appear to be doing it right, but what of the other 95%?
NMA quoted fairly shocking figures, with up to 30% of ads within mobile apps linking to flash sites which cannot be displayed on an iPhone, and the majority linking to sites not optimised for mobile. If only 5% of advertisers are actually linking to a mobile-enabled site, what sort of user experience are the other 95% giving the consumer?
In a world where both time and financial resources are increasingly scarce, it seems crazy to waste both, with a poorly planned and executed advertising campaign that just doesn’t make sense. So how has this happened?
In defense of the brands, it appears that Google’s launch of AdSense for Mobile Apps has caused this potential issue, with all ads booked via Google automatically running within apps unless the advertiser opts out.
Google probably should have made this clearer to advertisers upon launch to ensure the appropriate changes could be made to the search campaigns. However, contrary views suggest that mobile browsers are sophisticated enough to handle standard, non-mobile-enabled sites, therefore suggesting no change is required.
But if they are offering anything but the best possible user experience throughout their campaign, surely brands should not settle for this?
Marketing budgets are often fought very hard for, both to get and to retain, and if achieving anything but the highest possible ROI, they are certainly not doing their budget-holders, brand or objectives any justice. More worryingly, they could also be causing damage to their brand.
It will be interesting to see how industry bodies respond to the COI’s request for guidelines on advertising in mobile apps.
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
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