Bridging the gap between mobile eyeballs & mobile ad spend

Alex Franks, director at Blyk, says developments in mobile coupons, NFC and mobile payments will be the catalyst that fires a significant shift on mobile ad spend…

An interesting challenge presented itself to me at the excellent Media Playground 2011 event recently where Blyk were a sponsor and member of the mobile advertising expert panel in the afternoon.

Some of the discussion on this panel session centred around which channels mobile ad dollars would start to move from. There’s no doubt that more spend is required in mobile and soon. Mobile will no doubt become what Tomi Ahonen calls the 7th mass media but not all brands and agencies are freeing up large sums of cash to support this growing market. It’s growing fast, but I for one am looking forward to getting past the ‘tipping point’.

There are more mobile devices in the world than people right now, to be precise 6.920 billion connections versus 6.915 billion people (or something like that!). So, make no mistake, mobile is going to be a significant player in the media mix. Advertiser dollars will always, without exception, follow eyeballs and we are talking about a hell of a lot of eyeballs here!

Perhaps the answer here lies in advertiser ROI. At Blyk we already know that investment in messaging is investment in clear, personal and accountable engagement. However, I am becoming more and more convinced that developments in mobile coupons, NFC and mobile payments will be the catalyst that fires a significant shift on mobile ad spend.

Once these developments kick start bigger investment the benefits and case studies will then prompt mobile messaging in all it’s formats to form a central part of buyers and planners thinking rather than, in some cases, being an after thought.

Layer on top of this the huge amounts of data that can be used to enhance the consumer experience and show complete tracking and accountability to the advertising community and this is simply too compelling to ignore.

comScore have recently released a whitepaper that adds the to the already compelling case for moving the dial on mobile advertising spend. Here are some of the highlights:

• Over 13 million consumers accessed retail content on their mobile phone in a given month; 2.2 million accessed some sort of retail content almost every day.

• Consumers rely on their mobile devices to guide them through every step of the purchase process, from determining if they need a product (52% of respondents), to making a purchase (38%), to evaluating a product post-purchase (12%). Advertisers can capitalise upon this behaviour to reach consumers on mobile, regardless of where they are in the purchase funnel.

• 21% of survey respondents made a purchase using their mobile phone in the last month

Juniper have also produced the statistics below from a recent research piece that shows how they see mobile commerce growing in the next 18 months:

What we are talking about here is creating the market place on the mobile phone. Once we prove, and prove we will, that the mobile phone is set to become the ultimate advertising channel the size of the market will take off, and fast.

There’s a great piece by Peggy Anne Salz from Mobile Groove just out on the “State of Mobile Advertising” by Jumptap (released March 2011). The survey aggregated responses from nearly 350 mobile advertising executives including brands, agencies, publishers, and technology enablers. Among the findings are the following:

• Mobile takes a bigger slice of the pie: For those with near-term mobile marketing plans, 60% intend to draw their mobile budgets from their current online budgets. An additional 20% said that mobile will be an entirely new line item.

• Opportunities in mobile CRM: Advertisers were evenly split between direct response and branding campaigns with 51% citing awareness/loyalty and 49% citing customer acquisition and retention.

• New verticals emerge: Entertainment is the category that publishers expect to generate the most mobile ad revenue in 2011, followed by technology and automotive.

So, there’s certainly evidence that momentum is building. Developments in what mobile can offer might be what kicks the snowball down the hill.

Profile a customer through preference, send that customer a coupon via a media channel like Blyk, allow that customer to redeem that coupon in store and then go on to make a purchase using the recently released Barclaycard mobile wallet via an NFC device like the new Samsung Tocco. Then, report every single transaction back to the agency or brand – you get the idea!

In my opinion these developments will start a revolution in the way brands reach out to their consumers and in the way consumers will buy on the high street. Viva la revolution!

Read Blyk’s blog here.