This time…it’s personal. How mobile challenges everything we thought we knew about advertising

By Andrew Grill – London Based Mobile Evangelist

So why has Mobile Advertising not taken off the way we all expected?  Why have we not been able to simply transfer what we know from the internet onto mobile?

I recently delivered a keynote presentation to 400 people in Amsterdam and tried to answer these very questions.

I asked all those assembled to hand their mobile to the person next to them, and then invited a complete stranger to go through their address book.  Everyone shifted uncomfortably and watched their private lives unravel in front of their eyes.  As expected, this experiment failed and the mobiles were handed back to their owner.  The point that was made here is that the mobile is so incredibly personal –so why then do we allow a broadcast advertising mindset to invade such a personal medium?

The bottom line: So something is broken. But we need to understand what is broken first before we can attempt to fix it.
We can start by pointing the finger of blame at ourselves. We fail to understand that mobile is mobile. It is different from all the media preceding it (cinema > radio > TV > Internet). It’s a new space with new rules.

Consider the introduction of TV. At first it was “radio with pictures” (because it followed and therefore built on the radio experience that preceded it). Advertising? In the early days of TV, this was limited to a live voiceover with a few shots of the product thrown in for effect.

And so are we about to repeat this mistake again? The mobile is widely regarded as just another screen (only smaller) and the mobile Internet is about delivering Internet content to mobile devices. I argue that mobile is much more than this, and it requires a new approach.

This becomes painfully obvious when we look at advertising. Internet advertising was all about getting the attention of the user with flashy graphics, banners, pop-ups, pop-unders and the like. We all got fed up with that rather quickly, which is why most browsers now allow us to block out banner ads.

We are tuning out because we can. And new technologies provide us new tools to make sure we only see what we want to see. To get our attention, advertising messages have to be relevant and genuinely useful. And here’s the one that changes all the rules: Advertisers have to ask before they sell.
Listed below are some “mobile secrets” – things we all probably know but don’t want to admit.

Mobile secret #1 “Mobile operators don’t collect the information advertisers need”

Mobile operators and technology companies talk in terms of APRU, CPM and churn figures.  Advertisers speak in terms of reach, frequency, brand values and gross rating points.  This means that mobile operators don’t collect the sort of information that advertisers need such as gender, age and lifestyle preferences of their customers.  Thankfully this I starting to change, but there is still a gap between what advertisers need and operators collect.

Mobile secret #2 “no-one ever got sacked for buying TV”

Unfortunately the “TV guys” in any media buying agency seem to always win out.  Everyone knows that a well filmed commercial “sells stuff”. How much they actually sell, and who they sell it to is less understood however.  Mobile has the opportunity to deliver the right ad, to the right person, at the right time – but the “big guys” in TV spend the entire ad budget and mobile only gets the scraps at the moment.

Mobile secret #3 “We’re a bit scared that mobile may expose the lack of transparency with TV ratings” – quote from an Ad executive

This is a real threat.  If mobile does ever get off the ground and become a mainstream advertising channel, then it will absolutely expose that the TV ratings system is fundamentally flawed as it only looks at a small cross section of the community and applies statistical modeling rather than actually looking at the real viewing and buying habits of actual users in real time.

Mobile secret #4 “we’re not interested in CPM or click-through rates…we just want to sell products”

This was a real quote from a large FMCG company.  Technology companies know how to sell based on THEIR metrics – but not based on the metrics of the ones paying the bills – the advertisers.

One of David Ogilvy’s mantras was “Ultimately advertising must sell…or else”. Unfortunately some companies are too focused on wining advertising awards rather than effectiveness awards.  Any advertisement developed must ultimately lead to the sale of the product featured – otherwise it is useless.

Mobile secret #5 “Small is beautiful with mobile”.

Because mobile has the ability to highly target advertising to make it relevant, meaningful (and acceptable) to the end user, it means that the reach will be smaller than TV (ie the right person is receiving the ad rather than everyone within earshot).  Ultimately this means that mobile will deliver smaller numbers, but the return on investment will be higher because of a massive reduction in ad spillage and waste – advertising seen by the wrong person that does not lead to a sale.

Unfortunately, brand and advertising managers are measured and rewarded on large numbers – so the smaller (but better) numbers from mobile don’t get people excited – when they should.

Mobile secret #6 “Unless we heed the 3 Ps of mobile it will never take off as a medium”

Because mobile IS so personal, we need a new way of delivering “advertising” – and we need to adhere to the 3 Ps of mobile advertising:
•    Permission – people will decide what they see/receive/engage with
•    Privacy – people will decide where their data is and how it is used
•    Preference – people will decide what content they find relevant. Inference and assumption has limited lifespan.

About the Author

Based in London, Andrew Grill is an experienced General Manager and mobile advertising practitioner, as well as a leading mobile advertising evangelist and thought leader. A former resident of Sydney, for the last 4 years he has been active in the European market, and such he has a deep understanding of the digital, mobile and advertising space and is well connected to leading advertising agencies in London. He also sits on the UK Committee of the Mobile Marketing Association.

His career spans over 20 years working in senior positions across the entire value chain and as such has a deep understanding of the Telco and mobile advertising market from vendor, operator, analyst, consultant and media viewpoints.
He runs a popular blog on mobile advertising at www.londoncalling.mobi