Media Quake

We’ve (especially me) been digging around in the mobile space for a good six months now as part of our mission to go to the bottom of the ocean on a few topics, come up to the surface and report back to each other on what the hell we found down there. IPTV is the responsibility of a couple of others round our way.

And, just like in online (and IPTV probably), one of the things that defines the potential for mobile advertising is how well advertisers and their agencies will be able to value the interaction of a user with their ads.

Interaction is what currently defines the online market. For example, Google accounts for 50%-plus of the UK online advertising market because the interaction advertisers generate through its ads can be directly linked to sales. FMCG – and brand awareness-based ad spend generally – remains small on the web because (for a whole host of reasons) they remain unable to link online interaction with uplifts in brand measures like propensity to buy, awareness, etc. etc.

So, to figure out which mobile formats will be successful, which types of content will generate ad revenues and which sectors will spend on it, all we have to ask ourselves is: “How will mobile interaction be valued?”

Of course the clearest way in which advertisers can value a user’s interaction with mobile media is by enabling them to ring direct, which is why all the hoo-ha about click-to-call. This is the mobile equivalent of search obviously, but while online it is recruitment, finance, travel, cars and technology firms that have most been able to pin a value on an interaction, in mobile it might be different because of its particular characteristics. If we take ‘I want it here and now’ as being one such characteristic, then car repair, locksmiths, and takeaway spring first to mind. So, classic B2C classified advertising is one major area to back for growth.

But, another thing to look out for is how the online market itself is evolving. TV broadcasters are starting to find that ad slots in their online video-on-demand services are selling out – and for high CPMs. Ordinarily, banners on broadcaster sites around non-vertical content such as ‘How clean is your house?’ would sell for £10CPM at the most – if they sold at all. VOD spots we hear are now at £40CPM.

So how have they done it? By taking the sell away from the digital department of the media agency, which is understandably obsessed with valuing interaction (that’s where the money is after all), and walking it down the corridor to the TV department where they couldn’t give a monkey’s about all of the above.

TV buyers and planners don’t go through complex equations to work out the CPC and CPA of any particular creative on any particular site in any particular section – they just buy spots on the basis of demographics, reach and frequency where they can put their ‘high impact’ (TV) messages – all of which online video (now) can deliver on a par with traditional telly – and it’s on demand!

Mobile can play the same game. I’ve met some doubters on the prospect of mobile TV but they just need to see the iPlayer on the iPhone, or even download a show on the iPod, to change their mind.

So, if media owners, for example, want to understand where the potential for ad revenues on mobile is, they need to understand that there are two hands they can play: one talks to digital buyers and is embedded in valuing mobile interaction, the other takes them a floor higher and delivers what TV buyers have wanted from online all along – somewhere else to slap their 30-second spots.

Filed under: Mobile