When AIMIA’s Mobile Industry Group invited to a presentation of the new mobile advertising standards, we were naturally keen to go. Are interesting models and formats in place, binding definitions crafted to allow the market to evolve beyond experimental and low-reach or alternatively keep-it-as-simple-as-you-can measures?
Well, there are now AIMIA definitions of what constitutes mobile advertising, what banner sizes are recommended and many more technical guidelines that hopefully help agencies and clients to build satisfying mobile sites and experiences. Vodafone’s David Green declared that Vodafone will use the AIMIA definitions and that all traffic to ad-microsites linked to by banners on Vodafone Live! will not be measured against customer’s data plans. Those definitions and more of those customer-friendly carrier and publisher decisions will definitely help in making mobile sites and content more popular through advertising funding.
But the examples of current mobile ads were fairly uninspiring as are the areas in which they advertise. 90-seconds free-to-air TV content with a DRM licence valid for three days, all for the price of $4.95: Compelling indeed. Hubert Kjellberg, Head of Content at Ericsson echoed that thought in his summary by saying that carriers will have to define their role. Are they re-sellers of ringtones and pre-packaged content or traffic enablers to the truly interesting circus of social networking and consumer-generated content? (the last addition not being from Hubert).
Update: A lengthy piece appeared with Hubert in SMH in which we ad people supposedly drool just thinking about mobile advertising. Well, the precision targeting of users is something we will relish but let’s not forget that a mobile phone client might by comparison seem like a blank canvas compared to a facebook user.
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