All posts in Mobile Advertising

What do you picture when you hear the words “mobile advertising banners”? Probably some 2 or 3 frame, unengaging, pixelated GIF that reminds you of the web in the 1990s. While it’s true they often get a better click through rate than online, this is usually down to the fact that it’s the largest graphical element on the mobile screen.

Mobile banners haven’t really changed much in the last 4 years, however phones have improved beyond recognition with faster processors, 3G capabilities and better screens. However just as important is the improvement in handset targeting by advertising networks, this enables mobile websites to serve ads based on the capabilities of each phone model – so basically serving better ads to better phones.

As you know the mobile landscape is changing, Apple and Google both are now owners of the hardware, software and advertising networks. This means they completely control the mobile advertising eco-system for their handsets, free from the constraints that have handicapped creativity in this part of the industry for so long.

In the future advertising units & banners will have access to features on the phone, either through Flash, Flash Lite or HTML5. We’ve already seen Google’s ‘Near Me Now’ function on its website which directly accesses the phones GPS unit to provide shops and restaurants nearby. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see the accerometer used in the same way.

For those of you who don’t know, the accelerometer is the component in the phone which measures tilt, motion, shaking and swinging. It is responsible for sensing if the handset is portrait or landscape and switches the display accordingly. The iPhone was arguably the first real phone to ultilise it fully within its user interface and applications.

Aaaand did you know that Flash Lite 3.0 already has the power to access to data from the accelerometer on phones such as the Nokia 5800? Flash developers head here and here for example code. Oh and Flash Lite works WITHIN the browser so the following examples can be done today! (I’ll be covering this more in my next post)

Enough talking fool, show me some examples!

So what kind of unique, engaging, mobile-only experiences could you create using this technology?

Here are some examples of online banners that would fit perfectly with the accelerometer and the mobile web. These are a mixture of Flash banners and whole page takeovers, they inspired me and hopefully they’ll get your imagination and creative juices flowing about the possibilities of mobile advertising.

Wario Shake It

This is absolutely perfect for mobile, shaking your phone to set off all the elements falling. Plus Flash Lite has access to the vibration on the phone so this could shake the phone too!. Check it out here

Fiat ABS Banner

Imagine interacting with this by tilting your phone. Great Ad.

Read more…

This is a great follow up to my previous post about the problems with location-based SMS advertising.

Two weeks ago, O2 launched their very own SMS advertising network called O2 More. The opt-in program aims to “deliver highly personalised campaigns for advertisers and give customers access to a wide range of exclusive and relevant offers from over 50 leading brands.”

It works by the O2 customer signing up and filling out their age and interests online (picture below), O2 will also use their location and usage data:

What other information will be used for O2 More?

Only things we know about how you use your phone since you’ve been on O2. For example, if we know you download music to your phone, we may send you details of a music offer. We want to make the messages you receive from us as relevant as possible.

I dug around and found the O2 Sim card I used for the AQA vs 118188 test and signed up for O2 More. Check out the registration screen below (click to enlarge).

This is the first time one of the big four operators has opened up their customer data to brands and it’s probably long overdue. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been done years ago so why now? Are brands and consumer attitudes changing?

Shaun Gregory, managing director of O2 Media said in a statement:

“Mobile advertising has been slow to deliver on its promise. Much of that has been down to a lack of understanding, limited opportunities and no real accountability or measurement. O2 More is about to change all that and will spearhead the UK’s first truly personalized media business.”

Why Now?

I personally think that operators are seeing power shift over to manufacturers and are making (slightly vain) attempts to combat this. For a long time operators have been holding all the cards for targeted mobile advertising, they have your location, personal details (when you sign the contract) and even your browsing habits. But now everything has changed, advances in technology means that the handset can do all of this and more, putting the manufacturers in pole position.

Read more…

[Image by Scott Campbell]

Aside from doing the mobile marketing campaign stuff, I also spend a lot of time designing WAP sites and mobile banners for various promotions that require landing pages/advertising across different publisher sites. I’ve been making mobile banners since 2006 when I was at Enpocket and even though mobile has come a long way to become cemented in advertising and brand strategy, some things are still exactly the same as they were 3 years ago…there is a serious lack of love for the mobile banner.

If you work in advertising/creative in any shape or form you will have no doubt come across brand guidelines before, these are the documents provided to agencies, partners and freelancers to ensure that the company is represented clearly and consistently both inside and outside the organisation. This includes rules for print, outdoor and online, such as size of logo, spacing between elements, colours, tone of voice etc. The guidelines often need to followed to the letter otherwise any designs you’ve done will get thrown out during the brands internal sign off process. This is where the trouble begins…

I’ve made hundreds mobile banners and WAP sites, in that time I’ve seen brand guidelines include specifications for mobile just once - both for regular advertisers and those dipping their toes in. Instead you’re expected to apply the same rules and assets for online to any mobile designs. This causes a number of problems because in many cases, it’s impossible to do on mobile.

Mobile screens are small and banners are even smaller (as well as being highly restricted but more on that later). Meaning that any logos, graphics and mandatory slogans/copy often become illegible as they scale down. You would assume this allows you some leeway with getting designs approved, after all if you can’t make out half the things in the advert it’s pretty pointless.

Often the only way to fit something into a banner is by re-working some of the assets, such as making a portrait logo into landscape by moving the elements side by side or removing some copy heavy slogans. Nothing radical. But exceptions are rarely made by brand teams, partly because they don’t understand the limitations of mobile or have anything other than online to reference it against. This means they would rather let barely legible creative through the approval process than something that is clearer, more effective and likely to get a click. Once brand team sign-off the creative it usually goes live without anyone from the company checking it over again as responsibility is delegated. In the end you’re left with a banner that leaves you wondering “who is actually going to click on this thing?”.

Check out this logo I picked completely at random as an example:

The static banners above show the difference it makes by adapting for mobile. Would you rather have your advert unrecognisable but adhere to the guidelines? Or work on getting the best out of your money by considering how to adapt for the medium?

Some brands have logos, slogans and assets that luckily already work well for mobile but those who don’t can count the cost in a number of ways including:

• The ad campaign doesn’t perform well, wasting money and affecting the brands confidence in spending money on mobile advertising again in the future.
• The poor quality creative has a direct effect on the consumers perception of the brand, which is kinda ironic after the brand team signs it off.
• The brands Competitors DO create mobile brand guidelines, making their ads look considerably better to the consumer.

Working on the ad-serving team at Nokia, I got to see how major ad campaigns were doing and it’s no surprise that click through rates have a direct correlation to the quality of creative. If I would have had all the banner creatives on the screen and hidden the results, you could have easily guessed which ones got the best CTR just by looking at the graphics. Obviously there are other elements involved in attracting the user to make that click but in my opinion the creative is the most important. If it wasn’t then everyone would just run text ads right? In Google’s own words, “Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information.” Read more…