How Google’s new mobile ad units could redefine user expectations

When you type “reinvent the mobile ad unit” into Google, nothing very interesting comes up. But maybe that’s because the best search result is contained within the corporate strategy of Google itself.

Late last week the company announced the introduction of two new formats for companies creating mobile apps to consider as they fight the ongoing battle to be noticed amid a sea of competitors and easily-distracted smartphone users. The first, “interactive interstitials,” promise a way of letting consumers do something other than look for a way to close interstitials as quickly as possible. Some of the examples cited in a Google blog post include swiping past the ad, Tinder-style, to get to an exclusive offer, or letting people “scratch and save” on their smartphone screen rather than a piece of paper.

The other ad format, called “Trial Runs,” are targeted specifically at those making mobile games and offer a 60-second digital sample of what consumers will get if they wind up installing the app. An article on TechCrunch summed it up well:

These are not looping videos, or even web versions of the app. Instead, Google’s app streaming technology, which came to the company by way of an acquisition of a startup called Agawi, involves the app running on virtual machines on Google’s cloud platform. The cloud machine renders the app, executes the end users’ touch interactions, then sends the pixels back down to the client. In other words, users will be able to play with a live, working mobile app in the mobile ad.

Until I took this job, one of my main projects was editing a U.S. online magazine for mobile game developers, and I can tell you that one of their biggest pain points was getting people to make the commitment to download. The benefits of Trial Run ads could extend not only to the developer but to brands who run in-game mobile ads (a key form of monetization in this sector).

This is also not just an experiment that should interest mobile game creators but marketers in general. Both formats are great illustrations of serving content as ads. By “content,” I don’t mean just interesting marketing material. I mean the final product delivered as an ad, rather than content that distracts the consumer from what he or she had gone to their device to consume. In some respects, it’s not unlike Facebook’s decision to launch Instant Articles, keeping content as part of its platform rather than having its platform merely advertise content elsewhere.

If these approaches are successful, it’s going to be more difficult for marketers and brands that specialize in digital content to offer anything less than their final product (at least in partial or limited form) through an ad experience. The ad is (and probably should be) becoming less of a gate or wall than a welcoming moment or the first step of the customer onboarding process. Google may or may not have found the right answer to this problem, but it’s something marketers everywhere should be searching for.