Most people have heard a version of the following scenario: A grocery shopper is prompted to text to a short code to instantly receive a $5-off coupon. The coupon pops up on their mobile and he or she uses it at the cash register. The exciting part for marketers isn’t just the powerful point-of-purchase proposition, but the ability to measure that interaction-how many people received and redeemed the coupon, and whether it was used immediately. The value is in the cost-per-action of the text communication.
Marketers might even be able to build their databases by finding out the sex, age and postal code of the coupon users. And therein lies the promise of mobile advertising in Canada, if not quite the reality. “We have been attempting to do something like that for one of our clients,” says Peter Vas, vice-president, director of digital, M2 Universal, “but the logistics are quite difficult.”
The problem: Mobile coupons would be delivered in the form of a two-dimensional or QR code, but it’s expensive for retailers to equip all of their stores with 2-D scanners. Unfortunately, says Vas, most text-based ads don’t yet possess a strong back end-the only real measurement in most campaigns is the response to the short code, which is comparable to only measuring the click-through on a banner ad without being able to follow the customer interaction to a possible sale.
The mobile industry involves a number of players with different, and sometimes competing, interests including advertisers, ad agencies, publishers, mobile technology firms and wireless carriers. The latter group is cautious about invading the privacy of subscribers, making it more difficult for marketers to buy mobile advertising based on concrete demographic information. That’s just one roadblock, not to mention the confusion around the difference between on-deck and off-deck platforms (see “On-Deck, Off-Deck explained”).
If the path of the U.S. is any indication, wireless carriers may be loosening their hold on customer information. Sprint Nextel, for instance, said late last year that it would help advertisers with mobile web buys by targeting ads on their mobile pages based on users’ demographics such as hometown and gender. What should also help is the standardizing of publishing ad formats across carriers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s mobile advertising committee in New York, chaired by Gary Schwartz, president and founder of Impact Mobile, is working on measurement and creative guidelines. “Media buyers need to be able to come in and buy inventory without having to worry that every single vendor they go to is selling them a different [ad] format and at a different price,” says Schwartz. “Mobile is sort of the wild, wild west right now, and so people don’t even know how to buy this stuff and how, exactly, to measure it.”
With standardized formats, certain types of ads could be compared to other types regardless of the carrier. Schwartz also believes mobile web-and other ad applications such as search and video-will benefit from such standards similar to the experience of online advertisers once acceptable standards for skyscraper ads and the like were implemented.
In Quebec, marketing and technology provider Mobilito owns mobile ad serving technology which can create nifty mobile buys: After a user clicks on a banner ad, for instance, it then delivers an unique SMS message on behalf of the advertiser, perhaps in the form of a coupon or an e-mail/RSS registration. But the technology has not yet been deployed for a single advertiser, says Malik Yacoubi, CEO of Montreal-based Mobilito, because content publishers and wireless carriers have not yet come to an agreement on an ad revenue-sharing model.
“Nobody wants to be the first publisher to agree to share their ad dollars with wireless carriers,” says Yacoubi, even if they are willing to do so. In the meantime, he says most mobile media buys are restricted to text, and one way to track it beyond the initial response is to provide a code that can be entered online for, say, a discount on an e-commerce purchase. “For the mobile media buy in Canada to truly mature,” says Tacoubi, “we need the industry to open up.”
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On-Deck, Off-Deck explained | ||
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One of the most muddled areas of the mobile web is the issue of “decks.” On-deck is a limited menu on a cellphone controlled by wireless carriers like Rogers, Telus or Bell. Content publishers such as The Weather Network and social media websites like MySpace strike deals with carriers to be featured on a particular menu. That’s why decks are different from carrier to carrier. Mobile content that is not featured on a carrier’s menu is off-deck, since mobile users would have to type in the web address to get to the content. “On-deck is the name of the game right now,” says Adrian Schauer, managing partner, Vortex Mobile, explaining that it is the most convenient option for cellphone users. That means any media buys would have to be executed, at least partially, on websites that are on-deck, since they generate the most traffic. Yet some in the industry believe off-deck could be the winning model in the long term. Some publishers are creating mobile websites without on-deck deals, since they would not have to share with a wireless carrier any of the ad revenues that might be generated, says Jeff Janner, chief marketing officer of Boston-based Third Screen Media. Advertisers like HSBC and Toyota have placed ads through Third Screen Media on the mobile websites of ESPN and USA Today. Janner says those advertisers generate, on average, a click-through rate of 4% to 5%, much higher than ads from online websites partly because of the novelty but also because there’s just less ad clutter. He says publishers are, for the moment, “pursuing the (on-deck and off-deck) models simultaneously. Off-deck is a much easier world to maintain with just one presence, but at least for now it is easier for a subscriber to go through the carrier’s portal than to cumbersomely punch in a long URL on a device.” As a result, media buys may include some combination of both on- and off-deck websites. And there’s also the potential for new generation mobile devices such as the iPhone-which offers web browsing on a user-friendly interface with a large screen-to shift to yet another, already established, scenario. “We could get to a point where mobile devices could access websites that are now online because of improved functionality and larger screens,” says Schauer, although he admits data charges would need to be much more affordable than they are now through options like flat fee, unlimited data transfers. He also says mobile websites would likely be unique, to provide contextual information like store locators and price comparators that would be of interest to wireless users. Nevertheless, “people would just access the web like they do on their personal computer.” -Chris Daniels | ||
