Clearly, when Steve Jobs sees an opportunity, he takes it. And it appears he feels that mobile marketing is one area that needs vast improvement. With the purchase of mobile ad network, Quattro Wireless, earlier this month, Steve Jobs and Apple are aiming to shake up the mobile marketing arena. According to an article in AdAge, new standards will be set to fall in line with what Apple (and the iPhone) have become known for – enriching the user experience. For instance, the company will be very strict about the allowing developers to utilize location-based information in their apps – unless it’s absolutely necessary to deliver a targeted ad to benefit the user experience, they will turn it down. Better ads and apps, of course, means more viewers and happier clients – and more money.
Currently, the majority of cell phones are still the old-fashioned kind (i.e., not PDAs like the iPhone or Blackberry), so most users aren’t getting cool applications or interactive ads anyway. According to Adweek, most mobile ads are static banners or text links. AdMob, the ad network Google purchased, boasted over 161 billion mobile ads, but over half were text links. So it would appear that even though mobile marketing had seemingly been gaining ground – it still has a long way to go.
But now, with Steve Jobs behind the wheel at Quattro, mobile marketing is bound to speed into the media limelight even faster. Mobile ad spending is slated to grow to $1.6 billion by 2013, according to TechCrunch, and now Apple is poised to take a big bite out of their competitors’ share.
As we reported before the holidays – no matter whether you’re taking your advertising dollars online, off-line or on the road – the basic principals of marketing still apply. You must define your objective, your audience, and have a great strategy and execution. Otherwise, don’t bother. Because if your message isn’t good, and if it doesn’t get to the right people – well, you’re just wasting your money.
Give us a shout here at smith&jones, and we’ll take a look to see if mobile makes sense for you.
