OPINION: The mobile marketing buzz

I just finished reading a snippet that said the global mobile advertising market is expected to hover around the $7 billion mark by 2017, which included about $5.7 billion in mobile-media advertising spending and $893 million in "local ads," or geo-targeted coupons of the sort Groupon and Foursquare currently offer.

Closer home, there are reports that over the next few years, Asia-Pacific is poised to overtake North America and Europe in mobile advertising revenue. Reports also state that by 2015 Asia-Pacific will be the largest market, accounting for 30.9 percent of the global mobile ad market (mostly due to strong growth in China and India).

Many people are using the terms 'mobile marketing' and 'mobile advertising' interchangeably these days. Often it seems like an unapproachable road that is dotted with a large number of players displaying a large variety of fare, which in my personal experience can be both intimidating and at times misleading. This includes the ubiquitous app creation and push lobby, the mobile ad network lobby, the mobile real-time bidding lobby and even an ‘advertising in the mobile app’ lobby…the list is indeed a little too long and dreary for comfort.

But does this mobile marketing buzz really hold a strong signal?

The life of the mobile consumer

Consumers are steadily buzzing about their daily routines at work, home and outdoors, all the while interacting with the various ‘touchpoints’ that are effectively the enablers and fulfilling channels of the intended output of each leg of that routine.

And there are a multitude of these enablers, including the office PC, the tablet, the OOH signage board, the transit TV screen, the home PC, the television, the gaming console, the mobile phone—I could go on for a while. But how much does the consumer direct his attention span to laboriously crafted messages being embedded across these touch points? Other than engaging with the touchpoints (devices) in the intended and practically useful methods (like possibly using a smart phone app to search out a location in the city while in transit or book a cab, for example), does the consumer really pay heed to the brouhaha in the market place about mobile marketing?

I deem it pertinent to quote snippets of a recent IAB/Ipsos MediaCT study that said the majority of TV viewers are consulting a connected device while watching TV. And the pecking order for this 'second screen' was the smartphone, followed by the tablet, followed by the PC. And little does it surprise me to learn that the majority are using these devices for activities like email, social networking, and texting, which are anything but connected to the TV program itself.

While in the US a significant proportion of ‘second screeners’  engage in discussoin of the TV show tey are watching (including voice chatting, surprisingly), in lesser evolved markets in this part of the world, these second and third screens are being used for anything but discussing the TV show.

Little surprise that smartphones are the most popular when it comes to ‘multi-tasking’ devices, given the lower involvement form-factor. Do I want to read an article or an e-book in a smartphone? No! Do I want to watch my favorite Ancient Aliens episodes in a smartphone? No! Do I want to buzz around about the TV show using the smartphone? No…Not when my tablet is at a stone’s throw away!

So, would the teeny-weeny ads that appear alongside mobile-enabled sites that one ‘might’ browse catch the eye, elicit a click, and, pushing it further, perhaps even trigger an action (a purchase)? Would an ad embedded within an app that you are using for a specific purpose push you to click on it and perhaps do a purchase or a sign up?

I don't want to tarry longer on these highly questionable propositions but rather trigger a few more thoughts. Would you download an application designed to help you read the review of a latest blockbuster or enable you to find a location or help you do easy shopping on-the-go? No wonder the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) app is one of the most popular apps around, agnostic to the usage in a mobile phone or a tablet! No wonder Taobao Mobile (part of Alibaba in China) is reported to process merchandise volume of US$28 million.

Where is the road ahead?

There is little doubt that mobile penetration across the world is burgeoning at an incredible pace and that smartphones are starting to chew off larger chunks of that pie at an eye-popping pace. There are many markets that have mobile-phone penetration above 100 per cent, with multiple devices per owner, while the usage of other mobile devices such as tablet PCs is growing at a commendable pace, which in turn is offering an immense potential beyond doubt.

But whether the reported 4 billion (and growing) mobile user contingent lives up to the expectations of the ever-lobbying mobile marketing solution providers and agencies will depend on the relevance of the product/service, the proposition it brings forth, the tactic that propels the message and the device that carries the message to the end-consumer.

Before I sign off, here is one last snippet that I stumbled upon that reported a recent powwow of digital strategists in the Internet Week panel, on the ‘Future of Mobile Marketing’. One guy said he had no idea what he was doing there, while another quipped, “We’re making it up as we go along”. Yet another gave a clichéd response that it is all about ‘social’ and ‘experience’ while the last guy, methinks, made an off-tangent yet stellar comment. He said the question itself is wrong because in five to 10 years mobile and data aspects will get integrated into the human body.

Can you fast forward a bit and imagine the advanced advertiser algorithms catching a figment of indecent thought from a wayward synapse inside your brain and displaying a commendably ‘thematic’ ad on to your Google Glasses?

Methinks that indeed is the future!