Friday, March 5, 2010

Mobile on the Brain: Stop the Madness!

Mobile Madness
Image Source

Last night I moderated CIMA's "Mobile Madness" event. Had a great time riffing with the panel...

  • Courtney Jane Acuff - VP, Director, Denuo
  • Erin (Mack) McKelvey - Senior VP Marketing, Millennial Media
  • Gian Fulgoni - Chairman, comScore
  • Josh Cherfoli - Online & Relationship Marketing Manager, Porsche Cars North America

Here are the Q's I asked -- almost all of which were on my initial prep sheet, that was a first! -- along with highlights from panelists responses.

Basics

Let’s get our terminology down. When we’re talking about navigating the Internet on our phones, we call it the mobile web. So what do we call it when we’re navigating the web on computers and laptops?

Gian - Fixed Internet
Courtney - it's just the Internet!
Josh - I like to call it the fat web.

Formats

It seems like display ads from folks like AdMob, Quattro, and Millennial provide the most scale right now for marketers and the most monetization for publishers. But that seems like such a Web 1.0 way of doing things. “Let’s just take the ads we run on the fat and put them on the mobile web.” There has to be a smarter way to take advantage of a device that is more personal and boasts voice and geo-location capabilities. So what's the “killer” mobile marketing app? Has it been conceived yet?

Mack - you have to fish where the fish are and right now that on WAP sites and apps.

Per eMarketer, in 2012, the split in mobile advertising spend will be almost equal between messaging, display, and search. If you had to pick one that you think will come out on top, which would you pick and why?

Courtney - search is a gateway drug.

Budgets

Per eForecasts, there will be 3 times as many mobiles as PCs by 2010. Why don’t brands spend 3x on mobile as they do on standard online ads?

Gian - it always takes time for marketers to adopt new channels.

Should all marketers be active in mobile or are there some that just aren’t a fit? How do you respond to marketers that say, “We need to build a mobile app” the way they said “We need a Facebook page” last year?

Courtney - If I have to give another Mobile 101...

Do all brands need a WAP site?

Everyone - yes!

Audience

Why is Porsche active in mobile? It's just kids out there texting and no-one ever bought a car from their cell phone?

Josh - we want to let our audience consume our content wherever and whenever they want.

Tools

What tools are available to help marketers and agencies deploy SMS campaigns?

Mack - Vibes Media has a good one (plugs Jack Philbin in audience).

Measurement

What are best practices for measuring mobile marketing? Do most standard ad servers and web analytics technologies incorporate mobile metrics? Does comScore have mobile-specific measurement capabilities?

Gian - comScore has a 40,000 person mobile panel. The metric to measure sure ain't the click!

Mack - ad servers like DoubleClick and Atlas are compatible for mobile and the networks have their own in-house servers too.

Best Practices

Can you share an example of a mobile campaign that you’ve personally worked on that succeeded?

Courtney gave an awesome example from HP but it was way too intense and complex to recap here.

Given that mobile's so hard to plan and execute, what's the best way to approach it? (Think I made reference at this point to holing up in a room with white boards and a joint.)

Courtney - get all the decision-makers and gatekeepers together at the outset.

What’s the biggest mistake marketers make when approaching mobile?

Josh - not thinking about the objectives.

Future

What will the mobile landscape look like in 5 years? What will be the role of Google in mobile marketing? Apple? The carriers?

Gian - don't rule out the carriers. They're gonna be more than just dumb pipes!

Update 3/8: Good recap of the discussion and some of Courtney's finer points on the Denuology blog.

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails