“What’s Driving Mobile Advertising” Event in Palo Alto
There’s a DealMaker Strategy Series event on Mobile Advertising in Palo Alto on August 15th. I’m all registered and planning to head out. Having seen AdMob grow over the last year from the inside it’s always nice to step back and bit and see what other folks are thinking about the industry as a whole. There’s all sorts of niches that we don’t touch on at all (incentive and loyalty programs, video pre-roll and post-roll placements, SMS marketing, near field communication, in-game and idle screen advertising, etc.) Different segments of potential marketers have skews toward different mechanisms, and frequently once they start thinking about one they stop thinking about the others.
This session seems like it could lean toward the big brand advertisers, many of whom are looking in the video direction. Cool stuff, but last I checked there were lots of issues with metrics and reporting in that medium. How are “impressions” reported, or is audience bought via a different grouping? How can a potential advertiser reuse create across multiple networks? Everyone has their own format and own report structure, it’s very hard to aggregate multiple network buys into a single campaign and measure results symmetrically. And most of the individual networks don’t have the scale yet to provide a very compelling alternative to existing video distribution methods. Multimedium campaigns could shift the needle there, but has the same set of issues with standardization and reporting structure. The brands are hesitant to move without strong success stories. But the medium is really best suited to folks who have video content they can repurpose and the production capability to create a compelling video ad, so it’s tilted somewhat away from the experimental smaller buyer. The evolution should be interesting to watch. It’s got a big hump to make it over, but I think the potential is huge once it does.
