Mobile Ad Firms in 2009: Breakout Year or Lingering Holding Pattern?
Will 2009 finally be the year in which the mobile advertising industry finally takes flight? According to the January 2009 print edition of Mass High Tech, the answer is a firm, unwavering, definite maybe.
According to the piece, industry intelligence culled from a report published by research firm Gartner Inc. projected a lofty $12.8 billion in worldwide mobile advertising sales by 2011, up from $1.7 billion in 2007. The reason for that tenfold growth? The explosive growth of mobile applications and social networking sites that offer their users mobile connectivity.
Analysts, however, are quick to temper their enthusiasm for the “new” mobile advertising paradigm until it gains significant buy-in from the advertisers themselves. That’s not to say major brands haven’t bought into the idea of mobile advertising, but rather, they’ve bought in only to a certain point, and tend to spend more of their advertising dollars elsewhere. The reason? In mobile advertising, an extremely high number of click-throughs are needed to generate significant revenue. For example, according to the MHT piece, mobile social networking site Mocospace, operated by JNJ Mobile, Inc., a Boston-based mobile advertising company, generates a billion page views per month, but is not yet profitable.
Is Garner’s projection too rosy? That’s the trouble with the prognosticating business: one can use fundamentally sound analysis to come up with perfectly logical figures, and then one tiny, unforeseen thing happens, and the projection collapses like a house of cards, and, in hindsight, seems utterly ridiculous. Ultimately, the universal cop-out applies: time will tell. The idea is sound, the paradigm, ultimately, is nothing new, but who knows how customers react to mobile advertising? It’s all going to come down to utility and motivation. Is it useful? Is it easy? Does it provide value? Is it compelling?
In the end, the users will have the ultimate say. So think about it: you’re on the phone, you’re out and about, you’re trying to get something done. What kind of ad would motivate you to do something right then and there? Services like JitterGram.com might have the ultimate answer, as they push ads users subscribe to–they’re already preaching to the choir.
By Robert Pothier
