If mobile is the most important screen why are the ads so shit still?
While a new mobile audience measurement system is just weeks away the state of the creative product is the real issue the industry needs to address, argues Mumbrella editor Alex Hayes.
There are 56 websites and 38 apps in Australia with a unique monthly mobile audience of over 1m users per month.
Yet given these numbers, and the increasing move to mobile by consumers, it still surprises me how staggeringly bad the standard of creative is.There’s an issue that’s been facing publishers in Australia and globally for a while now: more people are accessing their content on mobile devices, but the price of mobile ads are unsustainably low.
And as things stand there are some pretty good reasons for that. Do you remember the last great mobile ad you saw? Have you ever clicked on a mobile ad on purpose? And how annoyed do you get when an interstitial pops up and you have no option to click on it?
Great article. I think this problem is definitely the last missing piece in mobile…. and probably the forgotten link. We started our company based on this problem and the hunger is definitely driven by the brand and/or agency but there is a lag between them and traditional publishers/creatives …and who then is actually responsible for delivery?. The tech and solutions are out there it’s just about making the move! Quality definitely matters.
Just like the event last week, a lot of moaning about the challenges facing mobile, but no real insight into what we should do to improve it.
Creative need improving, yep, we all agree on that. However, if articles such as these keep suggesting mobile users hand-to-eye co-ordination is the reason for high CTR’s then media planners will continue to drop mobile from their plans.
More insightful, helpful and educational articles will help drive the mobile market forward and encourage useful discussions. Articles like this are still part of the problem.
Mumbrella Asia covered this same angle this morning Alex… poor mobile creative really is holding things up
Mark
http://www.mumbrella.asia/2015.....-services/
Most ads are wallpaper. Flock velvet brown and boring. Hooray for Apple’s ad blocking move.
In the interests of keeping this light, I hope I don’t take it too deep.
Walking through a mine field is bound to make one nervous. Perhaps the ads are [quote] “So Shit” [unquote] because the audience here is more easily “Pissed off” by distraction. TV is more passive, more familiar, yet it offers more protection and control at a time when the viewer is essentially more relaxed.
I love the “Latin plural dilemma” so deftly created by the eggheads. [quote] “To make it comparable to other mediums like TV the data will be released overnight,” [unquote]
What about. “To make it comparable to other media like TV the datums will be released overnight,”
@Richard, good point. A user with intent is different to a user who is nonchalant.
There lies the challenge: when to hit users and with what (brand or exactly what they are wanting to find…). Search v push.
Whoever nails it might clean up. Or have they already? (Google.)
@MobilityUtility. It is a very high-touch product (mobile creative) so we have focused on being more closer to the consumer through media agencies (not saying we don’t work with other creative agencies/brand) but we find dynamically altering the creative to the right consumer/media approach is where you get the best traction… so its the last piece that has to be turned around very quick. We also have to remember that it is still an ad on a channel where people are on the go, so it is a fine line between producing rich creative experiences but also keeping the message short, simple and relevant.
@Nik
Makes sense.
Interstitials are great, even Google says so:
http://googlewebmastercentral......tials.html
How did we get to comment number eight without anyone mentioning attribution?
Or Facebook? They’re killing it on mobile because… well a number of reasons.
People have been saying this kind of thing for a while, that the audience is installing ad-blocker and ads need to be less obnoxious or the audience will be lost forever. Everyone saying it. No-one is hearing it.
All valid points. I’m going to add in that one major roadblock is the lack of ‘agility’ and ‘reactiveness’ when it comes to testing new ideas and concepts. My drum i am beating loudly at the moment is that while we are still stuck in a quagmire of slow releases and testing, nothing will improve.
How can brands and publishers truly be reactive and learn from new tech, tracking, data etc if they cannot operate in a fast moving, real-time environment of ‘idea, test, trial, remove, idea, trial, test, remove etc etc’ Right NOW it’s Test, —> send to developer, —->wait for app store to approve —> wait for user to maybe update app —>Trial—-> send to developer…… OMG, come on already industry, let’s move into the new world and find a better way! 🙂
Possibly some of the reasons mobile campaigns seem a little off-point is down to agency’s not ‘knowing’ the mobile space.. Brands enjoying the greatest results from mobile marketing are those who are adopting what is unique to mobile and combining that with what is our common user behaviour on the device.
The mobile device is not just an evolution of the desktop, it is a technology in its own right, offering a unique experience that the desktop simply cannot. So when considering a mobile execution we can’t simply just transfer the creative or even the messaging we have planned for desktop. The first thing we need to consider is what is unique to mobile? Is that a shake to reveal using the gyroscope, or a translation of the creative based on your location using GPS? Every award winning mobile campaign uses these basic fundamentals…what is unique and common. Marry that with context for your brand or product and trust me, you can have a winning formula for a mobile ad campaign
Huh, I don’t get it.
‘0% Interest No Deposit”. Plain as day. Harvey Norman don’t actually _want_ you to see the detail they are legally obligated to provide.
The Youtube thing – no idea what it is or that it’s an advertisement. No doubt it chews up heaps of bandwidth which is extremely expensive on mobile. Or if you’re using the free wi-fi it chews up your limit quickly.
>>”The mobile device is not just an evolution of the desktop, it is a technology in its own right”
Nope it’s just a mobile PC.
I agree Kristy, mobile isn’t just an evolution of display, it is a technology of it’s own. But where I disagree is the execution lead approach you talk about. I think it’s great that we can create executions that are exclusive to mobile but what’s even better is to create a mobile execution that has a native feel which we can tie in and remain consistent with other media channels.
To do this we need to be objective lead, what is the brand trying to achieve? What is the brand strategy? What is the marketing strategy? If we can answer these while thinking ‘mobile first’ then we will create a mobile execution with a native feel that may or may not incorporate a ‘shake to revel’, it’s about understanding the difference of behaviour across each channel to achieve a purpose.
To do this agencies may have to admit that they may not be the best people for the job and approach specialists.
it is of course the obvious question. The marketing industry keeps asking ” when will people start spending as much on mobile as TV ?” … when they see creative work that captures the essence of the medium. the discussion constantly ignores history. Less than a decade into real ability and audiences for mobile we struggle to find creative formats that provide a fuller and engrossing experience. Well guess what, from the launch of television until we saw a lot of what we now recall as the “great” early advertising took 15-20 years. Ever heard the early radio ads of the first decade of commercial radio .. they were magazine ads being read out aloud etc etc etc. The challenge is to explore, experiement and figure out what the medium is good at. Interesting that in a lot of the discussion about “mobile advertising creative” we see little use of mobility or of voice ( as in the users voice …. it is a phone after all ). Watch out though for the role of emoji only messaging , the new literacy, as the next great attempt to capture the mediums potential.
Agree that the state of creative, at least from retail is poor on mobile.
However it goes deeper than some banner ads.
The real issue here is the inaction of many retailers to produce unique and interesting content that customers want to consume.
It’s the content that drives the premise of a good ad experience on mobile.
Yawn.
Why not discuss how crap the coupon ads are on the back of your Woolies receipt?
The reason they are shite is because agencies charge for creative / production and are replicating what they are used to doing: print. Most mobile ad’s are crap because they are print ad’s online.
Clients take note. Do not fall for the big ‘branding sell’. Purpose, intent, transnational, call to action. Pretend that print never existed. What can you do on a screen, that does not hamper the user experience? In fact what can you do on a screen that delights the user?
Google pays users to fill in surveys…
transactional* (No such word, but not transnational.)
Just because I use my mobile all day doesn’t mean I’m exposed to watching ads on it. I barely receive any ads on my mobile day to day. Mobile is ironically very difficult to reach people on. And as has been said many times before mobile (and to an extent digital) is a better medium for FULFILLING a need on rather than CREATING the need in the first place.