Should iPhone Be The Only Focus For Mobile Advertisers?

In its Mobile Metrics report published for the month of August, AdMob, the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace, reported that the company served more than 35 million ads on this popular device during the month. The company’s new rich media ad units designed for the iPhone have been live for just over a month and now have a reach of more than 100 million impressions worldwide each month. Ads on the iPhone deliver strong engagement for advertisers with triple, on average, the already high click-through-rates seen on mobile. This speaks volumes about the opportunity that iPhone offers for mobile advertising.

Speaking at CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008, Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO, AdMob, said "The iPhone clearly demonstrates how mobile advertising is evolving to become a rich, interactive environment for advertisers to engage with consumers. Advertisers want to reach this valuable audience of consumers on the iPhone and are looking for a partner with the quality reach, scale and technology necessary to help them take advantage of the unique capabilities and context of this device. We are seeing a real impact across our larger mobile ad network as advertisers discover mobile through the iPhone, run successful campaigns and come back again with even more of their budget."

Brands take on to the iPhone

Many brand and performance advertisers have already run campaigns on AdMob’s iPhone network since launch. These include:

• Brand: EA Mobile, Herbal Essences, Universal Studios’ The Mummy 3, Land Rover, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fox Searchlight’s Choke, MGM’s College, Summit Films’ Sex Drive, Toshiba, CBS News, Luxor Hotel, and DirecTV
• Performance: vSNAX Videos, Stitcher, Loopt, Moblyng, SnapMyLife, Zkout, Whrrl, and HappyAppy’s Expando, ClockBlock, and Word Whirl

Speaking about the experience of advertising with AdMob on iPhone, Joao Machado, Associate Media Director, MEC Global said, "Land Rover wanted to reach the valuable audience of consumers on the iPhone and AdMob’s new iPhone-specific ad units allowed us to create a uniquely engaging campaign. AdMob brings the quality reach and built-for-mobile technology that makes it easy for us to connect with our target audience on their iPhones."

Should iPhone be the only focus for mobile advertisers?

However, experts also believe that although, advertisers and marketers are trying to discover how to tap into this new medium to reach new customers, it should not be the only focus for mobile advertisers. The Apple iPhone, which is seen to have revolutionized mobile computing is owned by only a small number of people around the world. Lai Kok Fung, co-founder and chief executive officer of BuzzCity, a developer of global wireless communities and consumer services, believes that mobile advertising is just as effective on smaller, more mainstream “mass market” phones. In an article "IPhone Advertising - Not The Only Game on the Mobile Web", he stated that in spite of the apparent disadvantages to advertising on devices with smaller, more compact displays, it is not the number of advertisements but the effectiveness of the advertisement that matters is especially true with the mobile medium.

He also said that advertising is better or more effective on the iPhone due to its large screen size, in which the ads are displayed properly, the broader group of mobile phone users who use these mass market phones constitutes an outstanding opportunity for advertisers and marketers. Smartphones like the iPhone and its various clones will help the market fulfill the various predictions made for mobile advertising, however, for the foreseeable future the mass market phone will continue to be the dominant method of accessing mobile data services, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Mr. Lai stated that the most compelling argument for targeting the broader "non-smartphone" market is sheer scale.Unlike the iPhone and other smartphones, the mass market phone by far gives advertisers the all-important scale, in term of users. This is something marketers should recognize as a key component to finding success in mobile, and a real opportunity for those who recognize this fact.

"Advertisers and marketers who want to tap the potential of the mobile medium will be well-served to broaden their focus and look beyond just the iPhone and devices like it in order to tap into this new way to target and reach new customers around the world. While the iPhone presents a great opportunity for more dynamic mobile advertising, it is just a slice of the larger pie, " Mr. Lai.

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AdMob delivers advertisements suited for iPhone

AdMob’s innovative new iPhone ad formats take advantage of the context and capabilities of the device to blend graphical display ads with one of eight iPhone-specific actions such as one-touch access to the app store, maps to view relevant locations, audio to listen to content, or the ability to view video. The ads are designed to function in either the browser environment or native applications built for the iPhone and come in both brand and performance formats. The two most used iPhone-specific ad actions in the first month were one-touch access to the Apple apps store and to play a video. The explosive growth in both mobile Web usage on and application downloads for the iPhone has fueled the growth of this marketplace. More than 1,000 sites and applications, including AccuWeather, MovieTickets.com, TapTap Revenge, SportsTap, and BubbleWrap, have joined AdMob’s iPhone advertising network and run ads since it launched just over a month ago.

AdMob, Quattro Strike iPhone Ad Deals

The number of options for advertisers looking to reach the tech savvy, heavy-mobile-media consuming iPhone set are expanding nearly as quickly as the device’s user base. Two prominent companies which specialize in selling ads across multiple mobile Web sites—AdMob and Quattro, have announced new offerings for advertisers hoping to tap into the red hot device.

AdMob, which sells ads on the mobile sites for publishers such as AccuWeather, CBS News and CNET, a, is looking to expand it’s purview to include the exploding number of applications for the iPhone. The company has announced it has recently begun selling advertising for several of the thousand of iPhone applications, including Loopt and SportsTap.

AdMob competitor Quattro Wireless–which both powers and sells advertising on mobile sites like CBSNews.com, NFL.com and TMZ.com–has announced a partnership with the application company uLocate to deliver location based targeted ads within it’s popular iPhone App Where.

This will enable advertisers will be able to run highly local and highly targeted ads based on users searches for local information, such as queries for retailers and restaurants.

Sources: Business Wire, Adotas, Media Week

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