Mobile advertising is set to make up over a third (37 per cent) of international spending growth this year, according to the latest ZenithOptimedia Advertising Expenditure Forecast. The Drum drew some reactions from across the industry to the news.
Ellie Edwards-Scott, MD of Quisma UK
Ever since the Olympics, we’ve seen a shift in peoples’ attitudes towards mobile. We’ve gone from talking about it being year of mobile to actual tangible change in both consumer behaviour and brand adoption this year in terms of usage. Consumer response has morphed with the medium too, as options like click to download respond to the user experience and give advertisers tangible results. It’s not a surprise that ZenithOptimedia are predicting such a huge proportion of growth in spend to come from mobile in the year to come. It has been found that tablets especially have been excellent at generating user response. Research that we’ve conducted into retail tablet usage has found that tablet users tend to have higher basket values. This year we decided to launch QUISMA Mobile in line with Group M’s agencies’ needs as there has been such an upswing in spend within mobile sector.
Andy Beames, senior sales manager, BlisMedia
It’s no great surprise to hear that mobile advertising spend will account for one third of advertising growth this year. This further proves the growing importance mobile plays as an indispensable ‘always-on’ part of any brand’s marketing plan. Mobile is really coming into its own – smartphone penetration is huge and new tablets such as the Kindle, Nexus and now Hudl are bringing tablet screens to increasing numbers of people – therefore brands need to ensure they have a mobile strategy, offering cross platforms solutions to engage with audiences which will be consuming media on different devices at different points in their day. Ad formats are getting smarter and smarter with a number of rich media suppliers such as Celtra really innovating and offering advertisers very attractive ways of engaging a user on mobile. Connection speeds also play a large part – with 4G becoming more prevalent and an increasing number of free public WiFi locations, from the tube to Canary Wharf, the public now, more than ever, have access to limitless data and so can browse to their hearts content. From a planning and buying POV the fact that we’re currently witnessing a lot of consolidation and high profile acquisitions (Millennial, Twitter etc) means that there is increased confidence and faith in the options that they have in the market.
Mendel Senf, CEO of YD
Mobile advertising will continue to grow exponentially now that advertisers finally have the tools to measure the performance and actual results (ROI) of their advertising spend. The new solutions coming from the ad tech industry to track in-app revenue and attribute this to their mobile spend not only prove the success of mobile, it also gives realtime insight in the full potential of this new medium, which is now only limited by budget. If you take one of our advertisers in the airline industry as an example, we generate only 15 per cent of potential in-app revenue. If you add the extensive targeting options that are available on mobile, such as retargeting based on app behavior and realtime user location, growth is inevitable. The next step will be transparency for advertisers. Mobile advertising platforms need to become more transparent in 2014 and 2015 to keep the growth at this rate.
