The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Marketing

Execs from Wavemaker and Mobext share their thoughts on what's in store for mobile this year

By Adam Cohen-Aslatei, Senior Director, Marketing

January 19, 2018 | 4 min read

2018 promises to be one of reckoning for the advertising industry. With unresolved topics such as ad fraud, transparency, brand safety, and attribution, digital marketing’s potential of delivering the right ad to the right person at the right time still seems far off.

Mobile image, taken from Pixabay

However, there is a silver lining; marketing professionals in America’s tech capital are working hard to deliver solutions that make ads more effective and protected against nefarious characters.

According to the IAB, US mobile ad spend represents over 54% of total digital ad spend. Mobile’s dominance has major implications for how brands communicate with their consumers. While billion of dollars flow into mobile, advertisers are still trying to figure out how to make an impact on such a small screen. Agency executives are under increased pressure to deliver business outcomes that impact the bottom line.

At the same time, competition is only getting fiercer. With new entrants, such as consulting firms, and mass merger and acquisition activity in 2017, finding clean, scalable, and innovative media is a constant challenge. According to eMarketer, 73% of US digital ad investment in 2017 was controlled by Apple and Google. In fact, the duopoly accounted for 96% of all digital ad growth globally in 2017, predicted by Zenith Media. For digital ads to succeed for brands, they must succeed for consumers and they must deliver value. As the industry matures however, and technology improves, objective third parties keep the industry honest, and we are finally progressing in the right direction.

Jun Group sat down with two of New York’s finest marketers to find out how mobile is delivering real value to brands’ bottom lines, and how agencies are redefining themselves for a new generation of marketers.

Shenan Reed, president, L’Equipe L’Oreal Wavemaker on driving mobile performance

Mobile is making us think harder about what happens on a [tiny] screen. How do you make an impact on a consumer’s day and make them feel like they’re getting an immersive experience? We can’t continue to rely on tiny little banner ads at the bottom of a page because that’s not really going to do anything. Clients are looking to the bottom line. We are in an economy where you have to make sure every media dollar is truly working hard. I don’t think clients have the leisure of just letting media run.

Lauren McAndrews, director of mobile marketing, Mobext // Havas Media Group on getting more out of mobile data

Mobile has an interesting position within the ecosystem because the data is so rich. The data that you can get from mobile is richer than what you can get on TV...or it's richer than desktop cookies. A couple of years ago, we were enamored with how much data you could get from a mobile device. We took all of this data, got really excited by it and didn't really know what to do with it. Now we’re at this point where we’re saying the quantity of the data is there, how can it best assist us?

In the end, the future of mobile advertising is bright. Trade groups such as TAG are helping the entire industry improve the quality of media. By some estimates, bot fraud decreased by 10% in 2017 from 2016 and brands are starting to see compelling returns from more established mobile placements such as shoppable video, value exchange, and personalized placements. And data has never been more actionable, moving the bottom line for Fortune 500 brands. Could 2018 be the year we crack attribution, eliminate fraud, and rebuild the industry?

Marketing

More from Marketing

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +