My predictions are that mobile advertising will come of age, even in the UK. It has to in order to keep up with mobile user behaviours, this is a natural shift. Everyone does everything on the smartphone or tablet. We have short attention span, we are bored, and we are addicted! This drives behaviour, and in turn it drives how brands must engage with their audiences.
Brands will discover the effectiveness of mobile formats and audiences. With new mobile-specific ad formats driving development, brand engagement takes centrestage. The brand itself is key inretaining attention, remember we have a shorter attention span than goldfish at this point, and on average spend 2.7 hours per day socialising/sharing on mobile devices.
Formats will evolve and engagement becomes a key word. Its not about the click, its about awareness and retention, which are not measured using an outdated model built for desktop. Look at the bigger picture, engagement is so much more than just tapping and looking – its a full sensory experience, and as such how we measure that engagement will be forced to update.
Mobile advertising will need to touch all senses of the human brain, not just the eyes. We are already seeing cross media becoming more and more relevant and it will continue to grow in importance. But add in formats that allow you to interact with the brand campaigns; speaking, listening and touching – now you have a bigger and better engagement opportunity.
New technologies and new creative formats will spur this development. Additions to radio and TV formats through mobile will allow for richer experiences and more effective brand advocacy and relevance. Cross device streaming and creative syncing will drive additional conversations in mobile, force the market to step up technically and move away from the adapted or piecemeal strategies to a focus on how to truly take advantage of mobile.
