Mobile’s not so small after all…
May 15, 2008
Interesting story. Last month during our Q & A portion of the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) in Fullerton, Calif., a very prominent ad executive told us, “mobile is a really small part of this (social networking).” I can only laugh. Today I attended Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek Interactive Media Conference & Tradshow at the Rio in Las Vegas. Perhaps that judge should have attended the breakout session, “When Will We Take Mobile Seriously?”.
Mobile is here to stay. The impressive panel of speakers included Brian Colbert, Director of Mobile Advertising Sales for ESPN, Alice Kim, Senior Vice President, Digital Distribution & Partner Relations for MTV Networks and Rama Sadasivan, Director, Business Development for Wall Street Journal Online. The discussion was moderated by Mike Shields, Senior Editor of Mediaweek. The fourth scheduled speaker, Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile Marketing Association was not present.
The speakers spoke of the resistance to mobile platforms and the obstacles that are present when considering such a diverse and multifaceted medium. The panel spoke about how to advertise on mobiles and that currently it is still a difficult media buy because the content has to be specifically tailored to the mobile platform.
Brian Colbert from ESPN openly admitted, “ESPN hasn’t used TV enough to push mobile.” He went on to explain that ESPN is taking appropriate steps to make that happen. “American Idol is the classic example of how to integrate television and mobile.” Colbert said that currently they are using a long term plan for mobile, spending about 90 percent of their time educating about mobile advertising and 10 percent selling it. He predicts by 2010 that mobile advertising will be more mainstream. ESPN is partnering with Nielson Ratings to produce a cross reference of ratings including TV, Web and mobile for media buyers. Initial findings are expected in 45-60 days.
“Mobile is a great tool for sports because it is instant. We don’t want to TiVo a game, we want it real time,” Colbert said. Sports is definitely an arena that will feed off of the mobile platform. ESPN is most successful with SportsCenter, and now they are working on mobile for that as well. ScoreCenter is currently being developed. It will be a 10 minute version of SportsCenter made exclusively for the mobile platform.
Alice Kim of MTV was very passionate about mobile and spoke about how MTV is using this platform to their advantage. “Mobile is a great communication tool for our younger demographic…(they) want to submit data and receive it on the spot.” MTV Networks is actively creating video content and gaming content and receiving positive feedback from consumers.
All panelists agreed that the iPhone was a huge consumer breakthrough. It was the first personal mobile browsing device that consumers accepted. The consensus was that mobile still has a little while before consumers fully embrace it. Kim said, “(It is similar to the) evolution of online. It took awhile for it to take off because there are so many factors to consider.” Mobile definitely has more hurdles to jump, but there is no question it will.
The panelists suggested that we accept mobile for all that it is and all that it will become. Mobile is the future, and the sooner we begin to adapt and learn about it, the better off we will be. I have continued to be perplexed at how an advertising executive could ask my NSAC team why we chose to focus so heavily on mobile in our campaign. I only hope that word of this “mobile” thing reaches him, before he looses clients, or his job.
