In September 2011, 20.1 million Canadians ages 13 and older used mobile devices according to research firm comScore. Notably, in the past couple of years, more and more people have been incorporating smartphones into their lives…. and downloaded applications were used by 40.9% of regular phone users, compared to a whopping 84.2% of smartphone subscribers!
Clearly, mobile phones are a very lucrative avenue for marketers to promote their products/services. However, how exactly will they do that? Since smartphones are relatively new to the world – and much like when the internet first became mainstream, advertisers and online stores had to initially experiment on what worked the best – which took a couple of years, and is still ongoing! This has been mentioned in class – company websites used to be primarily for information, but now have become online stores that are user-friendly, interactive and try the best they can to make online shoppers feel like they are physically in the stores!
But what is the appropriate way to advertise on mobile phones but still generate profits? Advertisers are still searching for the winning formula, but I believe that since mobile screens are much smaller, ads need to be kept at a minimum, and should not be intrusive to the point that they distract from the app itself. For example, I used to use an app called “OMG Facts” which would post interesting facts a couple times everyday – and I would read them every day. Every so often an ad would pop up, which I didn’t mind, but one day the app was updated and it now included a “floating ad”, which is basically an ad that moves up and down the screen as you scroll. It became so distracting, that within 5 days I had already deleted the app. And for the record, not even once did I even think of clicking the ad.
I constantly read articles about how companies with apps, such as Facebook and Twitter are struggling to generate revenue… so what are some innovative ideas to make mobile advertising more profitable? Well, Sauder superstar Brian Wong who, became the world’s youngest entrepreneur to get venture capital funding for his latest project, “Kiip” at the young age of 19!
“Kiip” involves advertising in which players of mobile app games receive free gift certificates or samples of a company’s product, which are sent to a person’s house as a prize when the individual reaches a certain stage in a game. Personally I think this is a great idea because the individual will feel like they have earned the product as a prize… and perhaps feel more of a connection to the product – at least more so than your typical mobile advertisement would.
That’s him!
I think what Brian Wong’s idea is a good one, because it integrates itself into the app – which is what I feel mobile advertising as a whole needs to do, be more INTEGRATIVE and less BOMBARDING. However… time can only tell whether this will result in a success… can’t wait to find out!
Sources: http://www.digitalhome.ca/2011/12/report-smartphone-adoption-reaches-40-in-canada/, http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/News/News_Listing/News_Item_-_Kiip_4_mill