What consumers expect from mobile ads?

While consumers’ expectations of smartphones are rising everyday, the mobile industry hasn’t educated consumers about the limitations of mobile devices and this has led to idealistic expectations of mobile phones and mobile ads. A part of their unrealistic expectations is that smartphones can do just about anything and everything for them.

Before the Smartphone’s boom, most cell phone owners were satisfied with only clear voice calls, fast texting, and simple games. But times have changed and consumers have great expectations from their mobile devices; they want the best smartphones at the lowest possible prices. They demand more features, better performance, the coolest apps, and indirectly the best mobile ads.

The competition in mobile OS market is intense and bloody! Everywhere you go, you see Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Symbian devotees trying to make their friends switch or upgrade; marketers and advertisers are adding mobile to their strategy; manufacturers and app developers fight for increased market presence; wireless carriers try their best to attract more customers, and basically everyone in the mobile industry is fighting for more profit, higher market share, or stronger presence.

As a result of this hype, today more than ever before, mobile advertising is up swinging. Mobile advertising campaigns have become the key to making money with mobile marketing. This means that the opportunities for making money are endless, but the question is how can you turn mobile ad campaigns into successful mobile marketing that puts money in your pocket?

How to best turn mobile ads to dollars?

Cell phone adoption rates, especially smartphone adoption rate are rising everyday, so is the importance of mobile advertising; therefore, marketers should keep in mind the necessary qualities in creating successful mobile ads.

Marketers should also bring into consideration that many consumers are still less than thrilled about ads on this very personal device. In order to increase the usefulness of the channel, mobile marketers must cater the features and formats of their mobile ads to their consumer’s preferences. Meaning that they should understand not only do consumers expect mobile ads to inform, but also they expect the mobile ad to provide relevant information tailored to their preferences.

According to a survey from Yahoo! and Nielsen Company, being informative was the most important quality of mobile ads for a wide variety of products and services. Relevancy was a relatively close second in most categories. Respondents cared relatively little about the graphical and multimedia elements of the ads. This contrasts with research on iPad advertising, which has shown that tablet users pay more attention to the look and feel of the ads and care more about the colors.

According to the InsightExpress “Digital Consumer Portrait” published in 2010, the heaviest mobile users generally did not find mobile banners annoying, while full-page ads were seen less favorably.

Based on the research that has been done on mobile ad campaigns and our expertise in this arena, we recommend marketers to focus on relevant information for their mobile ad. A smartphone user’s satisfaction of mobile ads will only improve if the mobile industry releases flawless, informative, relevant mobile ads that truly offer excellent value and choice for the user.

As mobile ads are getting millions of clicks and eyeballs, it’s important to create an ad that meets users expectation. Time on a mobile ad with a brand is a great deal for a retailer; it is a very intimate experience exploring a brand on such a personal device; isn’t it?

M-commerce VS. E-commerce

There are a few fundamental differences between m-commerce and e-commerce in terms of their origins, technologies and the nature of the services they can offer. Not to mention the way people choose, buy, access and use mobile apps is different from the way they behave on the web.

Unlike PC users, mobile users are on the move, in a hurry and easily distracted. They want the service they’re looking for right here and right now, without long instructions, long installation or loading time.

Although the marketplace for mobile apps is still relatively young compared to web, it is rapidly growing. The development of e-commerce was due to the rapid growth of the Internet; the growth of mobile segment is due to its convenience, ease of use, and sophistication of smartphones.

On the world wide web, much is given away for free or at discount prices with the hopes to monetize sites (using ad revenue) based on traffic. M-commerce however, is rooted in paid-for-service in the mobile phone industry where business competition is growing in Canada, especially with introduction of new entrants such as Wind Mobile, Public Mobile, Mobilicity, and so on.

An extension or explosion?

Many might think of m-commerce as an extension of e-commerce; we however believe that it’ll definitely have a greater impact on the daily routines of consumers and more importantly the businesses.  It’s more an explosion than an extension primarily because:

1. People have a more intimate relationship with their Mobile phones vs. their computer.
2. Mobile phones are not limited by location and by their very nature, are everywhere.
3. Mobile devices are filing up “boredom time” on the go that retailers have never before had access to.
4. Tempting mobile trends are constantly introduced to more than ever before sophisticated mobile devices. In a nutshell, mobile is hot!
   
5. M-commerce is supposed to enable us to buy everything from anywhere over the Internet without the use of a PC.
6. M-commerce is not limited by the same barriers initially faced by e-commerce in the mind of users.  For example, users do not have the same level of apprehension providing their credit card details digitally as they did with the first wave of e-commerce. The analogy I like to use is, M-commerce is like the younger sibling of e-commerce: e-commerce dealt with all the hardships and paved the way for m-commerce to lead a fairly hassle free journey with the consumer.

M-commerce, E-commerce, how they differ?

• High cost is one of the major characteristics of m-commerce. In the telecom world, users pay for airtime as opposed to almost free internet access in the e-commerce world.
• In m-commerce, the services are usually delivered to a specific region, via wireless providers. In e-commerce on the other hand, the wide accessibility of the internet makes any service globally available.
• In contrast with E-commerce, M-commerce applications are rather simple, more personalized, location-specific, and time-sensitive.
• A mobile device usually accompanies a person wherever he or she goes; therefore m-commerce creates a more intimate relationship with the user than other mediums.
• For time sensitive, simple transactions such as movie ticket purchases, banking, and travel reservations, m-commerce is seemingly more useful than e-commerce.
• For location-based applications such as traveler navigation, emergency response, and etc, m-commerce tends to be better as it is not limited to being in a place with a computer or laptop.

In general we believe that we can categorize internet based e-commerce into B2C and B2B, while classifications to  m-commerce are P2P (Person to Person) and P2S (Person to System).