This week should see the announcement of the first brands to use iAd in Europe, a format which promises to deliver a smooth and interactive ad experience on mobile devices. After launching in the US over the summer, most agencies have been impressed by the functionality iAd brings to in-app advertising while at the same time being somewhat taken aback by the huge budgets required to be a launch partner. That aside, it will be joining offerings such as YOC’s “Ad Plus” format to push the limits of what can be done with mobile advertising.
However, one of the challenges facing ad networks trying to deliver these formats is that they are at the mercy of the quality of the network signal. If you click on an ad on your PC, it will be a rare occasion that it won’t work perfectly. Do the same on mobile with a rich media ad and users can sometimes find themselves faced with an irritating delay before the content is delivered. It is an issue that can be solved by targeting campaigns so that they are only seen by people accessing the ad via Wi-Fi or 3G but this obviously reduces the potential reach of campaigns. The fact of the matter is that we have now hit a point where slow data speeds are hindering the ability to deliver the very best ad formats. The solution here in the UK will ultimately come in the form of mass 3G handset adoption, a Wi-Fi blanket being placed across cities or better still the roll out of 4G mobile services which can deliver super fast broadband speeds to your handset. Sadly however, the UK is lagging behind the rest of the world in implementing the 4G infrastructure. In the USA Verizon expect to cover 38 cities with LTE (A Mobile Network Technology marketed as 4G) by the end of the year, Sweden expect to have 99% of their population covered by LTE by the end of 2011 and Germany and Denmark are on a similar path. Despite O2 having run a successful trial of 4G in Slough last year, the 4G spectrum auction is a probably a year away meaning services are unlikely to launch in the UK before 2012.
It’s a slightly frustrating situation for all those involved in the mobile ad world but smart work-arounds and more data efficient ways of serving ads will be found before 4G takes off. The incentive for the operators is clear, better speeds will mean more people hitting the mobile web, which in turn leads to M-Commerce really taking off. If Operators then get themselves into a position to allow people to add goods and services to their mobile bill they can take a cut of the transactions or act as a credit card to their subscribers.
Tue, 16/11/2010
by James Tagg
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