Is the Day of Tiny Ads Finally Here?

Is the Day of Tiny Ads Finally Here?
By ERIC PFANNER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: January 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/technology/01cache.html?th&emc=th


Every year around this time, a few brave forecasters declare that advertising on mobile devices is poised to become the next big thing in marketing. And every year, the results disappoint.

But this year, with technology powerhouses like Apple and Google introducing whole new mobile devices and buying up ad firms specializing in the small screen, the forecasts may finally be right.

By now, the sales pitch is familiar: The mobile phone offers advertisers all the benefits of traditional Internet ads, including the ability to track their effectiveness. And it lets marketers reach consumers on the go, on a gadget they clutch intimately.

Why, then, according to Juniper Research, did worldwide spending on mobile advertising last year amount to only $1.4 billion — less than one third of one percent of total ad revenue?

For one thing, some marketers remain wary about trying it, for fear of annoying consumers by intruding on their personal space. A technical toolbox poorly equipped to work with small screens has also hurt; after all, banner ads the size of thumbnails don’t make a big impression.

Industry analysts say that now, with the introduction of Apple’s iPad tablet, an entirely new approach to mobile ads could be near.

That is because the iPad, a cross between a laptop and an iPhone, looks more like an iPhone from an ad perspective. It does not support Adobe Flash, the software used for much PC-based advertising. So, to make their ads available to iPad users, marketers may have to develop new kinds of ads, rather than simply adapting existing Web ads.

Apple, seeing big potential in mobile advertising, recently agreed to acquire a specialist in that business, Quattro Wireless. That followed a deal by Google to buy one of the largest players in the field, AdMob. The combined $1 billion-plus cost was of a scale not previously seen in the world of advertising on the tiny screen.

“It’s a pretty exciting time for the market,” said Oliver Roxburgh, managing director of the British operations of YOC, a mobile ad agency. “It’s starting to grow up a little.”

Mr. Roxburgh’s enthusiasm has been buoyed by the efforts of Apple and Google and is shared by a growing chorus of industry experts.

Indeed, Windsor Holden, a principal analyst at Juniper Research, predicts that mobile ad spending worldwide will more than quadruple, to $6 billion, by 2014. And he does not shrink from the prediction.

“Everybody has been hoping for about the last five years that the next year would be the one when mobile advertising takes off,” Mr. Holden said. “There are a number of pointers to the possibility that this will be the year when we get some significant traction.”