Mobile 4G pricing is high in the UK and most expect the category to be an early adopter market, with the vast majority of subscribers unwilling to break long contracts to get faster speeds. The question for brands is how 4G might affect advertising on mobile – and the most obvious conclusion is that it will enable more rich media campaigns – especially on tablets and bigger smartphones, says M&C Saatchi Performance in its Inside Mobile Advertising report.
Display banners and text ads contributed 23% of all mobile ad revenue in 2012, with almost all of the rest search, according to recent Internet Advertising Bureau metrics. Rich media ads constituted 20% of this spend, so rich media revenue represents around 4% of the UK mobile ad market, the report says.
4G has the power to accelerate the consumption of rich media but what kind of rich media executions can we expect to see? Well, pre-roll video advertising is the obvious start point, says the report. It is a proven success in other media and it has obvious potential on mobile where consumers are demonstrably interested in viewing video.
“Perhaps more exciting are the complex ad products which combine video, audio and interactive elements. When developed using HTML5, these ads can run on a browser, yet deliver extraordinarily rich experiences. The results can blur the boundaries between what is advertising and what is content. A good example is a campaign for Auto Trader’s Ignition iPad interactive magazine. The advert lets users browse, read and purchase the product entirely ‘inside’ an advert without leaving the site or app in which it is displayed. In future, rich media ads should go a stage further and start to engage with the native features of the phone such as the alarm clock and contacts book.”
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