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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Topic: Marketing Management

Reference: Butcher, Dan. “Fortune 500 brands going all in on mobile video advertising.” Mobile Marketer: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/video/9602.print

Looking for the next new thing in marketing? Chances are you are overlooking the hot new trend behind mobile video advertising. Apparently, the numbers are off of the charts and more people are viewing advertising in this channel at accelerating rates.  The reasons seem directly correlated to things that we already know: namely Smartphones and Tablets are proliferating; Wi-Fi networks are almost ubiquitous; and people are spending more time engaged with mobile devices then even desktops and increasingly more than televisions. Simply put new audience cannot be found in old channels; you have to have compelling content for new channels as well. The referenced article makes a clear case for this.  “The number of American mobile users that watch videos on their devices has increased more than 40 percent year-over-year in both the third and fourth quarters of 2010, ending the year at a grand total of almost 25 million people, according to a new mobile video report from the Nielsen Co.” The commentator indicates that other drivers to these trends include new simple applications, innovation and consumer acceptance. “…26.5 percent of users who start viewing an entire 45-minute full-length episode complete the entire episode, while more than 41 percent of users will watch at least half of the episode.” This is great news for executive producers and advertisers. Mobile video offers a unique content branding opportunity with viable cost scenarios. One of the challenges is that different handsets use differing technologies that make viewing ads more challenging. For example, Apple does not support Flash and certain plug-ins.  Still most of the video is triggered from in-banner executions and this creates a promising branding and value proposition. One of the best leverage points mentioned by the commentator is that mobile video offers developers yet another opportunity to repurpose existing content thus creating more value from existing value creation.  The point is that the upside in mobile video has yet to be reached.  More than ever the time is right to brand your mobile site, leverage your video in this channel and gain additional value from your content.