Discover How Cell Phone Can Drive Ad Revenue

A driver for advertising revenue might be mobile technology. By its very nature, it would help local advertising and marketers.

Wayne Friedman's article "Easy Cell: Mobile Ad Revs To Hit $3.1 Bil. By 2013 by Wayne Friedman, suggests to me that as a medium cell phones and their ability to provide SMS, would work as a promotional tool for the very media that they advertise on . For example: local station promotions tied to SMS , which in turn could be tied to retail and a 'call to action'.

With the TV signal going directly to the cell phone, the national network programmers can develop business models that have at the core an advanced platform for distribution that is interactive. It will also give the stations and broadcast groups with affiliate relationships an added boost, as the station can, or should be able to drive revenue for the rights of their local signal with has the network programming.

Syndication will also benefit as those rights and licenses are conferred station by station , market by market.

It may not replace automotive dollars but it could be a start.

MM

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Easy Cell: Mobile Ad Revs To Hit $3.1 Bil. By 2013

Wayne Friedman, Feb 24, 2009 11:29 AM

TV stations will be warmed by the fact that mobile advertising revenues are expected to skyrocket to $3.1 billion in five years--especially local mobile activity. According to the Kelsey Group, mobile advertising will have an annual compounded growth rate of over 80%. Currently, mobile advertising sits at $160 million in 2008. In looking at mobile local search alone, the group says its expected revenues will soar over 130% per year to $1.3 billion. Current local search totals sit at $20 million in revenue. Currently, Kelsey says 54.5 million mobile Internet users in the U.S. represent 25% of online users. The research group also notes that mobile searches with local intent will rise from 28% in 2008 to 35% in 2013, and that approximately 15% of iPhone applications are local. Local TV stations have placed great emphasis on the growth of mobile. At the Open Mobile Video Coalition announcement in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, major TV broadcast groups said they had devised plans that allowed their TV signal to be sent directly to mobile phone devices. The Kelsey Group is a division of BIA Advisory Services, LLC.

The Uncertainty Principle

In 'The Uncertainty Principle", Jeff Einstein gives a case for following the media revolution to the next level through imagination and emotion rather that reason and logic. I reach that view by agreeing that technology in and of itself takes us no more closer to the truth than mankind understanding the meaning of life and the purpose of man.

What struck me was the use of the phrase 'the uncertainty principle', which if my memory serves me correctly, you can Wikipedia it if you'd like, postulates that the more one measures one variable in a conjugate pair , the less one knows about the other - or in lay terms, the act of observing position impacts the measurement - the observer effect. The act of putting ads in programming, or on a webpage, changes the nature of the medium. Measuring it in realtime, beyond an estimate, only leads to us to analysis that reminds me of the paradox of Zeno's arrow.

When we discuss C3 ratings or whether the web is more effective than linear traditional media media (Question : Which is more like the web : a newspaper or a tv program? Why ? Discuss), what we are asking is "Can I correlate my messaging activity with a purchase/behavior?" and then can I repeat that pattern. Did I already have the intent to buy, or did I decide to make a purchase because the salesperson asked , "May I help you?"... and by trying to find out the answer we have shifted the balance further away from the very knowledge that we are trying to attain.

Once we saw that the purchase of a virtual product stimulates the same same pleasure center in the brain as buying the real thing, I thought marketers would be beating a path to the virtual worlds to understand exactly why people buy one brand over another ... but maybe they don't really want to know. "In all they getting, gt thee knowledge."