FEATURE: Relevancy is key to mobile advertising success

Relevancy is key to mobile advertising success
By Bena Roberts

The desperation involved with trying to squeeze revenues out of mobile data is showing again. This time, it's mobile advertising's turn on the podium. Paid search is expected to be the revenue spinner in mobile. Apparently, carriers, content providers, new players and search engines are "really" sitting on the mobile goldmine and this time it will take-off.

Wrong. Mobile advertising is about to fall into the same bottomless pit as its predecessors, which were all also tipped to revolutionize mobile. WAP, i-mode, GPRS, data cards or mobile TV ring any bells? The marketing blunders that whitewashed the success of other mobile services are once again being repeated. The hype surrounding mobile advertising is already promising too much--and the misdemeanors that trumped WAP will do the same for advertising.

Why? Because mobile simply isn't ready for advertising. The uptake of content services has been, and remains, dismal. Apart from a few boasts from 3 UK about the success of the odd service (SeeMeTV)--it's difficult to find an application that is making money in mobile. More importantly, it's hard to find fans of mobile data and regular users of mobile content.

Ringtones continue to fuel the success of mobile content because of the nature of the music market and the fact that records have a life span of only a few months. Mobile gaming uptake is muted by the poor user interface of the device, and reading news on the mobile phone is only a time-filler for the mobile snacker.  

Mobile content--I hate to say it--is really still in its nascent stages. The advances in mobile services haven't been matched by the user interface of the terminal and the experience of using the mobile Web or applications remains strenuous. To inject advertising into mobile now will only make things worse. Consumers aren't ready and neither is the business model.

Bango and Yahoo! recently announced a mobile collaboration for paid search.  Relevancy was not included in the discussions with advertising. In a bid to finally secure a return on investment, any advertiser could bid for the top spot for any word on mobile. Sushi companies could bid for the word "pizza" and vice versa.  This might make money for carriers on paid search--but it will not assist the user experience or offer consumers anything they actually want. 

Similarly, location based (LBS) services are allegedly set to make a comeback with advertising. This again, is highly unlikely. Few devices or services offer the accuracy for LBS services that advertising demands. In major metropolitan areas, there are so many restaurants and café's that it will be difficult to pinpoint the location of the shop that is advertising to within 10 or 20 meters. Unless, of course, other non-advertising shops were missing from the search or location map. 

What kind of user experience would this give to consumers? A selective search experience where only advertising parties are found. Is this good enough? Is this worth paying for? Not likely. It will only deter uptake of the new services and hinder, not propel the uptake of mobile data.

In short, the mobile cash cow is coming. But players in mobile advertising need to open their eyes. If they forget relevancy, they can forget the acceptance of mobile advertising.

Bena Roberts is the founder of and senior analyst at BKI Media, an analyst firm specializing in mobile content, portals and search. She was formerly the senior analyst for the Wireless Services Europe Module at Current Analysis, tracking wireless voice and data services.