What is Mobile Advertising?

In the most basic definition, advertising is the paid promotion of goods and services, and Mobile Advertising

is the usage of mobile devices such as cell phones and mobile web browsers to deliver these

promotional messages. However, this high-level concept does not help us understand the opportunities and

challenges that are driving so much activity and attention towards Mobile Advertising.

Mobile Advertising is made possible by the fragmented media consumption of consumers. A simplistic

evolution of consumer media consumption follows the objectives of choice and convenience. The

opportunity of more choice for information and entertainment drove consumers from print to radio to

television with a few choices, to cable and satellite broadcasting with hundreds of choices, to the Internet

with millions of choices. The opportunity for convenience saw usage grow for video on demand, digital

video recorders (TiVo), and digital media reflectors (Slingbox).

 

As the most personal electronics device most consumers own, and rarely leave home without, the mobile

phone offers the potential for both the greatest choice and greatest convenience in media consumption.

Now, with high-speed third generation mobile data networks (3G, EDGE, EV-DO, GPRS), more capable

mobile Internet experiences (mobile Web browsers), video content (mobile TV and streaming players), and

an emerging mobile Internet trust mark (.mobi) that assures consumers of a made-for-mobile experience,

this potential is being realized.

The forms that Mobile Advertising takes are in many cases similar to online advertising. There are display

units such as text links, banners, and video ads (Figure 3). There are search models that enable text ads to

be shown in response to keywords entered on user queries. There is a messaging medium that is much

more instantaneous and personal than email, although not yet as rich. Additionally, there are models that

are unique to the device such as use of the idle screen and click-to-call. This paper will not delve into all

these specific standards and best practice guidelines, but plenty of information exists through other forums

such as the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), GSM Association (GSMA) and Canadian Wireless

Telecommunications Association (CWTA).