Billboards, posters, newspaper, radio, TV, Internet…and soon the mobile phone. Think of the transformation advertising has had to endure.
Newspaper has print ads, radio has sound commercials, TV has commercials and Internet has seen the change from popups, banners to PPC(pay per click) search. But TV advertising (largest dollar) has 3 troubling issues, more channels, fewer viewers (broadband), and Tivo like devices.
Broadband has taken more eyeballs from the TV to the Internet. TV has now taken to placing products within the show to get eyeballs. Advertisers are trying to adapt to the change in TV...Advertisers have found a way to tap into each form until now, the cell phone.
The search engine/ppc model is been the advertisement of choice for the Internet. But it’s primitive and passive. It is the equivalent of paying for a 30 second prime time TV ad, but not knowing when it will air, or on what channel and the cable company keeps changing the listing lineup.
When mobile traffic exceeds PC traffic, how as an advertiser, do you reach those eyeballs on the 2”x2” screen?
What happens when the shift goes even broader and goes mobile? Right now there is no outlet for advertisers on the cell phone. It wont be a search engine. People wont be using their cell phone to type in words to search, let alone have the SE “sponsored links” on their cell phone screen.
After a couple years, advertisers/cos are realizing the pay-per-click model is right now the golden goose for Internet advertising. It took a specific tool/app/portal (search), for brands to have a direct outlet for advertising.
What is the tool/platform/portal for the mobile that gets advertisers to spend their dollars?
What happens when advertisers have to find another tool/platform for the mobile Internet?
Advertising will be different when the medium is mobile, it has to take into account the environment the user is in and what information he has access to.
TV is stationary; the Internet is slowly becoming mobile. Cell phones are mobile, so the environment and the database are constantly changing.
Seth Godin, Internet marketer extraordinaire, in his Free Prize Inside!, talks about companies having to find the “soft innovations that turn a product or service into something truly remarkable. A soft innovation is a clever, insightful, small idea that makes a product worth talking about. A soft innovation that succeeds is a Free Prize, because the revenue it brings in is far greater than the cost of implementing it.
Great thought goes into the packaging of a product, but one thing is put on every package that brands have never been able to use before, until now. The barcode. Its universal, can be scanned/typed, doesn’t take up any more room on the product to market, and can now provide a direct connection w/ the Internet…a Physical World Hyperlink.
Brands have the opportunity to create their own “soft innovation” by turning on their barcodes. By turning on the barcode, you have created a physical world hyperlink. A hyperlink offers a direct connection to the wherever the brand owner wants you to go. Leverage the existing product package and turn it into a portable website.
Brand manager creates the ad that makes a consumer click/type a barcode (already existing) and creates an innovative marketing tool.
What brands or brand manager will be the first to start marketing this tool? Do brands even know they have this tool?
The killer app for Mobile Advertising will be a portal/platform that “turns on” those physical world hyperlinks.
Search engines will lose initially when this transformation takes place. But eventually they will realize that brands will be directing traffic through this portal and will want a piece of this.
Hey Google and Microsoft are you paying attention?
Brands and advertisers can have their own pay per click. Physical world hyperlinks will be the ppc model for the mobile advertising space. The owners won’t have to pay a SE for traffic and their own marketing will generate the “click”.
Nokia’s CEO Jorma Ollila states his goal is “to put the internet into every pocket”. Think bigger, how about making every physical object Internet accessible. Give every physical object in the world a physical world hyperlink.
There is a portal/platform that “turns on” those physical world hyperlinks.
So who will offer this app/platform that advertisers choose to use for the mobile phone?
3 comments:
I completly agree with all of that, we have the technology, we have capabilities to do so, we all have the will, except one thing, the BIG thing is that you have to feed this enormous database, each bar code should have its own "mini web site". It costs money, it's time consuming, at the beginning only a few consumers will be interested in, when you tell about bar code you tell about mass market and all the major brands are not ready today to invest for a few, they are all waiting this kind of direct relationship with their custumer but none of them want to shot first, they are all waiting the others to evangelise the mass market, so the trail is very long unfortunatly...
It's about early adopters. Which brands get "it". Direct connection with your consumer is where it will eventually be.
If you're creative enough, you can generate demand for this application.
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