Mobile

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading global trade association for the mobile industry, today announced the revealing results of the first-ever Mobile Video Benchmark Study. The study, commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and its Mobile Video Committee, sought to provide mobile video performance insights to advertisers, agencies, publishers and third party video servers.

Mobile may be winning when it comes to its growing share of time spent with media, but advertising dollars are following behind slower than one may expect, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast of time spent with media by US adults.

In 2013, time spent with digital media among US adults surpassed time spent with TV for the first time—with mobile driving the shift. This year, that trend will continue, according to new figures from eMarketer, as time spent with mobile devices continues to grow much faster than usage of all other media.

Chris Brandt, CMO at Taco Bell, is calling the quick-service restaurant’s (QSR’s) new breakfast items “innovation with a twist on the familiar.” That’s his plan in marketing too, by using Instagram and soon rolling out a mobile ordering app.

Mobile search may be the future, but desktop search remains a heavyweight for marketers. Thanks to a sizable advantage in conversion metrics, the desktop promises to be a key player throughout this decade, according to a new eMarketer report, “Desktop Search 2014: Marketers Find a Balance with Mobile.”

Marketers concentrate so much on consumer behavior, but what part does the behavior of brand marketers play when they attempt to connect with existing and potential customers?

Digital omnivores – those consumers who own a trio of tablets, smartphones and laptops – continue to grow, driven by the proliferation of new platforms and increased device adoption.  Deloitte’s eighth edition of the “Digital Democracy Survey” (formerly the “State of the Media Democracy” survey) reveals that over one third (37 percent) of U.S. consumers are now digital omnivores, a 42 percent growth over the previous year. This growth is primarily driven by continued tablet adoption (33 percent increase) and, to a lesser extent, smartphone ownership (18 percent increase).  Moreover, women, who made up over one-third (35 percent) of omnivores two years ago, now account for 45 percent of this group.

When it comes to getting your brand messaging across to the typical smartphone user, you’ve got about 90 minutes of their day to make an impact. How many of those minutes are penetrated by your brand?

For eMarketer’s CMO One-to-One series, Yahoo CMO Kathy Savitt discusses the company’s refocus on users’ daily habits as well as innovating the platform to accommodate ads as amenable to a mobile-first sensibility.

Push notifications are no longer just about breaking news, weather, or traffic alerts. The newest–and arguably fastest-growing–channel for directly reaching customers has the potential to benefit both consumers and marketers. In this October 2013 report, Forrester Research, Inc. says push notifications are the ideal tool, combining the unique benefits of mobile marketing: intimacy, immediacy and context. Push messaging enables marketers to offer more-relevant and personalized benefits to consumers while helping marketers reach their own goals through increased traffic, optimized app usage, and increased conversions.

The best way to describe the state of mobile ad targeting is to say it’s a work in progress, according to a new eMarketer report, “Mobile Ad Targeting: After Years of ‘Spray and Pray,’ Signs of Sophistication Appear.”

Telenovelas on Spanish-language TV networks, Latin American music on local radio stations and Spanish-language versions of popular magazines—all are mainstays of US Hispanic-focused programming and media that remain important channels for marketers looking to reach this growing segment of the population. But it’s also where many efforts to connect with Hispanics often end. In their quest to reach this market—especially its large millennial and preteen populations—brands are failing to understand how and where Hispanics are consuming media, according to a new eMarketer report, “US Hispanics’ Media Usage: A Mix of the Trendsetting and the Traditional.”

The report examines a range of complex campaign considerations, including apps versus mobile-optimized websites, pre-roll versus banner ads, inline versus native players, operating system capabilities, third-party tags, and advanced interactive capabilities.

As Brazil prepares to host the world’s largest sporting event this summer, Briabe Mobile has created a curated mobile soccer content platform “ROAD TO RIO”.

Sure, dogs have been well-established as man’s best friend for some time now, but according to the January 2014 Local Watch Report, Americans have a blossoming love affair with another trusty sidekick—the mobile device.

Focusing on African Americans and Hispanics, the report takes an in-depth look at the mobile advertising ecosystem, including data related to mobile advertising trends, habits, spending power and more. It shows the importance of multicultural marketing for mobile advertisers, with African Americans and Hispanics showing tremendous growth in population and spending power. The report also emphasizes the significance of accounting for these cultural groups’ unique attitudes and beliefs when implementing mobile video and rich media campaigns.

eMarketer expects 4.55 billion people worldwide to use a mobile phone in 2014. Mobile adoption is slowing, but new users in the developing regions of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa will drive further increases. Between 2013 and 2017, mobile phone penetration will rise from 61.1% to 69.4% of the global population, according to a new eMarketer report, “Worldwide Mobile Phone Users: H1 2014 Forecast and Comparative Estimates.”

Mobile apps have proven to be a new tool that businesses can use to engage with customers in a variety of ways: providing information, as a customer relations management tool and to build a brand—to name just a few.

(Think green: please save the headline above for reuse over the next decade.)

How many years have been “the year” mobile advertising finally catches up to the massive growth in consumer time spent on mobile? As you marinate on that question, take a second also to reflect on how often you’ve read the headline that “this is the year” digital advertising dollars finally catch up with the amount of time consumers are spending with digital media. It’s become a cliché at this point.
(Spoiler alert: digital advertising still hasn’t caught up with the amount of time people spend there.)

“Who cares!?! Have you seen how fast mobile usage is growing!??!?!!”

Sigh…

Mobile migration is probably the story of 2013. Everything from news consumption to social media to porn eschewed the static and generally inconvenient desktop experience for the convenience and flexibility of devices. The data and targeting industries will be spending years catching up with the accelerated pace of this move.