London Calling » advertising

in 2011 search engine technology has come to this?

Andrew Grill — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:00:41 +0000

I’m so glad that in 2011 search engine technology has advanced so far….

I am not for sale.

Is this the best we can do in 2011?

Outdoor advertising is not dead. Outdoor + social + mobile = win

Andrew Grill — Thu, 05 May 2011 09:57:13 +0000

I’m a big fan of outdoor advertising (hey I even used it to propose to my now wife in Sydney back in 2004 using 3 Vespa scooters towing signs each spelling out marry-me-Samantha and following her around Sydney during her morning walk to the harbour bridge).

As recent visitors to the Royal wedding would have noticed, there is vast amount of outdoor advertising in London (especially at the 270 odd underground stations), and as my twitter followers know, I often snap interesting examples to share during my travels around the capital.

There are some stand-out (and one not so good) examples of outdoor advertising I have spied lately, and thought it worth a blog post.

The stand-out example for me is the current Google voice search campaign.

Why I really like these ads is they do really make you think.

When you see the phonetic text such as brey-king-nyooz, your mind does have to process these for a few seconds before you of course come up with “breaking news”.

I haven’t come across a poster in recent times that has actually make me think! They also have a simple call to action, and where they are placed above ground (no phone reception in the tubes), hopefully people reach for their phone to grab the app and try voice search which is fantastic when you are on the move and short of hands to type).

Other great examples of this campaign are listed below from a range of underground stations. Click each image for a larger view.

Below is an attempt at leveraging outdoor + social + mobile from Bacardi. Pity you can’t easily read the Facebook page URL because it is too small, and also cut up into thin strips because of the slats in the sign. Click the picture for a larger view.

Not so great outdoor advertising

One not so great example of outdoor I spied recently was displayed on the huge digital screen at Westfield London.

Here what must have been a house ad “filler” from Ocean outdoor was promoting Socialyse. Who are they you ask? Well the only call to action (click the picture for a better view) was the website address of their twitter feed.

So I visited the twitter page listed on the ad (it only shows for 5 seconds so you have to be quick), clicked on their website, sent them a tweet, received a reply, but still felt empty.

I wonder how many of the 1000′s of people who passed this ad while at Westfield London did as much as I did – probably none of them.

To save you some time, my research uncovered that Socialyse is the social media arm of Havas Media and to be honest, I expected more from them. Why not be up front in the ad from the start rather than make me jump hoops to qualify me?

How about some huge copy that just says “MADE YOU LOOK” – for more on how we can help your next social media campaign, tweet us at @socialyse.

Not a great use of this free house ad from Ocean in my view.

This brings me to my final point

outdoor + social + mobile = win

In my view, there is no better combination that an outdoor ad that makes you stop and think, pull out your mobile and either respond directly or tell your social networks about what you saw. Outdoor advertising has a real role to play in today’s changing landscape, especially is leveraged with mobile and social at the same time.

Outdoor companies such as Ocean Outdoor, JCDecaux, and Clear Channel need to continue to innovate beyond just digital signage to leverage the power of social + mobile.

This works both ways, as it requires creatives, copyrighters and planners to build impactful campaigns that really work on social and mobile, as well as the media owners to provide sites that lend themselves to a mobile & social call to action.

Sanyo not renewing their Piccadilly Circus sign after 33 years

Andrew Grill — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:49:05 +0000

Land Securities, owner of the iconic Piccadilly Circus advertising sign location reports that Sanyo will not be renewing their spot after having a sign at the current location since 1994.

This is apparently the first time a sign slot has become available in 33 years.

I have photographed the signs over the years, and you can see a collection of pictures on my Flickr page dating as far back as 1999 when Nestle had the prime position now occupied by Coke.

It is also an amazing sight when you fly into London from the south east – the light spill is dazzling at night to say the least. Piccadilly Circus is probably one of the world’s most famous outdoor advertising locations after perhaps Times Square.

I wonder what will go up in the Sanyo sign’s place?

Twitterfall anyone?

The future is bright in 2011 and the future is digital

Andrew Grill — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:14:32 +0000

John Wren, chief executive of Omnicom was quoted recently in the FT saying that the advertising group planned to introduce a technical education programme for all its 63,000 employees to teach them the ways of Google, Facebook and other online media.

According the the FT, Omnicom is to accelerate its push into digital media and marketing in 2011 by focusing on new partnerships with technology companies and large-scale training for its staff.

Some of John Wren’s other quotes from Tim Bradshaw’s article amused me slightly, such as

Advertising space on social media such as Facebook is not yet “fully priced”, he says.

“I’m not sure that Facebook can get what you’d get for being first on top of a search page,” he muses, comparing the cost of ads on the world’s biggest social network to Google’s lucrative AdWords.

“We know it’s important; I don’t know that anybody knows how to value it in the same way you would value a traditional TV audience. But if that medium isn’t fairly paid, chances are we’re doing a lot of work that we are not 100 per cent fairly paid for either – but we have to do the work nonetheless.”

It perhaps shows that Mr Wren will need to go on one of the “technical education programs” to understand the difference between advertising (one way broadcast) and social media (two way conversation) and the value of each when combined in an integrated way.

Just for the record, social media is not TV.

One hopes that an external digital strategist is tasked to put the program together rather than one of their interns who dabbles with twitter.

Not to be outdone, WPP has continued on their acquisition trail snapping up Blue State Digital, the agency behind Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Sir Martin is on a fresh acquisition trail, his most recent move was the backing a new international PR consultancy chaired by former Labour minister Peter Mandelson, called Global Counsel.

My take – WPP has a better shot at winning the digital race in 2011, but only if they carefully orchestrate how all of their agencies work together when it comes to digital and social.

There will be a great deal of learning that comes out of each agency, and by harnessing this across the group they can become a force to be reckoned with.

What Sir Martin has probably already worked out, but John Wren will discover in 2011 is that clients are already smarter than many agencies, and are demanding the skills and talents to keep their brand and message alive in these new channels.

Digital will be the real winner in 2011, for both consumers and brands, but only if guided by the right hands – it’s not about just working out how to make money from putting ads on Facebook anymore.

What’s the Orange Dolphin doing on the blog again?

Andrew Grill — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:28:59 +0000

Flashback to June 11th 2008 when I last blogged this….

Some of you may have noticed an orange raccoon at the bottom left hand of this and every page on the blog and wondered “what the….???”.

It is part of the world’s first internet balloon race being held by UK mobile operator Orange to promote the availability of their “animal” packages on pre-pay.

I first saw the raccoon on spinning around and clicked him, followed the link and decided to sign up – such a unique online advertising campaign it just might work!

Why not sign up to play and race your balloon around the internet from the middle of June! Perhaps your balloon will travel through londoncalling.co

Well in 2010, the great internet balloon race is back on again – and here at London Calling we’re taking part again.

More on the race at playballoonacy.com and happy racing!

Does your company or agency need to hire a “social media expert”?

Andrew Grill — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:57:55 +0000

I am regularly introduced as a “social media expert” which is on one hand incredibly flattering, but on the other totally incorrect and inappropriate.

When introduced as such before I speak at conferences around the world, I always stop and interrupt the conference chair and correct them. I am a practitioner I protest…I actually do things.

What I have noticed of late is that a number of key agencies have been poaching key social media types from corporates – namely @mazi from Sky to Ogilvy, @mediaczarto Starcom MediaVest and @benayers from ITV to Carat.

See some of the recent announcements below

This is an encouraging sign as agencies seek to increase their social media capabilities – and clearly they see the pool of people to draw upon are from client side who have been at the coalface for a while with Social Media.

This also lends me to comment on the rise of the “social media guru”. Clearly the 3 above are also practitioners, and they have been active in delivering social media campaigns for large corporates and for brands on behalf of equally large corporates.

The rise (and soon fall) of the “social media expert guru”

While in Australia in July, I had some healthy debate about a group calling themselves “SMEGs” which apparently stands for Social Media Expert Guru.

I’m sorry, but this may provide some level of hierarchy in the social media echo chamber, but for those people with the money (that would be agencies and brands – see above) – they don’t care. They want results.

Recently I pitched the Visible Technologies listening platform to a large client in the UK. We won against another formidable competitor with a solid solution. Someone asked me why they thought we had won. “I think we felt their pain more” was my honest response.

Now I am not a social media expert, but as a practitioner, I have worked for large companies such as Telstra and Optus, and endured the corporate politics, policies and general impedance that comes with this territory.

Just as my fellow practitioners above would I am sure agree, you need to do it to be able to talk about it. Often these “gurus” have never held a budget or headcount. Clients want to know you’ve done it before before they hire you and are able to walk the talk.

I’m now going to duck while I wait for the flame tweets from Sydney….

The new Telegraph iPad app and why reach and frequency is dead on mobile

Andrew Grill — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:29:43 +0000

I just got my hands on the new Telegraph UK app and it’s a nice piece of work by Tigerspike, who were also responsible for the Australian iPad app (shown below).

As regular readers would know, one of the primary reasons I invested in an iPad was to read newspapers.

I actually already read the Telegraph via the excellent PressReader application (shown on right below next to the iPad version – see separate post here) and get the full experience – ads, inserts etc all appear as in the printed version.

At the launch of the Australian iPad app there were a number of complaints around the high frequency of ads served to the device.

While I understand the need to advertise to offset the cost of newspaper production, the fact that both “mobile” apps are still operating on the “reach and frequency” model rather than that of relevance bears some discussion.

For some time now, I have been advocating the use of relevance for mobile advertising to ensure that only relevant advertising is delivered to such a personal device as a mobile or iPad.

The Telegraph app is great, except that every ten stories, I get a FULL PAGE ad – from launch sponsor Audi ( 3 different variants shown below). That’s right – the stories are completely obscured until you dismiss the full screen ad.

Here’s the thing. I’m not in the market for a car right now. I would actually have had the opportunity to tell the iPad app this when I first installed it and it asked for my name, birth year and email address. If they had asked just a few more qualifying questions in the form of a quick check box, then perhaps I would have received a more relevant ad (or none at all if there is nothing relevant to show me).

In fact if I was in the market for a car, my Wife has already said she wants an Audi, so then the ads would still be a waste on me.

Just as ITV HD viewers found during the world cup, when you interrupt the main flow of information (in this case England scoring a goal) with an ad, viewers and readers get annoyed. I would rather pay for the PressReader app, get the full newspaper and be able to self-select which ads to read and navigate around rather than having the same irrelevant ad thrust upon me every 10 stories.

So my view is that the Telegraph iPad app is great (and you should go and grab it now) – the frequency of the ads is what is at issue here.

To those looking to ad-fund iPad or iPhone apps – just think for a moment – in mobile it is all about relevance not reach and frequency.

The mobiThinking guide to mobile advertising networks

Andrew Grill — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:23:01 +0000

Andy Favell, editor of mobiThinking from dotMobi has been in touch about a new guide to mobile advertising networks they have just launched.

The guide profiles nine of the most important mobile ad networks giving publishers and advertisers an exclusive insight into who they are, what they do and what geographies they cover.

Considering the rate at which mobile advertising is growing around the globe, mobiThinking was surprised to find how little information there is about mobile advertising networks and the vital role they play in connecting marketers to mobile websites – so they decided to do something about it.

The guide profiles nine of the most important mobile ad networks across the globe, and they plan to add more, as they are recommended. The guide will give publishers and advertisers an exclusive insight into who they are, what they do and what geographies they cover.

mobiThinking have divided networks into three loose categories (with considerable overlap), based on the different business models.

Jump straight to each section of the mobiThinking guide:

1) BLIND: AdMob, BuzzCity, InMobi
2) PREMIUM BLIND: Jumptap, Madhouse, Quattro Wireless
3) PREMIUM: Advertising.com/AOL, Nokia Interactive Advertising, Pudding Media

Advertising in 2020 – a sneak peek from Ogilvy and Acision

Andrew Grill — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:06:51 +0000

I have just had the good fortune to be sent a brilliant white paper from Acision and OgilvyOne, developed as part of their ongoing collaboration in the mobile advertising space.

You can download the entire paper or view it on slideshare below. For quick re-tweeting, use the short URL http://lc.tl/ad2020 to access this blog post.

While the title of the paper is “Mobile Advertising – 2020 vision“, I think it actually goes further and is a very brave (and I believe accurate) look at how ADVERTISING will look in 2020.

Mobile Advertising 2020 Vision

View more documents from Andrew Grill.

The paper echoes many of the thoughts and sentiments I have been expressing at various conferences and events over the last 18 months so I am delighted to promote it here.

Some of the key points raised in the paper are

1. The advertising agency will transform from one which is industry led, namely by the brands, to one where the individual is brought more into the communication process.

2. The consumers will evolve from those having advertisements pushed to them, to being able to select what information is allowed to reach them.

3. Different types of mobile operators will be formed

The paper looks at the concept of mobile directed advertising – quoting from the paper below

“Mobile advertising in 2020 will be mobile directed advertising. It is about collaboration and individual control. The mobile device will enable the individuals to decide where, when and on what screen they would like to receive their chosen advertisement.

Advertising will move away from creating campaigns which are forced upon particular consumer categories and instead will transform to engage in constant conversations, where both parties participate.”

As I mentioned in the intro, I think this paper is actually describing the way pure advertising will look in 2020. An interesting parallel is that back in 1999 when I was working at Telstra, we hired futurist Nicholas Negroponte to speak at a large executive customer briefing.

This was at the height of the “e-business craze”. The one thing he said 10 years ago that has really stuck was that “…in a few years we won’t be talking about ‘e-business’ – it will just be business, conducted online”.

The same is true here. In 2020 we won’t be talking about “mobile advertising” and “Facebook advertising”, we will just be talking about advertising…or will we?

Another key concept raised in the paper is that of peer advocacy. Here the paper suggests

“There will be a greater involvement between advertisers and consumers. One manifestation of this, which will be led very much by individuals, is that of peer advocacy. This is something which has been driven by the social networking sites.

There is nothing more powerful in advertising terms as personal recommendation. One can recommend to another that something should be used, engaged with or bought as easily as recommending that should be avoided.

This concept is already gaining momentum in the online world, for instance, most people will check Trip Advisor before booking into an unknown hotel to see what other people have said about the establishment.”

This is one of my central arguments around why this paper is actually a window into advertising in 2020. With the explosion of social media, and sites like twitter hitting the mainstream, power is being transferred to the individual.

The paper strongly supports one of my arguments that in the future the individual will decide what advertising / information they want to receive, and on what device / medium.

We will see the shift from the broadcast medium (where the same ad is sent to everybody) to a model where brands have to breach our own firewall subject to our own set of rules. The role of our peers in discovering and recommending things we like cannot be underestimated – and this is happening already.

At a recent social media event run by Figaro Digital in London, I overheard 2 brands chatting in the break.

“…where do we begin – we need to be in this [social media] space but we have 16 agencies all doing small pieces. We need the right person to tell us where to start – and how we listen to conversations online”.

Individuals are becoming empowered by social media tools to get information from their own trusted advisors – their friends, family and followers. In fact is this a new phrase – the “3F’s of recommendation?”

While the paper does not directly say it (given Ogilvy are one of the world’s largest agencies in the world they can’t say this), what I picked up is that advertising as we know it, and hence the ecosystem of brands and agencies will also change forever by 2020.

The paper uses mobile as the proxy for change, but I firmly believe that it is social media driving the change and starting to set the agenda.

To test this – the temperature around mobile advertising seems to have changed over the last 6-8 months. Brands and agencies now realise that mobile operators are the ones in the way here – slowing progress.

Social media is a hotter topic because a brand can get better value by interacting via social media than via mobile alone.

Better value because they get an immediate insight from what individuals are saying about their brand (and the rise of social listening tools from companies such as Radian6, Techrigy, Scout Labs and others will help facilitate this – look out for a separate post soon on this topic).

Better value because they can identify and understand the influencers of a brand, product and service and work to provide them with the best possible information – allowing them in turn to promote the brand through their own trusted networks.

Better value because they will be able to shorten development cycle times as real time information about a product can be fed back to the brand, rather than conducting lengthy primary market research behind one way mirrors…

I think we are starting to see a trend where individuals get their “news” and information from multiple trusted sources. Indeed, one of my morning rituals while on the tube into work is to browse my twitter feed, saving interesting links offered by my followers to delicious or instapaper for later reading.

In fact I cannot remember the last time I responded to or bought something as a result of a “traditional” ad in the mainstream media. I can however point to multiple examples of products and services I have bought (and continue to buy) as a direct result of a recommendation from an online friend or follower.

So If I am doing this as an innovator, it cannot be too long until more and more people turn to social networks for information and filter out traditional advertising. Brands know this shift is happening (and this is why at the Figaro event 180 brands and agencies were turned away – such was the demand).

In contrast, mobile advertising conferences I have attended recently have struggled to get between 60 – 100 people maximum in comparison. The other problem with mobile is that everyone keeps talking about what has to happen, but the brands are not convinced because the operators make it too hard, and consumers don’t want mainstream ads on their mobile.

The Acision / Ogilvy white paper backs up this claim -

“According to Informa Telecoms & Media, Proctor & Gamble, the world’s largest advertiser, believed to be spending around USD 6 billion on advertising in 2008, has a meagre USD 10 million allocated for mobile advertising. That is only 0.17% of its overall advertising budget“

A quick summary of the rest of this excellent paper tells us

The transformation from brand led advertising will be driven by individuals selecting what brand information is allowed to reach them.
Each individual will have a digital cog which matches the needs of the individual to their brand affiliation in their vaporframe.
We will see individuals identifying brands which match their own needs or interests and granting them permission to reach them.
Successful brands in 2020 will be those which collaborate with individuals, include them in communities and rating of their products or services.
From a mobile advertising point of view, brands/advertisers are yet to come to the party. Within their budget for advertising there is no separate line item for mobile.
With the establishment of industry agreed metrics, the next development along the way to 2020 will be that reach will be overtaken in terms of value for advertising measurement.
In order to achieve this transition from reach to value it is essential that more is known about the audience. Here we will see a greater reliance on preferences.
Facilitated advertising - the greater the understanding about individual’s preferences and way of life will translate into a deeper relationship between the brands and the individual.
Peer Advocacy – Peer advocacy in the future will develop to include monetizing these recommendations. It will progress beyond good citizenship to share recommendations or cautionary notes into a mechanism which is rated.
Network influencers will be incentivised through financial rewards, for example, where they have clearly contributed towards a converted purchase.

One of the best quotes in the paper was

“Going forward, people’s buying behaviour will be driven not only by the effectiveness of the advertisement but by the peer advocacy surrounding that particular item or brand.”

Powerful stuff! Don’t be put off by the title of the whitepaper. If you are a brand or are involved in advertising of any sort, you need to read this paper today to see how your industry will change.

The new social networks I believe will be the real catalyst for change. Mobile is helping to drive the change, but not on its own.

Well done Acision and Ogilvy for this thought provoking and challenging look into advertising in 2020.

If you liked this article, please feel free to sign up to my RSS feed, follow me on twitter via @andrewgrill, drop me an email via my contact page or just leave a comment below.

Perhaps I will see you at an upcoming event - I will be speaking at ad:tech London in September.

A snapshot of Mobile Marketing in the UK

Andrew Grill — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:25:19 +0000

Yesterday in the Times Newspaper a great 16 page supplement from Raconteur Media was included on mobile marketing – with great quotes from a number of leading companies and figures from the UK mobile marketing scene – including a number of MMA members.

You can download the PDF or browse the document online. Either way – it is a great snapshot of what is happening in the UK from a brands, agencies and technology perspective – well worth downloading and reading at your leisure.

Adfonic launches mobile ad marketplace to rival AdMob

Andrew Grill — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:19:59 +0000

I have been watching the Adfonic guys with interest since I met them in London prior to Mobile World Congress.

I saw Paul and Wes last night at a function pre-launch and I asked them who they saw their major competitors were. “Admob” was the answer. I’m happy to give them some promotion below and enclose their launch release. Competition is a good thing and I hope they do well.

LONDON, UK – July 1, 2009. Launched today, advertisers and agencies can bid for advertising on mobile sites and apps, creating a new revenue stream for mobile publishers. Adfonic’s self-service global mobile advertising platform addresses the advertising community’s increased demands for more sophisticated mobile campaign management and maximises the earning potential for a new generation of mobile internet sites and applications worldwide.

With Adfonic, advertisers and publishers alike will benefit from the most advanced targeting capabilities in the market, detailed web-based real-time reporting and analytics, and an intuitive user experience.

“We are creating a transparent marketplace for advertisers to buy mobile inventory using an auction model which will keep costs low whilst protecting their brand. Mobile has the potential to be the most powerful channel in the marketing mix. Our goal is to turn that potential into reality,” says Victor Malachard, CEO of Adfonic.

Adfonic’s campaign management tools have been designed from the ground up to allow advertisers and agencies to connect with their desired audiences, with a wealth of targeting options including location, device, mobile operators, demographics and day-time parting. A Web 2.0-style “tag” approach further helps advertisers reach a contextually relevant set of publishers, who in turn benefit from increased earning potential.

The Adfonic platform will serve display advertising to mobile sites and applications at launch, and publishers and advertisers can create an account for free in minutes at http://adfonic.com. The easy-to-use interface is designed for companies ranging from larger brands and established mobile destinations to bloggers and small developers seeking to monetise or drive traffic to their sites and iPhone applications.

The three co-founders of Adfonic – Victor Malachard, CEO; Wesley Biggs, CTO; and Paul Childs, CMO – collectively bring 40 years of mobile marketing, mobile technology and start-up experience to their roles. The company is founded on the principles of trust, openness, flexibility, innovation and continuous improvement: essential elements for the development of a vibrant mobile community.

About Adfonic

Adfonic is Europe’s first self-service mobile advertising marketplace. Founded in October 2008 by three mobile and marketing industry veterans, Adfonic is headquartered in London, with operations in France, Spain and USA. Adfonic offers comprehensive and intuitive capabilities that make it easy for advertisers to connect with their target audience and for publishers to maximise the earning potential of their mobile sites and applications. To learn more visit our website at http://adfonic.com.

Search works founder goes mobile and launches SOMO

Andrew Grill — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:39:42 +0000

I picked up this article in New Media Age about Nick Hynes, who successfully founded the Search Works has started a new mobile agency called SOMO.

According to the article, the agency is also being backed by ex-Overture CTO Carl Uminski and Simon Edelstyn, former director of syndication at Google.

Somo, which currently employs nine staff, will offer clients a range of creative and planning/buying services, as well as mobile direct marketing opportunities and consultancy.

Good to see the space hotting up with more specialised mobile agencies.

10 things you absolutely have to know about mobile advertising

Andrew Grill — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:30:47 +0000

As suggested by the UK arm of the IAB.

Nice set of quotes from well known practitioners in this space. Worth a quick look and a re-tweet etc

Simply use http://lc.tl/tenthings to re-tweet easily.

1. It’s an always on medium. Consumers love their mobile phones so much that researchers found when they took peoples phones away for a day they claimed to feel a phantom ‘tingle’ in their pocket that normally proceeds the excitement of a text/call.
Stephen Upstone, Managing Director of European Business Development, AdInfuse.

2. Social media is driving growth. IAB research in 2009 found that updating social network sites via mobile handsets is increasing with 25% of all social networkers logging on to check or update their pages. 16 to 24 year olds are the biggest mobile social network fans with 44% saying they have updated via mobile, compared to 17% of over 55s. Amy Kean, Senior PR and Marketing Manager, IAB.

3. Provides immediate interaction. Mobile phones allow the consumers to interact immediately with advertising. Upon seeing an advert the consumer can text, call or download content instantly. It can help maximise the effectiveness of other media, a short code is a great example of this. Rachel Wright Business Development Director, Phonevalley.

4. It’s got a lot to offer. Mobile advertising is much more than banner adverts within internet content; a wide range of formats can be delivered as campaign components from text links in SMS messages through to full screen static or video display adverts within applications or mobile internet sites. Jeremy Copp, CEO, Rapid Mobile Media.

5. Application crazy. iPhone users have downloaded over 1 billion applications worldwide to their handset since launch. Applications are not restricted to iPhone however; advertisers can create useful applications for consumers for the majority of handsets. David Fieldhouse, Mobile Manager, MediaCom.

6. It’s popular. The number of mobile media users in the UK has reached the tipping point with over 30% of all UK adults accessing mobile media every month and a large proportion of those going online everyday according to ComScore. Stephen Upstone, Managing Director of European Business Development. AdInfuse

7. Smartening up. Over the last 18 months the number of UK Smartphone users (iPhone, Nokia N96, T-Mobile G1 etc) has grown from 3.6m subscribers to 6.3m, a 73% increase, and these users are over three times more likely to browse for News and Information on their phones than non Smartphone users (Comscore/MMetrics). Tim Hussain, Head of Mobile Advertising, Sky.

8. It’s out of your hands. If you’re not sure if your brand should be on mobile, consumers have already made the choice for you. 0ver 4 million consumers are already using their mobiles to search for information on products and services and search volumes are growing 4 times faster than online. Jon Mew, Head of Mobile, IAB.

9. It can reach you. Target through to point of purchase – no other medium allows such precise targeting, from location based services like local search through to in-store Bluetooth marketing you can reach consumers wherever they are and provide relevant and engaging advertising. Paul Lyonette, Head of Mobile Advertising, Microsoft.

10. Consumers like advertising. The Orange Exposure study shows, 70% of mobile media users find innovative ad formats appealing. In an ad funded games trial 89% said they liked or were neutral to advertisements appearing on the Orange World portal and 88% said they were happy to be exposed to advertising in exchange for free or discounted content. Alex Kozloff, Media Research Manager, Orange.

Nice soundbites here.

Mobile advertising ‘stalled by over-caution’ says UK survey

Andrew Grill — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:52:05 +0000

I picked up an interesting survey ahead of the UK Mobile Advertising conference to be held in June from James Cameron at Camerjam – full details below.

Operators, brands and agencies all to blame, finds survey

Over-cautious brands and advertising agencies are responsible for stalling the growth in the mobile advertising market, according to mobile industry insiders.

At least that’s the findings of a survey by mobile events start-up Camerjam. The online survey, part of the build-up to Camerjam’s Mobile Advertising UK (MobAdUK) conference in London in June, found that nearly a third of respondents thought brands and agencies had been too slow buying into the idea of advertising on mobile.

Camerjam founder and mobile industry expert James Cameron, said: “The recent Volkswagen Tiguan campaign divided its budget between TV, print and online, allocating just one per cent of online spend to mobile. While it’s great that big brands are spending on mobile, the success of the medium depends primarily on greater budgets from the brands.”

Thirty one per cent of respondents to the survey which asked, “Why has mobile advertising been slow to grow?” blamed cautious brands. Other respondents said the fact that advertising must change for mobile (27 per cent) and operator greed (12 per cent) were the chief contributors to slow growth.

“More creative thinking is required to adapt advertising to mobile,” Cameron added. “Traditional broadcast advertising doesn’t work, and simply squeezing a banner onto a mobile screen has limited impact. Mobile advertising needs to offer a clear benefit to the user through free talk time or texts and access to free services and benefits from advertisers themselves.”

Operators also have a part to play. “Operators must make customer data accessible and useful to advertisers and significantly reduce the cut they take on traffic generated through their portals,” Cameron said.

MobAdUK speakers have also commented on the findings. Jonathan Mew, Head of Mobile at IAB UK, said: “Mobile is the most consumed medium in the daytime… (yet) still by far the smallest in terms of ad-spend” while MediaCom’s mobile manager, David Fieldhouse, said: “The advertising industry is ready and waiting to spend (on mobile) – the mobile industry needs to guide us, set standards and deliver the targeting that has long been promised.”

Each week up until MobAdUK on June 15, Camerjam will be asking a different question of mobile, advertising and brand experts. This week: Why are agencies and brands so cautious?

Check the poll results at www.amiando.co.uk/mobaduk or by following @jamescameron on Twitter, where you’ll also find up-to-the-minute links to all the latest news and thought from the mobile advertising industry as it happens. MobAdUK can be tracked using the hashtag #maduk

About MobAd UK
Endorsed by the IAB, MMA and AIME and sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent and adfortel, MobAdUK is a one-day conference designed to cut through the hype surrounding the mobile advertising industry, giving a clear representation of the state of the current market and highlighting key industry strategies to stimulate growth.

The event will also unveil the results of a UK specific research project carried out by EverySingle OneOfUs and Æneas Strategy Consulting & Management into the mobile advertising market and host the inaugural EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Advertising Campaign of the Year Award 2008/9.

MobAdUK takes place on June 15 at the Old Cinema, Westminster University, 309 Regent Street, W1B 2UW. For details, comment and media passes contact James Cameron james@camerjam.com or +44 (0)7940 749874.

About Camerjam
Founded by expert conference producer James Cameron, Camerjam (www.camerjam.com) is an exciting new conference and events company at the forefront of the mobile industry. Under the Camerjam umbrella, industry experts, leading executives and high end analysts are brought together in stimulating environments to promote idea exchange, facilitate networking opportunities and drive industries forward.

Volkswagen Tiguan mobile advertising case study

Andrew Grill — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:19:03 +0000

At the Mobile Advertising 2009 conference in Amsterdam last week, we were treated to an eye-opening presentation from Jens Klitzke, who is Head of International CRM Programs, at Volkswagen.

Jens walked through an excellent case study surrounding the launch of the Volkswagen Tiguan.

Basically, they built a “long lead” marketing campaign to promote the launch of the new Tiguan before the car even existed – using the web and mobile.

A quick summary of Jens’ presentation is below, and you can see some of his slides on Flickr.

The VW Tiguan campaign launched in 8 countries
There were 14,000 SMS sent as a result of interaction with the campaign
The campaign site had 150,000 page impressions
There were 6,000 downloads of the mobile application
The campaign was well received inside VW as it generated test drives from mobile campaigns
Normally in Germany you need 8 test drives to sell 1 car
A customer who buys a car has 9 contacts with the brand (eg 8 TV + 1 mobile)
VW think performance based marketing is the future but the TV guys still win out “we made them love the brand”
Mobile is more expensive than online
VW booked lots of ad impressions with operators which was expensive

The most arresting point from Jens presentation was that yet in spite of the VW campaign, there is still no budget assigned to mobile. The current marketing spend is divided between online, print and TV. Amazingly, mobile receives just 1% of the online budget!

Jens has been involved in the digital and agency space for a while, and he also thinks that we are with mobile now where we were with online in 2000 – which is not unexpected. One of the strong discussion themes on day 2 was that we need to learn from our experience with web advertising – or risk making the same mistakes as we transition marketing onto mobile.

The other piece of irony is that inside VW locations, phones with cameras are prohibited (to stop spy photos leaking out) - so people inside VW cannot see the mobile ad campaigns, and those people visiting their offices to show them the latest in mobile have to leave their phones at security…

The key takeout for me is even with a strong and progressive automotive brand like VW, who have invested heavily in a mobile presence for the launch of a car AND have seen test drive and sales conversions AND with someone like Jens driving this at VW – they only spend 1 percent of the digital budget on mobile.

Clearly more work has to be done with measurable case studies such as this one to prove the power and value of mobile, one brand at a time. Hats off to Jens and Volkswagen for taking a chance with mobile advertising.

Mobile Monday Amsterdam #11 Monday June 1st

Andrew Grill — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:39:58 +0000

I’m absolutely thrilled and excited to have been asked to speak at MoMo (Mobile Monday) Amsterdam on Monday 1st June.

The theme for MoMo #11 will be Visions on Mobile and I will be joined by some of the world’s best thinkers including

Joseph Pine II – TED speaker & Multiverse guru

Howard Rheingold – TED speaker & SmartMobs guru

Jamais Cascio – TED speaker & Mobile Sustainability guru

Alan Moore from Communities Dominate Brands & Mobile Society guru

Robert Rice – Augmented Reality Guru

Update: Below are the slides I presented at Mobile Monday AMsterdam #11 on Monday 1st June 2009.

Andrew Grill Mo Mo Amsterdam #11

View more OpenOffice presentations from Andrew Grill.

The program for the evening will be (all times GMT+2 – Amsterdam time)
12:00 Doors open
13:00 Marc Fonteijn – Kick off (Yuri van Geest, Rudy de Waele)
13:15 Alan Moore – Social marketing intelligence
14:00 Jamais Cascio – Mobile intelligence
14:45 Break (Jeroen van Glabbeek)
15:15 Andrew Grill – How mobile impacts advertising
16:00 Joseph Pine II – Infinite possibility
16:45 Break (Rudy de Waele)
17:15 Howard Rheingold – Smart mobs revised
18:00 Robert Rice – Augmented reality
18:45 Marc Fonteijn – Closure
18:50 Drinks

The full title of my talk will be “This time…it’s personal. How mobile challenges everything we thought we knew about advertising“.

I have been paired with the legendary Joseph Pine II, Author of such books as Mass Customization, the Experience Economy and Authenticity. He is currently engaged in outlining the new concept of the multiverse, and I hope my talk will fit nicely with his on “mobile marketing in the multiverse”.

The event will be streamed live from mobilemonday.nl/live from 12:00 London time (I will be up at around 14:15 London time) and watch out for the twitter stream with the hashtag #momoams.

Event details:
Date: Monday, June 1st 2009 (Whit Monday/’Pinksteren’!)
Time: 12:00 – 19:00 (excluding drinks – Amsterdam tie GMT +2)
Location: Rode Hoed, Amsterdam (Route | Map)

Pay attention: this special event will start earlier than our usual MoMo events! You will have to take care of lunch before you come, we’ll take care of snacks during the breaks and the ‘borrel’. If you wonder why this MoMo will take longer, the list of speakers makes pretty clear why that is;)

As is usual with MoMo Amsterdam events, the available places were gone before emails hit the inbox – with an expected attendance of over 400 people.

If you are lucky enough to have secured a ticket, I look forward to seeing you at the event in Amsterdam – with my fellow guest speakers it is shaping up to be an extraordinary event.

Why not drop me a line before the event. I will of course be speaking on mobile marketing and advertising.

Vodafone Completes Roll Out of Mobile Advertising Services to 18 Markets in 18 Months

Andrew Grill — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:37:00 +0000

Interesting release from the team at Vodafone about their mobile advertising roll-out.

Some of the services coming up from Vodafone I have been personally involved with and it will be good to see Vodafone roll these out in a range of markets.

The full Vodafone release is here.

Vodafone announces today that it has fulfilled its ambition to expand the availability of its mobile advertising services to 18 operating company markets in the last 18 months. Despite the worsening economic climate, Vodafone has also enjoyed strong revenue growth from mobile advertising services during 2008/9 and plans to continue the roll out, expanding both the portfolio of mobile advertising services and their reach.

Over the last year Vodafone Marketing Solutions has run over 2000 campaigns across its global footprint for hundreds of global brands*. While those brands continue to enjoy considerable success with mobile banner campaigns, they are increasingly trying newer mobile advertising formats including the use of branded content, sponsored alerts, opt-in push messaging and advertising on service based text messages**.

Rick Fant, Head of Internet Discovery at Vodafone said “In the current economic climate brands will look even harder at their budgets and how they spend them. Mobile advertising offers a combination of great response rates alongside the opportunity for advertisers to reach out to and engage with their customers. We are pleased with the performance of Vodafone’s mobile advertising business and that more and more brands are moving spend to this innovative medium”.

Vodafone will continue to invest in its advertising offering in the coming year both by adding to its global reach through its network of operating companies, affiliates and partners – including operators such as Mobilkom, Proximus, Vodacom, and China Mobile – as well as by seeking to extend the number, type and effectiveness of its portfolio of advertising services.

Vodafone’s advertising development programme is designed to provide customers with relevant and engaging advertising experiences and advertisers with effective and responsive marketing platforms.

Services in development or trial include:

Zonal marketing trial – This will allow opted-in customers to receive promotional messages from brands relevant to their profile and their real-time location. As they enter a pre-defined area they will receive an MMS or SMS message from Vodafone containing the promotion.

Incoming voice/text alerts advertising trial – Full screen advertisements from a range of advertising partners will be shown to opted-in customers during the moments before they answer a call or view a message. Customers who choose to join the database, and who go on to view adverts will be rewarded with points that they can redeem against goods or services.

Branded applications and widgets trial – Assessing customer acceptance of and interaction with, as well as brand marketing effects of, branded mobile apps.

Location based advertising trial – Vodafone plans to trial customer acceptance of and engagement with branded Points of Interest,(locations of – for example – stores, restaurants and petrol stations) and branded locational search.

Trial of an enhanced mobile internet browser – Vodafone is looking at how to simplify and enhance the mobile internet browsing experience for opt-in customers as well as investigating opportunities for mobile publishers and advertisers.

Vodafone myCampaign – An online self-service platform for mobile advertisers. Currently in development in Germany and Czech Republic, with further markets planned, this tool will allow small businesses to set up and run cost-effective, and local mobile advertising campaigns. The service is designed to be simple, quick and easy to use – combining creative, reporting and online prepayment via credit card.

Fant said, “We are an ambitious company in a leadership position and we have big plans for this space. Vodafone has always been an innovator in its products and services, in its technology and most importantly in its customer offering. So over the next year it’s natural for us to continue to invest in and improve our offering for all of customers – be they consumer & business subscribers or our brand & agency customers around the world”.

IAB says UK mobile advertising market worth £28.6M in 2008

Andrew Grill — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:52:04 +0000

The UK’s first mobile advertising expenditure study shows the UK market was worth £28.6 million in 2008 according to the IAB.

IAB and PwC research reveals mobile ad spend higher than market expectations and doubled in size year on year. According to the press release below…

Expenditure on mobile advertising in the UK exceeded market expectation in 2008 to reach a total of £28.6 million, according to a study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) – the trade body for digital marketing – and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

As mobile advertising becomes increasingly important for operators and advertisers, the study – a UK first – shows that mobile adspend bucked all market trends, doubling in size on a like for like basis in 2008, increasing by 99.2% year on year. Investment in mobile advertising grew at a faster rate than predicted as more UK brands invested in the medium due to its exceptional targeting, immediacy and return on investment.

Mobile advertising formats
Mobile display advertising – which includes banners, text links, tenancies pre/post roll and in-game – accounted for £14.2 million in 2008, 49.8% of all mobile advertising spend.

Paid-for search advertising on mobile internet was estimated to account for £14.4 million, 50.2% of all mobile advertising spend.

This survey represents solely mobile media spend, and therefore does not include mobile marketing expenditure such as SMS or MMS production and delivery costs. This ensures the figures are comparable with all other media.

These first mobile figures correlate strongly with the early days of online advertising. When the IAB and PwC study was first released ten years ago, in 1998 the internet advertising market was worth £19.4 million. In 2008 online advertising rose to £3.35 billion, accounting for 19.2% of all advertising spend.

The IAB officially widened its remit to include mobile internet advertising in July 2008, when the five main UK networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – became members. Since then it has invested heavily in educating the market about the potential of mobile media, through a programme of events and research initiatives.

In the coming weeks the IAB will launch a ‘How To’ guide on briefing, planning and executing campaigns for marketers and is currently conducting research into the effectiveness of mobile advertising, with the results due in early June. More information can be found at www.iabuk.net/mobileadvertising.

Jon Mew, head of mobile at the Internet Advertising Bureau, said: “This study is a UK first and means the IAB can accurately prove and track how much marketers are spending on mobile. The sector is in its infancy but is considerably bigger than the market was expecting. Thanks to these landmark figures we know the real value of the mobile advertising industry, and will now be able to chart the medium’s growth with confidence.”

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Over the past 12 months the marketplace has been buzzing with anticipation about this exciting new channel. Now is the perfect time for brands to dip their toes in the water, to see for themselves how effective and complementary mobile advertising can be. The IAB is dedicating considerable resource to educating marketers and agencies so they can optimise their campaigns as mobile becomes an essential part of all communications plans.”

Eva Berg-Winters, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said: “Mobile advertising has shown impressive, steady growth throughout 2008 in an overall declining advertising market. The mobile phone has become our constant companion and its ability to meet consumers’ growing demands for accessing entertainment and information on the move has attracted advertisers. The way has been paved by online advertising, which combined with the rapid uptake in mobile internet usage, will ensure it becomes a very powerful advertising medium over the next few years.”

Key drivers for growth:

A bigger audience than ever: Mobile internet usage grows in 2008 from 8.6m in Dec 2007 to over 11m in Dec 2008, and people on unlimited data plans (unlimited access to the mobile internet as part of their contract) has grown by a massive 109% in 2008

Mobile offers a great user experience: Advertising on mobile phones has generated a positive response from consumers – they like this form of advertising. According to the Orange Exposure 2 study, 70% of mobile media users find innovative ad formats actively appealing. Operators and site owners have been careful not to annoy consumers with interruptive formats, in order to build trust in their services and help mobile adspend to grow.

Social networking driving growth of mobile internet usage: People using social networks on their mobile phone grew by 180% in 2008. According to recent research from the IAB, 44% of 16-24′s have checked their social network profile via their mobile phone.

Better, smarter handsets: The 3G iPhone launched and has transformed usage. iPhone users for example are around 7 times more likely than average to browse on their phones daily for news and info. It is not the only phone to do this, with penetration of 3G handsets overall increased in total by 36% in 2008.

Growth in mobile departments: More and more media agencies in the UK are appointing dedicated heads of mobile, charged with working full time on the medium to educate teams and promote the channel.

The industry is working together to move things forward: The IAB is working with operators and the key mobile advertising players to educate the market place. As knowledge grows it is becoming much easier to plan and buy successful mobile advertising campaigns.

For more information, contact:
Amy Kean, senior PR and marketing manager, IAB, amy@iabuk.net, +44 773 937 2042
Jon Mew, head of mobile, IAB, jon@iabuk.net

London Calling comment: Interesting numbers here and also what is included in the study and what is not. Industry figures I speak to in the UK put the number at more like £10M for 2008 so there must be a different accounting treatment here. In Australia during my visit the consensus was that their industry was worth about $6-8M (£3-4M) in 2008.

What is key though is we now have a “number” that we can track each year (or quarter) to see if we’re going up or down. Great initiative from the IAB and I also look forward to becoming involved in their “how to” initiative.

Mobile Advertising and Marketing Awards 2009 winners

Andrew Grill — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:32:14 +0000

After attending the Visiongain Mobile Advertising and Marketing Awards (MAMA) and Conference in London on Thursday, I was asked by a number of people on twitter if I could post a list of the winners and the categories for the awards.

Listed below are the categories and the winners – congratulations to all those who took away an award. You can also have a look at pictures from the event, held in London at the Charing Cross Hotel on Thursday 7th May 2009.

• Best creativity or innovation in mobile marketing and advertising: Turkcell
• Best use of mobile in driving new revenue and sales: Upstream
• Best Ad-Enabled Application: Prim’Vision
• Best Network for delivery of mobile advertising and marketing: Jumptap
• Best Location based Advertising Technology: Useful Networks
• Best Integrated & cross platform technology utilising mobile marketing: 2ergo
• Best Billing Provider: txtNation
• Best Use of Mobile in Brand Building: Marvellous Mobile
• Best viral aspect to a campaign category: Inside Mobile
• Best Mobile Advertising & Marketing Company of the Year: Admob

Why not get the latest updates on stories related to mobile advertising via my RSS feed, or follow me on twitter @andrewgrill

Only you can save mobile advertising

Andrew Grill — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:11:39 +0000

John Tanner posted an excellent article recently over on Telcomasia.net titled “Only you can save mobile advertising”

I met with John in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress and apparently our discussion there promoted his thinking and this article – glad I helped fuel the debate John.

His byline for the article is “The real value in mobile ads is relevance, rather than reach” which is something I have been saying for some time now, and so it is interesting to have other authors test this theory.

Quoting from the article, John starts by mentioning the Google approach to “interest-based advertising”, and asking how this might apply to mobile (note the emphasis is mine) …

The idea, now in beta, is simple enough. Google wants to use its AdSense program to deliver ads to your web browser based on where you surf and what you watch on YouTube, and to allow you to refine your preferences accordingly.

Google breaks ads down into categories (i.e. entertainment, games, finance and insurance, etc) and lets you select the ones that interest you – or none at all, if you want to opt out entirely. Result: more relevant ads will be displayed on AdSense-powered sites you visit.

Where things could really get interesting is how Google eventually applies this to its mobile strategy.

Mobile advertising is a massive work in progress, but one recurring point is the need to ensure that mobile-based advertising, be it SMS alerts, mobile web banners or interstitials flashing on the screen as the phone rings (as Gigafone recently demonstrated for me), is relevant to the target. Mobile’s always-on and heavily personal nature practically demands it.

Andrew Grill, head of business development at Gigafone and self-styled mobile advertising evangelist, noted on his mob ads blog London Calling that the Google model on the web could help the mobile advertising case by providing a case study to show brands and agencies that the real value in mobile ads is relevance, rather than reach – provided it respects the “3 P’s” of mobile advertising (privacy, preference and permission) that ensure users have complete control over what appears on their handset.

However, the issue of privacy and control in mobile ads could be far more complex than it looks. In his debut weekly column for Fast Company, futurist Jamais Cascio addressed the Google announcement and expressed doubts about reconciling the theory of relevant ads with the reality that people often don’t use the web the way advertisers expect. “

Machines get shared, people use multiple browsers, and, increasingly, web users are savvy about being able to block ads, regardless of how targeted they may claim to be.”

The point made above by Jamais Cascio however I believe only holds true on the internet, for with mobile I have yet to meet a person that will allow their handset to be shared – such is the incredibly personal nature of mobile.

John also makes a good point below about how advertisers will adhere to the 3P’s of mobile advertising

That’s not necessarily antithetical to mobile advertising, since user control is a core requirement to its success. The downside is that it’s not the advertisers that adhere to the “3 P’s” that will escalate the filter wars – it’s the ones that don’t. Users’ trust in the permission-based mobile model can be derailed by bad targeting or a handful of unethical jerks who invent the equivalent of pop-ups for smartphone browsers.

To be sure, web advertising has weathered the same challenges and survived as a viable business model. And it didn’t have the benefit of relevancy-based ad targeting. It will be interesting to see if relevancy will see mobile advertising through its own personalized trial by fire. But it’s worth remembering that it’s the users who will shape the business model that emerges on the other side.

I think John’s article not only echoes the views I have held for some time, but his article puts the challenge out to traditional advertisers and agencies who are yet to embrace the behavioural targeting benefits on the fixed internet, for fear of reducing their available audience reach.

It would at first appear counter intuitive that by allowing users to opt-in or opt-out of advertising based on the ad’s relevance to them will actually decrease reach – but will increase relevancy, and hopefully drive an uplift in sales (which is what advertising is designed to do). Throw into the mix the unique 1-1 relationship of a mobile handset to a particular consumer and you have a better targeting system.

If we assume for a moment that the behavioural targeting and preferences model does actually work on both the fixed internet and mobile, the challenge then comes for those creatives to come up with advertising that is interesting to watch.

Indeed, I think we’ve all become fixated in the mobile space on trying to fit advertising built for a 16:9 TV screen or 800 x 600 monitor onto a small 2.4’’ mobile screen.

If we make it easy for users to select what content is useful and relevant, then the “advertising” delivered will appear more like welcome content.

Perhaps some information (note I have not called it advertising here) may actually be delivered by channels other than the mobile. Operators such as O2, Optus and Telstra that hold fixed and mobile assets may be able to leverage both channels in tandem. In this scenario, the mobile is used as the “remote control”, allowing users to select what they would like to receive, with the PC being the delivery channel.

A simple example of this at work is the Sky+ remote record service available in the UK. Here you set up what you want to watch on your mobile via a nifty application and the service sets up your personal video recorder at home to record that favourite episode of Lost you forgot to set to record before you left the house.

Indeed, your viewing habits and preferences themselves become interesting to advertisers, and I am sure that Sky have in their forward plans the ability to insert relevant ads via IP.TV stream.

In this case, if I could identify what I am interested in via my mobile, then for the first time since television began, the ads I would receive would be totally relevant and useful to me – and I would view them as information and not advertising.

Clearly we have a long way to go before we reach this stage – either on the web, mobile or for Pay-TV, but I am thankful that John has helped to stir the debate on this issue – otherwise it could be just me banging on about this for the next 10 years!

You can read John’s article in full over at the Telecomasia.net website.

Gruen transfer UK update

Andrew Grill — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:13:00 +0000

Many of you will remember that I am a big fan of the Australian TV show The Gruen Transfer, and I was one of the first UK bloggers to post about it when the show launched in July 2008.

There has been much speculation about the UK taking the series, and in this week’s Campaign magazine there was a mention that the series pilot has been filmed.

The article from Campaign on April 17 claims:

BBC3 has selected Richard Huntington, Saatchi & Saatchi’s director of strategy, and James Hilton, AKQA’s European chief creative officer, to star in the UK pilot of the Australian TV hit show The Gruen Transfer.

The Gruen Transfer format works in Australia and is one of the country’s highest rating shows – not bad given it is on the ABC (BBC equivalent) and about advertising.

Anyone who works in advertising should watch out for the scheduling news of when BBC3 expects to air the series.

I predict it could become an overnight hit!

Footnote: this week’s “On the QT…” section in Campaign reports that the 1st pilot has been recorded, with DDB’s Georgina Murray-Burton missing the taping due to a broken arm.

IAB launches mobile innovation award

Andrew Grill — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:18:03 +0000

Digital trade body celebrates innovative advertising in partnership with Orange UK and New Media Age.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

In partnership with Orange UK and New Media Age, the IAB is launching a new award to celebrate innovation in mobile advertising – part of its ongoing programme of educating the market about mobile and promoting innovation within the sector.

The Mobile Advertising Innovator Award 2009 is the first award scheme to be developed specifically for the mobile industry by the IAB. It follows the appointment of Jon Mew as head of mobile at the IAB in November 2008

Entries are invited from any company that believes it has an innovative mobile product, an original service or a new marketing theory that has a practical application for the mobile industry. All potential entrants should contact elle@iabuk to submit an application, with the deadline set at 2pm on Friday 1st May.

The six selected finalists will then be invited to pitch their ideas in front of an audience of industry experts before being subjected to five minutes of “Dragon’s Den” questioning. The event will be held at 5pm on 21st May and will be chaired by Jon Mew, head of mobile at the IAB. Also speaking at the event will be Steve Ricketts, head of third party & mobile advertising at Orange and Alex Farber, mobile reporter at NMA.

Steve Ricketts, head of third party services & mobile advertising at Orange UK said: “Orange is committed to supporting creative and innovative mobile marketing solutions. We’re delighted to take part and are looking forward to hearing some of the brightest and original ideas to help promote this exciting medium. It will be a great catalyst to spark mobile marketing inspiration for brands and agencies”.

What a great initiative! Well done. More information can be found at http://tr.im/iabaward

an almost perfect mobile campaign

Andrew Grill — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:47:02 +0000

A few weeks ago I came across a mobile anti-knife campaign from the Central Office of Information (COI) here in the UK called “it doesn’t have to happen” (IDHTH). You can see the campaign at idhth.mobi (looks best on your mobile).

The campaign is being seeded across mobile sites – you can see the call to action (admob ad) on the left here as shown on one of my mobile sites. The campaign is well thought out – simple website (and a .mobi) to go to and once there, the campaign (directly aimed at youth) allows you to download a “pocket beats java soundboard”.

Pity my Nokia E71 was not “cool” enough to allow me to download the application – luckily I have a Nokia N79 handy that is cool so I could download it. The application is clearly aimed at the youth segment and allows you to create “beatz” and sounds – with a subtle but clear message about knife crime and why “it doesn’t have to happen”.

Knife related crime has become a big problem in the UK, so hats off to the COI for launching this initiative.

The reason I labelled the campaign as “almost” perfect is that I received the ad on my Nokia E71 phone. You can look at this two ways – I am clearly not in the target group (and this is where age targeting would have ensured I did not receive the ad, instead of just targeting by site, operator or device type).

On the other hand, I DID see the ad, you are reading this post and hopefully will tell someone in the target group and together we can help top tackle the issue of knife crime in the UK. So in this particular case broad targeting seems to have worked.

When truly profiled mobile advertising is adopted (by profiling users with permission), then this sort of advertising has the potential to be even more targeted. It was interesting to read in Campaign magazine recently that Yahoo! is revamping their mobile offering to provide better targeting capabilities. We should expect to see more of this in the future – and perhaps Google will extend their behavioural targeting approach to mobile.

When I first mentioned this campaign on Twitter, within minutes @mawkins tweeted that the campaign was developed by Saint at RKCR/Y&R and MIG. The campaign also has an online component at www.itdoesnthavetohappen.co.uk which redirects to a dedicated Bebo site.

Please forward this blog post, or the mobile site idhth.mobi to others to help spread the message.

Would a TV show about advertising work in the UK?

Andrew Grill — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:59:54 +0000

An interesting question! London Calling was probably one of the first UK websites to break the story of the Australian TV series The Gruen Transfer back in July 2008.

This is a show “all about advertising”, and quoting from a recent story in Campaign below

The show is named after Victor Gruen, the shopping-mall pioneer. The Gruen Transfer refers to the split-second when, according to the programme-makers, “the mall’s intentionally confusing layout makes our eyes glaze and our jaws slacken … the moment when we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers”.

Its format is somewhere between Have I Got News For You and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, albeit with TV commercials, rather than newspaper headlines or music, forming the basis of debate.

Accompanied each week by a team of semi-regular panellists, captains Russel Howcroft, the managing director of George PattersonY&R Melbourne, and Todd Sampson, the chief executive of Leo Burnett Sydney, shed light on the tricks of the advertising trade while discussing a mix of high-profile, contentious and catastrophic creative work.

The Campaign article asks if this type of show – which has been incredibly successful for the ABC (Australian equivalent of the BBC), and is now about to start a second series would work in the UK.

Luckily I was able to download and watch each episode of series 1, and I can’t wait for series 2. The secret of its success I believe is that it takes an open view of advertising in the Australian market. Russel Howcroft (George PattersonY&R) and Todd Sampson (Leo Burnett Sydney) actually take a day out of their week for each of the 10 weeks of the series to work on the show. You can read more on the backround of these two in a piece on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

Apparently ABC’s commercial arm has sold a number of one-year options on the format across European countries, including the UK so we may see the show here sometime soon.

But who would be willing to be the team captains, and also which agencies would be willing to submit to “the pitch“ – a segment where 2 teams try to “sell the unsellable” each week.

Perhaps we saw a teaser of what a UK version may look like on a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 show “the bottom line” where Sir Martin Sorrell shared his views on advertising, along with Richard Brown from Eurostar and Guy Laurence from Vodafone UK. More is available on the bottom line website.

I think a UK version would work – and perhaps pre-production has already started – watch this space! It would become a creative’s “must see TV”.

What does the Google behavioural targeting move mean for mobile advertising?

Andrew Grill — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Recently, Google announced that they will start “behavioural targeting” for web searches.

From their announcement:

We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the websites people visit. Today we are launching “interest-based” advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.

Many websites and blogs have reviewed this decision, but I thought I would look at this move from a mobile point of view.

The Financial Times editorial for Friday 13th March titled Google searches makes some important points – repeated below (emphasis is mine).

Much advertising is utter waste. Any advert that does not help people find things they want to buy amounts to money spent in vain by the advertiser and time lost (and sometimes mood soured) for the consumer. “Behaviourally targeted” advertising can therefore in theory be a great improvement: the advertiser gets more value for money, consumers avoid ads for things they have no interest in, and businesses that depend on advertising revenue, such as Google but also the media, gain a more solid economic footing.

Because mobile is a highly personal device, we need to raise the bar in terms of how, and what information we collect from mobile users, and go beyond what Google propose for their targeting service to ensure what is delivered to mobile users (via the mobile or another preferred channel) is relevant and personal to their needs and wants.

First, we must recognise how very different the mobile is from the web. Thought leader Alan Moore makes the point in his excellent whitepaper titled “The glittering allure of the mobile society” that mobile has 6 unique benefits

1. Personal – my media
2. Always carried – the city in my pocket
3. Always on
4. Built in payment
5. Point of creative impulse
6. Recounting the audience – the holy grail of advertising

I actually don’t like the word advertising when used in the same sentence as mobile (ironic many will say). I’d rather think of it as information that is useful. Herein lies the challenge – making the “advertising” sent appear as “information”.

The only real way you can do this on mobile is by actually asking the user what their preferences are, and what sort of advertising they would like to receive. Google have chosen to assume people want to opt in to having data collected about their browsing preferences (because getting people to opt in manually would probably never work), and they have also provided a way for people to manage their preferences.

I’m in favour of the Google approach for the web and I can’t wait to have them finally start to use my web search history to provide me relevant search results.

My Wife has for some time been saying that Google does not have any ads – because for Google searches she perceives the search results as information and not advertising (and she’s right). Having display ads now appear more relevant is the natural next step for Google, and I look forward with interest to see how this works in practice.

In the Google announcement they talk about making ads more “interesting”. What about more relevant? I can see an “interesting” ad, but if I have no interest in the product or service, as outlined in the FT editorial above – it becomes waste. Relevant ads, based on my own profile (that I create and maintain) will ensure that the ads I see on my mobile are absolutely what I am interested in – moving me from purchase intent to an actual purchase. As David Ogilvy said, “sell…or else”.

We cannot afford on mobile to assume that everyone will want to opt in to have all their web browsing habits collected, and then ads served up against this. Instead, a new approach based on the 3 P’s of mobile advertising - privacy, preference and permission needs to be developed and adopted so mobile users have complete control over what they see (if anything) , and can also derive a direct benefit from the information they are receiving (discount, free trial, test drive, product information etc).

Thinking about it some more, the Google approach of allowing users to select what type of advertising they want to receive will actually help the mobile advertising case. The Google privacy blog post provides a link for consumers to access the Ads Preferences Manager - a screenshot of the preferences I have just set up is below.

Users that select the ad types they want to receive that DO start to see more relevant display advertising as part of the Google beta program will start to tell others that this actually works. They in turn will tell others – who will opt-in and do the same. Advertisers will (hopefully) start to see a lift in sales as a correlation between the ability to select preferences, and hence the increase in ad relevancy.

They may see a drop in reach, as the spill from unwanted ads will decrease – but the relevancy is where the value is – in fact I believe that for mobile AND for the web, relevance is the new reach.

Those of us in mobile advertising can then use this as a case study on how relevance is where the value lies and encourage brands and agencies to spend more on mobile advertising that is opt-in and targeted. So the Google approach will actually help the mobile advertising case.

I’ll be watching this space closely – and also the display ads I start to see – hoping they will be more relevant. Why not also set up your Google ad preferences and see if the ads you start receiving are more relevant.

Why is mobile advertising treated like a 7 year old?

Andrew Grill — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:02:14 +0000

After announcing the appointment of Tim Hussain as Head of Mobile Advertising for Sky back in August 2008, I finally had the chance to sit down with him today and talk about all things mobile.

Like me, he was been involved in the first internet wave (1994 – 1999) when we had small screens, dial-up internet speeds and slow processors (sound familiar?) and the nay sayers said that advertising on the internet would never work. We swapped stories about checking our email via 9600 bps WAP connections in the late 90s …. ah they were the days with my Nokia 7110.

He came up with a great analogy for mobile advertising – likening it to a 7 year old, as mobile marketing has been probably around in a basic form since 2002.

On one hand, the Adults (traditional media & online) want the 7 year old to behave like an adult and can’t understand why they don’t behave that way.

On the other hand, the 7 year old wants to appear all grown up and be treated as an adult – but being only 7 can’t.

Great analogy Tim – and it helps to explain why things are still to mature in the mobile space. Simply it takes time to grow up and be taken seriously. As 40 year old, I can but only agree.

David Ogilvy On Social Media “Totally Baffled” Says Biographer

Andrew Grill — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:47:47 +0000

I came across an excellent post from Jason Falls about a discussion he had with David Ogilvy’s biographer, Kenneth Roman.

I recently read and reviewed Kenneth’s excellent book, and suggested that as David was a strong fan of DM, he might have liked mobile as a medium for advertising. Well I was partly right, and Jason was fortunate enough to get some time with Kenneth to ask him what David would have thought of social media.

From the post, we learn from Kenneth that David Ogilvy didn’t really get new technology.

”Ogilvy refused to talk about, ‘new media,” Roman said. “He simply didn’t understand technology in any form. But he did understand basic principles of how to communicate clearly, the importance of having the right message, and measuring the result with research.”

So I think he would still have warmed to a new medium with “the right message, and measuring the result with research.”

Jason’s post also reinforces the Ogilvy credo that advertising must sell – something that people lose sight of when technology gets in the way and we get (over) excited about the latest new [insert new technology here].

Jason’s post also looks at how close advertising today is running against Ogilvy’s tenants.

Quoting from the post

“Roman says today’s advertising is closer to that Ogilvy ideal. My assumption is that might be partially as a result of the advent of social media. He said, “I am confident virtually all advertising today, in whatever media, is truthful and responsible. Whether it shows respect for the consumer does, of course, vary from advertiser to advertiser.”

As far as the future of advertising, Roman isn’t worried but knows social media is a big part of it.

“Advertising has always changed, and will continue to do so,” he said. “That is, the techniques have changed — not necessarily the fundamentals. Social marketing is a wonderful new medium that is effective in reaching a changing audience.”

I’d recommend you read Jason’s post, Kenneth’s book and contrast it with my post “David Ogilvy on mobile advertising – what would he have thought?“.

Mobile World congress video interviews with Jeb Brilliant

Andrew Grill — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:42:19 +0000

Mobile advertising in 40 seconds. This is the shortest presentation I think I have ever given!

I ran into Jeb Brilliant outside the Spinvox stand in Barcelona and he pointed his phone at me and said talk! The result is me explaining the Gigafone full screen permission based solution in just 40 seconds.

He also interviewed number of others at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona including Kerry Ritz of Palringo, Rafi Ton of NewACT, Veronica Livshits from DSPV, and Boaz Zilberman from Fring.

You can see all these short video interviews on his abrilliantblog.

London Calling visiting Sydney April 20 – 24

Andrew Grill — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:16:43 +0000

Just some advance notice that the London Calling crew (that’s me) will be visiting Sydney in April.

I’m travelling with my wife and daughter to see our family and friends (have not been back to Sydney since we moved to London in October 2006) and during this week I will be meeting with a number of brands, agencies and mobile operators.

If you would like to meet with me to get a perspective on the latest mobile trends happening in the UK and Europe, or would like me to speak at your company or event, please get in touch via my contact page.

It will be good to catch up with a great number of contacts in Sydney – see you in April!

Don’t forget to request to follow me on twitter – I’m @andrewgrill

Telecom TV at Mobile World Congress on Mobile Advertising

Andrew Grill — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:07:09 +0000

On Monday 16th February at Mobile World Congress, Telecom TV held one of their Main Agenda sessions on Mobile Advertising – posing the question:

“What role can Mobile Advertising play as operators seek to finance consumer data applications? What makes us think that users want or will tolerate advertising as part of their already expensive mobile contracts?”. See the 14 minute program below.

Martyn Warwick from Telecom TV moderated the debate between

Tanya Field, Head of Mobile Internet, Telefonica O2
Henry Stevens, Director of Media and Entertainment, GSMA
Andrew Grill, Head of Business Development, Gigafone

The video was also played on a loop on the huge (some 20 feet high) screens located outdoors on the main avenue at the congress. It is quite surreal to see yourself up on a screen 20 feet high – and also have many people send you pictures of yourself – such as this one from Ilicco at Reuters Mobile.

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