Tomi T Ahonen on permission based and targeted mobile advertising

 In advertising

Jonathan Macdonald recently pointed me to a brilliant post by on permission based advertising by Tomi T Ahonen – someone well respected in this space for among other things his communities dominate brands blog.

In Tomi’s posted titled Permission Based is not enough: Understanding mobile advertising from March 20 this year, he argues eloquently that with mobile – the 7th mass media, we have to be not just permission based, but also highly targeted in the delivering of advertising via the mobile channel.

He is of the view that permission-based is not enough.  He argues that it will have to be better than just permission based.

Quoting directly from Tomi’s post:

“But we have to go beyond. Just having permission based ads is not enough. Mobile is the only personal mass media. We will be offended by any unsolicited ads. First, we have to give permission prior to receiving the ads, but secondly, we have to like the ads”

Tomi closes his post with the comment

“On mobile, let’s make advertising transform itself to become content (to its intended target audience). When our target audiences like our ads so much, they want MORE of it, then we have succeeded. That is what we can do in mobile, and only in mobile.”

If you’re in this space, then you should head over now and read the post.

I really respect what Tomi has to say – and this post stands out like a beacon for all of those in mobile advertising.

When you think about it – many of us doing Google searches think that the results we are seeing is content, not advertising. I would argue that every link itself is actually an ad.  The fact that we see the search results as content and not advertising means it has worked!  We need mobile advertising to serve the same purpose.

About 

Based in London, The Actionable Futurist and former Global Managing Partner at IBM, Andrew Grill is a popular and sought-after presenter and comementator on issues around digital disruption, workplace of the future and new technologies such as blockchain. Andrew is a multiple TEDx and International Keynote Speaker.