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Marketing Evolution exec: Mobile impacts more people with the same budget

NEW YORK - A Marketing Evolution executive at the 2014 MMA Forum said a new study reveals that shifting advertising dollars towards mobile campaigns will impact more people with the same budget.

In 2013, consumers spent more time on mobile than they did with television; however, just seven cents of marketing spend was spent per adult per hour consumed on digital devices. Therefore, there is clearly a gap between budget dollars spent on different media and the amount of time consumers devote to each channel.

?There are two things that drive the best advertising model for mobile,? said Rex Briggs, founder and CEO of Marketing Evolution, El Dorado Hills, CA. 

?The investment time of paying an incredibly creative team who spend more time getting the message right and strategy right is fundamentally beyond compare to the expanse of the value of deliver,? he said. ?Also, getting the mix right; consumers have many habits that are all optimized engagement points of time.?

?When consumers change their media habits what do you as marketers do correspondently to reflect that and capitalize on that moment of time??

Challenges in mobile
When wondering why more budget dollars are not invested in mobile, several key factors come into play, including tight budgets, lack of resources and creative development and difficulty in measuring mobile.

Despite the prevalence of mobile devices, smartphone and tablet-based advertising campaigns can be difficult to measure and interpret.

Since the medium's rise in the early 2000s, mobile devices have transformed industry research initiatives. However, no standard exists nor has been set for the sector as a whole. Thus, it becomes almost impossible to accurately measure the effectiveness of a mobile campaign versus other mediums.

The same problem existed concerning the internet pre SEO and pay-per-click metric initiatives, which are now seen as more accurate types of digital measurement.

Mobile marketing will eventually be defined by black and white terms, but it will take time.

Creative execution
Charlie Hinton, executive director of marketing analytics and advertising insights for AT&T Mobility, Dallas, TX, addressed how brands can effectively budget mobile, despite operational, measurable and creative challenges.

She stressed that companies develop an understanding of what present and potential customers want, how they research or happen upon your products or services, and the type of advertising they respond to when exposed to different media.

Marketers should calculate the impact of each channel they use to decipher the above, and then identify synergies.

AT&T, in exploring the role of mobile and how it stacks up to other media and the insights it provides, discovered mobile delivered two times more to consumers than traditional TV advertising.

And it proved more effective at driving awareness in men, 70 percent more than women.

Adaptive targeting can then be accounted for to increase productivity as brands figure out what clicks within their targets.

While mobile campaigns are perhaps too new to be the sole center of advertising, there is no knocking the effectiveness and reach of the medium. For the future, marketers must determine what contextual information is most valuable, and build those sensors and measures into mobile advertising efforts.

?Mobile has the opportunity to grow 300 percent more than today with increasing ad dollars,? said Mr. Briggs.

Final Take:
Michelle is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New YorkÂ