Smart Phones, Smarter Ads

My article from an old Media & Tech blog (September 15th 2011)

I love the huge and growing possibilities of mobile technology and devices. Never mind the sophisticated tablet or smartphone, and the millions of sales in this space. Never mind, too, the tried-and-true, stay-at-home PC or the on-the-go but cumbersome laptop. In terms of sheer penetration around the world, all of these are easily trounced by the mobile phone.

Here are some figures to feast on:

Montenegro and Hong Kong are not big countries, but on average every person there has two mobile phones, at 193% and 188%, respectively. In countries like Saudi Arabia (170%), Russia (152%) and Lithuania (148%), there are three mobiles phones for every two people. The three most populated countries have lower percentages, but they’re close to a mobile per person: China (67%), India (72%), and the US (96%).

So as an advertiser, you must be salivating at the sprawling banquet in front of you.

Now there are probably many of us who don’t appreciate getting slammed with ads on our mobile. Some advertisers are, unfortunately, unethical in that they’ve retrieved our personal information without permission. Some may also be inept, for instance, by spamming with you stuff that bear little match to your interests or needs.

To wit, here’s an example of such an advertiser who’s aggressively pursued me on my mobile (texts), via e-mail, and with Facebook invites. Tons of spam from these guys!

So the girl is cute. Nice way to attract people to come to your club. Lots of vibrant pink. Even the name Candy Shop brings back childhood memories, when all the sweets we could ever want were right in front of our little noses and grabby fingers.

The problem? I don’t go clubbing.

I admit to having posted my mobile number and e-mail address on Facebook. Also, I don’t remember, but I must’ve accepted their friend request. But the word “club” isn’t even mentioned in my profile. I’d immediately delete all their messages, but when their spam persisted, I unfriended them. Still the spam and the invites continue, from all sorts of night clubs at that (sigh).

Oh, I stopped getting too angry or aggravated with these guys, when I realized that their ad algorithms, procedures or technology was clearly not up to par. I don’t begrudge them for promoting their business. Whether or not we’re entrepreneurs, we all have to make a living and that means selling something to customers, either directly or indirectly. But it’s their ineptitude in targeting and their aggressiveness in pursuing countless people like myself that are quite problematic.

Enter: InMobi. 

I hadn’t heard about these guys, until this evening, when I read that Japanese telecom and media company Softbank was poised to pump $200 million into InMobi to grow in an even bigger way. Big cash in a still struggling global economy. But here’s the reach of the world’s largest mobile ad network:

More importantly, InMobi boasts of sophisticated technology that helps advertisers focus their efforts, based on demographics, country, or category. My readers will have to correct me, if I’m wrong, but I imagine their technology approaches the fine ad targeting abilities of Google and Facebook. Then with video and music, or simply text and display, their banner ads serve big clients like Intel, General Motors, and Reebok.

Not to be left out of the banquet, Google of course is already in it, especially with its acquisition of AdMob.

While the smartphone is a growing market, with its operating systems, internet access, and multiple ‘app’ capabilities, the vast majority of mobile phones that people use aren’t, well, so smart. Their phones harken back to a simpler life, when the little devices in their pockets were mostly for calling each other and taking photos of whatever. It was also for texting each other.

What does all this mean for many of us?

Despite its wide reach of 340 million customers, InMobi connects with only 5% of the world population. That’s a whopping 95% it hasn’t reached, yet. Of course not everyone in the world has a mobile phone, but probably many more own one than a PC or a TV. So there is quite a market out there that is underserved by advertisers. If you’re a large enterprise, as clearly many of InMobi’s clients are, you’d have perfect reason to be excited about your opportunities, especially as mobile technology keeps on its pace of evolution.

However, the irony is this:  To reach this vast market with simple mobiles, sophisticated ad technology probably isn’t necessary. 

Rather, it’s about smarter, cost-effective targeting. Social media sites like Facebook and A Small World collates members particular interests, so this section is a place to begin and review periodically. This kind of targeting can be done fairly low-tech, that is, manually, if you’re a small or medium enterprise. But done this way, you’d know that I like sports and the arts. Done this way, I may actually read and respond to your text messages.

It’s also about choice. Once we opt-in to get ad messages, you need to give us an opt-out mechanism. It’s easy enough for much of the e-mails I get, that is, one or two clicks if I decide to unsubscribe. It was also easy to block spam on my old Samsung mobile, but I can’t seem to find out how to do so with my BlackBerry.

Finally, it’s about respect and responsibility. Just because many of us on Facebook, for example, post our mobile numbers and e-mail addresses, it doesn’t give advertisers license to freely message us. Once you’ve gone through proper channels to review our interests and needs, then it’s a simple matter of asking us permission to send such messages. And respecting us, when we ask you to stop.

In the meantime, unfortunately, text messages are still a steady rain of products I don’t care about and events I’ll never attend. 

That’s dumb advertising, isn’t it.