Dealing with Fragmentation in Mobile Advertising
23 Aug 2010 - Tom ForanThe digital agency 360i recently came out with a new report titled “Mobile Marketing and the Challenges that Lie Ahead” (embedded below), which spells out, pretty accurately, the challenges facing mobile advertisers. I’d specifically like to address the Fragmentation issue.
“Fragmentation will be one of the more persistent mobile marketing challenges. Which devices and operating systems are used by your target customer base? How does your audience divide their time across various mobile channels? How can you find them across a jumbled array of publishers and ad networks? How do you develop enough creative units that work across all the devices included in the media plan?”
Stop Arguing about Flash vs HTML 5 and Let's Move Mobile Advertising Forward
3 May 2010 - Xavier FaconMicrosoft, Adobe, Apple and many other leading Internet enablers are now all involved in an active debate on how to move forward with content authoring in the multi-platform world. The launch of the tablet device has prompted an escalating discussion on the merits of technologies like Adobe Flash versus Object C and HTML5. It has taken ridiculous proportions. While it didn’t bother anyone initially that smart phones often don’t support Flash, with the launch of the Apple iPad, many were starting to question why. I wrote a blog post on the lack of Flash on the iPhone about a year ago but Steve Job’s comments recently have really exposed the issue in a different light.
HTML5 is a specification for video (H.264), vector animation (canvas), interactive logic (JavaScript) and layout (CSS/HTML). Adobe Flash also covers video (FLV), vector animation (FLA), interactive logic (ActionScript) and layout. Aside from the video part which can automatically be converted (be it with some loss of functionality), the other parts of these technologies are absolutely not automatically convertible and aren't even comparable due to vast differences in sophistication. Flash is far better with animation, while HTML5 is far more efficient in simple content layout. It has been surprising how many opinions are published where that critical fact is omitted. (Including Steve Jobs open letter)
Attn. Publishers: It’s Time to Sell Your Mobile Ad Inventory
6 Jul 2009 - Tom ForanI wrote an article recently for MediaPost’s Online Media Daily called Field of Dreams II: The Mobile Advertising Story that was seen by some as slamming mobile ad networks. On the contrary, mobile ad networks play an important role in the mobile advertising ecosystem for remnant inventory.
The underlying point of this article was to call out premium publishers who are relegating their mobile sales strategy to ad networks instead of selling premium inventory to their own advertisers. In our discussions with premium publishers, many have expressed their dissatisfaction with the way some ad networks transparently represent their inventory and they are expressing a desire to sell this inventory direct through their existing digital sales team.
So if you are a publisher with scale (>1 million page views per month), think twice before you hand over your inventory to mobile ad networks. Don’t be satisfied with $1.00 CPMs. Empower your ad sales team to sell mobile, in particular rich, beyond-the-banner ads. These ad units generate excellent CTR and user engagement and sell for much higher CPMs.
Still need a push? Crisp provides end-to-end services to make selling, buying, and tracking mobile advertising simple and easy. We are industry leaders when it comes to mobile ad serving, rich media ad forms, reporting, robust advertiser sites and collaborative (not competitive) sales support.
What are your thoughts? Leave your comments here or on my article, looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

