Advertising is an important and emerging component to mobile data services. With advertising, the cost of mobile data services can be distributed or shift from the consumer to other participants in the value-chain – subsequently making it cheaper for subscribers to use data services.
Answering the Big ‘3’ Consumer Mobile Advertising Questions
Three factors will drive the acceptance of mobile advertising: perceived cost, personal relevance, and ease of use.
1. Perceived cost - What is this advertisement costing me?
First, subscribers do not want to feel like they are paying for mobile advertising. Most subscribers continue to have data plans in which they pay on a per-kilobyte basis. If subscribers perceive that advertising is consuming kilobytes in their data plan, they will avoid using services that support advertising. It is important to understand that perception drives this behavior – even if advertising packets are charged to the subscriber, if the subscriber sees advertising packets as slowing down their service, they will revolt.
One solution to this problem is to focus advertising on offline scenarios. For example, have advertisements pre-cached or pre-synchronized on the handset. The subscriber no longer perceives that their data service performs slower because of advertising or that they are paying for the transmission of the advertisement (especially when background transmissions are charged to the content provider or advertiser).
2. Personal relevance - What does this advertisement mean to me?
Second, subscribers do not want non-relevant advertisement -- and in most cases, neither do the advertisers. Subscribers will cognitively “turn off” non-relevant advertisements, subsequently resulting in poor recognition of even the most relevant advertisements. Small mobile handset displays compound this problem since advertisements can potentially affect the usability of a data service.
One solution to this problem is to use the personalization aspects of mobile client-server platforms to tailor advertising. For example, when mobile client-server platforms support learning engines that remember previous items of interest (menu selections, search criteria, text entries, etc.), the advertising engine can “anonymize” the subscriber (for privacy reasons) and then offer pertinent advertising.
3. Ease of use - Is this mobile advertisement degrading my user experience?
Third, more subscribers avoid data services because they are too difficult to access and operate than because of cost. Reducing the cost of a data service is unlikely to get new subscribers to use data services (more than once) if the data service is still hard to use. If advertising makes it even harder to use the data service (by adding latency and taking up valuable display real estate), operators and content providers will continue to be disappointed.
One solution to this problem is to ensure that you are first offering the best mobile data user experience – one that addresses the two pinch points of mobile data: the latencies and availability of mobile networks, and the small displays and small keyboards of mobile devices.
Once you offer a world-class mobile user experience, ensure that advertising does not degrade that experience. Two solutions mentioned above include pre-delivered offline advertising and using a learning engine to deliver relevant advertising. Another solution is to use advertising to fill in the gaps of a mobile user experience. For example, display advertising when the mobile device is waiting for data from the network. This is “unused” physical and temporal space that has high subscriber focality — the subscriber is focused on the display since they are waiting for a response.
Delivering a World Class Mobile User Experience
It is very important to the industry that we implement advertising correctly — it brings new participants and pockets into the value chain. Advertising can decrease subscriber’s cost for using mobile data services on a regular basis and provide operators and content providers with a new revenue stream. However, operators and content providers must ensure that they are delivering an excellent mobile user experience to their subscribers, or subscribers will never walk through that first door and see that advertisement.
