iMedia Connection Blog

At the start of this year, eMarketer revealed that advertisers in the UK spend more trying to reach each mobile user than any other country in the world. According to the report, advertisers spent $36.35 per mobile internet user in the UK in 2012. These figures came off the heels of a 2012 report released by the IAB and PwC, which revealed that mobile advertising in the UK, particularly among brands in the media and entertainment sector, jumped 157 percent. What all these stats tell us is that mobile advertising is a compelling way for entertainment brands to reach, connect and engage with their audience in a meaningful, immediate and relevant way. Here are three reasons mobile advertising is (or should be) the “darling” of entertainment brands.
Mobile video viewers are sharers too.
With smartphone and tablet shipments worldwide growing faster by the day, it’s second nature for most consumers to access and view live streaming video direct from their mobile devices. How many times have you used the Hulu Plus app or scoured the mobile site of Amazon Instant Video to watch the latest episode of breakaway British TV series, Downtown Abbey? And the IAB UK says a growing number of consumers aren’t just... Read more

It's been a little over two weeks since all things mobile took center stage at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Although the dust is slowly beginning to settle, I can’t help but still think of the huge product launches, new mobile technologies and demonstrations from major brands like HTC, Samsung and LG. Despite mobile’s “cool” factor, I won’t call this the “year of mobile” because, let’s face it, brand marketers, agencies, publishers, developers, ad networks and technology providers have yet to fully hit their mobile stride. But the good news is that progress is being made, slowly but surely, to close the gap between time spent on mobile devices worldwide and mobile ad revenue.
Here are a few musings and trends I observed at Mobile World Congress.
Brands stepped up their presence.
This year, Mobile World Congress hit an all-time high in attendance with over 72,000 attendees – that’s a big jump from the 67,000 attendees who came out in 2012. According to the GSMA, more than 50 percent of this year’s attendees had C-level positions, including more than 4,300 CEOs. Plus, the show had more than 1,700 exhibiting companies across more than 1 million net square feet of exhibition and... Read more

No one can deny we’re living in a mobile world. Whether consumers are using smartphones or tablets to read news, watch TV or films, play games, browse shopping sites, find their way around town (and nearby deals), mobile is increasingly competing with digital and TV for eyeballs, engagement and even sales. According to IAB Australia, mobile advertising more than doubled in Australia last year to $88.7 million, while video advertising grew 30 percent in the same period to $93 million. IAB Australia’s Director of Research, Gai Le Roy, stated, “While mobile is currently experiencing a surge, we expect it will settle into strong and sustained growth rates, just as general online advertising expenditure did in 2000 after an extraordinary period of growth.” What that tells us is that the exploding growth in mobile adoption and ad spend isn’t just limited to the U.S.; it’s happening in many other developing and less developed markets like Australia, India, China, Brazil, South Korea, and Turkey, to name a few.
In order to understand the frequency and favorability with which mobile consumers will view (and click on) mobile ads, it’s important to understand the varying cultural norms and mobile tendencies of each market. According to Nielsen’s... Read more

If tablet adoption continues at the rate it’s currently at, tablets will overtake PCs by the first quarter of 2013. It’s no wonder eMarketer estimates that by 2015, over half of Internet users will be logging on via their tablet devices. With tablets gaining more and more market share, now is the time to look at your tablet monetization strategy and get the most out of the increasingly popular device.
A key factor in monetizing your tablet ad inventory is understanding (and applying) how it is different from its smartphone counterpart. The Online Publishers Association released a study that tablet owners are more likely to interact positively with ads, and the more a consumer used their tablet, the more likely they were to make a purchase through an ad. To take advantage of tablet users’ greater willingness to interact with mobile ads, publishers need to ask themselves a few critical questions. What device types and platforms are driving the highest traffic and click through rates? Are banner ads or mobile video accounting for the bulk of your mobile clicks? In fact, ComScore found that tablets have quickly reached critical mass in the U.S. The report indicates that tablet users were nearly three times more... Read more