For example, advertisers cannot just expect the same ad to work on a PC and a mobile device. The huge difference in screen sizes means most ads won’t translate from one entity to another. Keyboard capabilities are also vastly different between computers and handsets.
AOL’s Gruber points out another challenge: fragmentation. “The application or service that we develop for a very simple low-end phone on one network may behave very differently and function differently than what exists on a very high-end phone.” To combat this problem, AOL has announced a client version of “My Mobile” that will make implementing AOL services on a mobile device a lot easier, no matter what kind of handset or carrier is used.
Chetan Sharma says search-based advertising has to change for mobile marketing to suc-ceed. “On mobile devices, you have limited real estate. People are looking for answers, not thousands of facts. It becomes tricky in terms of how you figure out what the intent of the user is, so there is not so much room for error in mobile as there is for the Internet.”
There is also the challenge of demographics: plenty of industry research points to the younger generations as being the main mobile users. However, today’s device is not your teen’s mobile phone.
“Over the past few years, Newsweek, USA Today, Car and Driver, Elle, and many other traditional media companies that don’t necessarily appeal to the very young have launched mobile destinations,” says Fridman. “They appeal to a much broader audience.”
Louis Gump, vice president of Mobile at The Weather Channel Interactive, says the age limitations aren’t real. “There is a myth in the industry that everyone who uses their device for something other than talking on it is about 22 years old with a backpack. If you look at the demos, based on some of the research, what you’ll see is that the majority of the audience that uses wireless data is actually in the 25-34, and 35-44 demo with tails on either side. It’s a very attractive audience with millions of people who are in multiple demographic areas.”
Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles is the consumers themselves. Will they balk at the idea of advertising on their mobile devices as being too intrusive? Clayman predicts acceptance.
“As the mobile online experience begins to look more like the Web we’re accustomed to, consumers expect a certain degree of advertising. As long as it is something that is actually useful, people will think, ‘I see ads when I’m online or when I’m watching TV so there’s no reason I shouldn’t see them on my phone as well.’”
