New MMA president details mobile marketing roadmap

On the changing face of mobile ads: Text messages are the easiest thing you can count on to work on every cell phone out there, but it’s a text-only system. It does have value, but it’s not particularly engaging, it doesn’t have a lot of reaffirming values, no color, no graphics. Many cell phones now have browsers built in – that means they have a rendering engine that allows you to do more kinds of advertising and marketing promotions. This is something we’re looking at for small banner ads, motion ads and things that can be part of an ad or offer.

On emerging devices and marketing: Right now, the device is something that usually gets subsidized by the carrier, and they do that in return for you signing up for a longer term subscription with them. When you talk about embedded devices that also happen to have connectivity, there is still a cost in that cellular device itself as well as the data services. Some of that is going to be recouped as part of the incremental cost of content, but if that can be subsidized down due to advertising, the adoption of that device will go up from a larger demographic who may not be able to afford it if they have to bear all the costs. It remains a very attractive model, one that will be adopted much more regularly.

On the 2009 outlook: When you look at it from a “what’s going to really happen” perspective, I see that there is going to be significant growth in 2009. It’s going to be less in terms of the total we expected, due to the fact that, in the first quarter especially, there is a reduction in the overall marketing spend. Due to the economy, companies are readjusting themselves too. We are not going to be immune from that, but we are certainly not going to suffer any more than anyone else does. If anything, I think there will be more of a shift towards more effective targeted kinds of advertising because there is better return on investment. I think there will be a little hiccup, but 2009 will finish very strong in terms of overall ad spend and in terms of number and complexity of marketing campaigns conducted.