Jonathan MacDonald

Great show! Nice one, Jonathan...

It was really intersting to hear Freddie's views on what he believes needs to happen in order to breathe some much needed oxygen into the mobile advertising movement.

In particular, it is somewhat surprising that mobile operators outside of Western Europe like Turkcell seem to be ahead of the game with regards to user opt-in programmes whereas over here, the UK networks seem to be very much fumbling around in the dark.

Freddie's V.I.P. (value, interaction, personalisation) can never be realised here in Western Europe with existing operators unless networks build the opt-in mechanism in from the outset (in the same way that Blyk has done). Without doing this, mobile advertising will be restricted to blanket banner ads which have little value and even less targeting significance.

Your question of whether online metrics can be applied to mobile is something that needs to be explored further. As Freddie rightly points out, there is no standardisation for measurement currently available for mobile advertising. Also, online click through measurement isn't at all an exact science and is rapidly changing as both established and emerging online media platforms (social networks, blogs, forums) are not covered under Neilsen Net Ratings.

So is ROI the only viable measurement of mobile advertising success? Well yes and no. Yes because it is by far the easiest equation to gauge efficacy of this new ad medium. On the other hand, the social media marketing industry which relies heavily on word of mouth via communities and social networks is looking to a metrics system around "return on interaction" which I guess would be even more relevant to mobile given that the platform is highly personalised.

What the traditional ROI model overlooks is brand loyalty. Consumer spend doesn't have to be instantaneous in order for the platform to be deemed a success or a failure. Sure, ultimately, the advertiser is looking to shift units but I think that mobile is the ideal platform for building brand awareness over immediate sales.

Finally, it's interesting to hear that credit crunch will have a direct impact on mobile operator's APU. Whilst this shouldn't come as a major surprise - I think it's optimistic to think that this will have an acceleration effect on mobile advertising. There are plenty more technical barriers to overcome before mobile advertising comes of age which means a significant investment on behalf of the operators. Whether this spend will be seen as a priority in 2009 remains to be seen.

Really enjoyed this MIR - looking forward to the next guest slot.

Brilliant comments Rax....

See you tomorrow - where this exact subject will be raised....... :)