We are looking at nascent movements here. Whereas the established mobile game publishers already realize that they need to port and test their games on numerous handset models, creators of advertising on the mobile environment will at least have to consider "testing" their advertisements against a series of variables -- viewing their creation on mobile devices with different screen sizes, speed and underlying technologies and standards.
After over 3 years of struggling through, navigating a clunky mobile internet on sites that weren't designed to be consumed on the medium, (not to mention a number of Web-based eye-tracking analysis about the ineffectiveness of banner ads) I'm surprised that mobile advertising still persists on inappropriately porting banner ads from their Web origins into the new mobile environment.
The innovation in the article's Navy ad is the natural flow of the interface. One can argue this is a great archetype for future mobile advertising, particularly ads that appear on the phone's idle screen:
1) Show the banner. Click through to see the Made-for-Mobile Advertising Video
2) After the video, Click through to do the desired action -- in the Ad's case, video call the Navy for free.
In the future, with an click of the button to signal affirmation, the interactive functionality could be used to launch a mobile application to register for a free lottery drawing, download a mobile application or piece of sample music, buy tickets to the movie trailer you just saw, even purchase a new mobile game using mobile payment (though impulse buying is good for the Advertiser, I'm sure the reverse-logistics of undoing a purchase ("Oh, I didn't mean to buy that...") will have to be considered)
What's great about the medium is the superior click-thru rate: "..., the Navy was getting a better response rate from this campaign than it was from its TV infomercial. In many cases, the click-to-call option in mobile text ads is a matter of sheer convenience."
This high click-thru rate joins the ranks of the successful 2005 Heathrow Mobile ad experiment, where Bluetooth-enabled videos were sent to people's phones by billboards in London Heathrow's Virgin Atlantic first-class lounge. (see article: http://www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/2005
/08/009633.htm) SMS messages were sent by the billboards to users' Bluetooth enabled phones, requesting them to download an mobile advertisement. Click-thru rates to download the video ad were reported to be 15% -- an extremely high response rate by advertising industry standards.Of course, it is likely that users downloaded mobile advertising out of sheer novelty. In a number of years, as mobile rich-media advertising takes off and becomes overwhelmingly prevalent, we will certainly see a marked decline in response rate as the technology moves from 'innovative' to 'everyday'. We will probably be inundated as the technology becomes mainstream. But the first few companies to experiment in the space are likely to make a big first impression.
