Many of you read my article yesterday Why the Future of Local-Mobile Advertising Is Not What You May Think. In that article I discuss two “issues” (among others) for local-mobile display. One issue is poor ad creative and another is what I called “lazy location.” That’s where national ads throw in a dealer or store locator on a landing page almost as an afterthought.
Below are two car ads (one on an iPhone app and one on the iPad) that illustrate these two issues. First a Nissan in-app ad, which is an example of poor creative and an overall lousy experience.
Why would I click on this ad? The “local dealer” copy gets my attention. But unless this ad was incredibly well targeted (it wasn’t) and I was actively looking to test drive or purchase a Nissan, there’s nothing to motivate me to click on that ad.
The ad below offers much better creative; it’s from an ad appearing in the New York Times app on the iPad. There’s lots of information, rich imagery and user-interaction potential. However it misses an opportunity through its perfunctory treatment of location. There’s a difficult-to-see link to “dealers” in the upper right. That leads to a “find a dealer” page.
The above ad is an example of a national approach to location that is likely to prevail for some time. It permits the creation of one ad and enables the especially motivated to find a local dealer or store. Location is present — but this really isn’t a “local ad.”
Yet the ad misses an opportunity for local relevance by avoiding location in the ad copy or more prominently on the landing page.
January 30th, 2013 at 6:03 am
Great point – I think these creatives also miss the larger opportunity of bringing local, topical and contextual data points into their copy to make it more relevant and increase CTR. In general, hyper local ads, especially the ones run by the national advertisers, are still in their infancy.
January 30th, 2013 at 6:10 am
Agree: mobile display is still in its infancy. We may see national advertisers pay much more attention to tablets ultimately, from a creative standpoint, than smartphones. This is my hunch.
January 30th, 2013 at 6:54 am
Yes and no – tablets are not always on the go so then you’re missing out on a lot of geo fencing / hyperlocal contextual data points but yes, tablets will probably be the good platform for deeper ad experiences etc.
January 30th, 2013 at 6:58 am
Geofencing and other types of local-mobile marketing can be done without relying on “advertising” (e.g., SMS, in-app notifications). Yes, tablets are used mostly at home but smaller, carrier-connected tablets may change those behaviors. To be determined.
January 30th, 2013 at 7:56 am
Is this not apples/oranges though? Iphone to ipad comparison in terms of pure real estate? Calls to action are very difficult if working in such a small space….like 1/10th of an iphone screen. Perhaps a call to action that opens a full screen display with much more interactive capabilities would work.
As far as the whole geofence, push, in app notifs etc etc…..I can see a lot of this becoming ummmm dare I say…..”mobile spam” ? Unsolicited is unsolicited regardless of how its packaged. Blindly agreeing to receiving communications upon installing an app or other perfunctory action will sour the masses for sure.
January 30th, 2013 at 8:00 am
Dana: If notifications do become SPAM then users will simply disable and they’ll become ineffective for marketers — that’s the danger unless carefully administered.
Re iPad vs. iPhone. Yes, iPad/tablets have much more real estate, which is why agencies and marketers will prefer them. However display ads on smartphones can be dramatically improved and can be larger than tiny banners at the bottom of the screen. The NYT app for example is using full-page interstitials now. There are lots of possibilities if people spend time on it.