Mobile Fix: New Mary Meeker, Beats and ad fraud
In this week’s round-up of everything mobile, Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive!, looks at the latest deck from influential analyst Mary Meeker, Apple’s purchase of Beats and the rise of fraud in adtech.
And she’s back. Mary Meeker shared a new deck at the recode conference yesterday and whilst there is not that much new, it’s still hugely influential. The stats on growth no longer surprise but her thoughts on the changes caused by this growth are always interesting.
Her most shared chart is the Money one – showing that time spent remains out of kilter with where advertising money is spent. Her estimate of the Big Opportunity for Digital (aka the Big Problem for Print) is that $30bn is in motion in the US – so probably over $50bn globally. And the vast majority is mobile.
As we have discussed before there is a lot of friction slowing this change, but we are convinced it is happening and it will probably accelerate.
One other key theme from this deck is that Meeker refutes the idea of a bubble and shares some convincing data to support that view.
The whole deck is worth spending time on, but if you want a quick take on the key points this Guardian piece is a good cheat sheet.
Content, Curation and Anchors
So finally we have confirmation that the Apple beats deal is happening. It continues to divide people – Ben Evans calls it a Rorschach blot; it confirms your view of Apple – visionaries or past it.
We have come back around to seeing Apple as real innovators and we think that they are poised to use content and services in really smart ways to protect and build their core hardware business.
Some analysts support our view that the software side of Beats is more important than the hardware – even though Apple say headphones will drive profits for them straight away. And their awesome production and sourcing skills should see that product improve and maybe even come down in price.
Another makes the point that Apple are now getting involved with Pop culture and you can understand the Beats acquisition by understanding Lady Gaga. Think back to the Beyonce deal where her album was debuted on iTunes as an exclusive with great success.
This type of promotion can be a win win and Apple have been actively looking for more – the Beats team should make that process a lot more effective and Tim Cook has been very vocal in his praise of the Beats team. Their role in bringing curation to the Apple services will be really important.
Interestingly, the Beyonce product was innovative in format as well as how it was promoted; it was all about video. We know that YouTube has a huge share of the music market with views counting towards the US charts. Could Apple use Beats and music as a way to kickstart their ambitions for TV too? Again, a curated service could beat the slightly anarchic discovery within YouTube.
Either way Apple is going to use music as one of its Anchors. A service that is so useful – addictive even – that customers will be reluctant to consider a switch to Android. Beats will almost certainly be available on Android devices but we expect it to be so baked into iOS that it’s a noticeably better experience.
And it looks like home automation could be another Apple anchor. Once your smartphone turns on your heating and your lights, moving to another device becomes a chore.
Streams
We couldn’t make the IAB Mobile Engage event the other week, but we heard lots of good reports. One thing that got a few mentions was Twitter’s Bruce Daisley talking about how mobile users consume content in a stream. He makes the good point that even the newspaper sites now constantly update and some use a stream – the Guardian’s Politics blog works that way.
He also refers to the very interesting talk that Evan Spiegal of Snapchat made a while back where he talks about profiles no longer being necessary in a world where everyone is constantly connected. Your stream says everything about you – and if you don’t update it you are just not present.
This is a parallel to the death of the home page – as the New York Times lamented last week, people just go to the stories they want to read – underlining the Big Problem for print, as the key locations that are so valuable in the real world don’t translate into digital.
And remember when we had homepages – the places we started our web session when we turned on the PC? Now most people never turn their device off and most browsers open with all the tabs you had open last time, so we’re sort of in our own stream even on PCs
Flow
In our work for media owners on what advertising needs to look like to deliver on that $50bn Big Opportunity for Digital we talk about flow. This is our term for advertising that doesn’t disrupt the Stream – like banners do.
The most successful ad formats fit the flow of the stream – best evidenced by Facebook and Twitter, but also true of Google PPC ads and even TV. Look, I am searching for coffee shops and there are all these useful links to ones just around me. Or I am watching an extended piece of video and it occasionally stops and shows me short pieces of video that (sometimes) entertain me and inform me.
The quest for native is about trying to fit with the flow but sometimes its more about masquerading as editorial – and The New York Times is writing a rule book on native.
Bruce showed some good examples of creativity on Vine in his talk and makes the point that only people who consume media as a stream can really crack making content that fits. Here is a good selection of recent Vines and this is a good example of how a brand can use Snapchat by fitting with the flow.
As these new short formats can deliver significant reach there is more interest in how to make them. As well as Vine and Instagram video, GIFs are getting used more and more in art as well as in marketing. And this new tool to make them is interesting.
Programmatic, Context and Fraud
The new ways of doing creative are moving more slowly than the new ways of doing media – and that may prove to be an issue.
Especially as the context of the message seems to be increasingly absent from the channel thinking. Is a Guardian reader really just as valuable when she is checking her Yahoo Mail as when she is reading the Guardian?
We have pointed this out as a real problem before and liked this new thinking about the issue from a US publisher.
We agree and are happy to work with anyone who can make some progress on this – is it an opportunity for a smart research programme? We tried last year and couldn’t get enough publishers to get involved. But proving the value of context might even help with the Big Problem for print.
The FT have a good round up of how advertising is getting automated. If you are not too sure about the pros and cons of programmatic it’s well worth a read. Especially as the scale is increasing with two major players partnering to better compete with Google and Facebook.
But as the ways of doing things evolves so too does the appetite for ad fraud. A Mercedes digital ad was seen by more computers than actual people. The fraud in adtech is a growing problem and will slow the shift to digital unless it is dealt with quickly and effectively. A report in the FT makes the point that clients aren’t getting the right support in this space.
This is an edited and abridged version of Mobile Fix – click here to read the full article on Addictive!’s website
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