MediaTel Mobile event: Mobile – Do agencies get it?

Agencies are interested in mobile but there is still limited understanding and expertise around mobile advertising, was the general view at MediaTel Group’s Come on Mobile… Stand Up and Deliver! event last week.

“Big agencies are not set up structurally to service mobile,” said David Fieldhouse, owner and strategy director at Lucidity Mobile. “The majority of spend is not in mobile yet so it is not in agencies’ interest… margins on desktop are much higher.”

Meanwhile, Mike Anderson, founder of Chelsea Apps Factory, said the industry “doesn’t know enough about the customer experience on mobile yet”.

However, Shan Henderson, owner of Morfolk, was confident that agencies are “into mobile” and are keen to establish mobile specialists to deal with the increasing demand from clients to include mobile in the media plan.

“Some clients are making money from m-commerce and are demanding a mobile strategy, including search and display,” he said.

Facebook’s head of mobile partnerships EMEA Fergal Walker believes both agencies and clients need to be educated about the potential of mobile advertising. “It takes time to get people to understand… it will take another five years,” he said, adding that agencies and brands need to be “innovative and go for it, otherwise others will”.

Ian Carrington, mobile advertising sales director at Google, added: “Mobile hasn’t reached critical mass but it will get there… If you haven’t got a mobile strategy, you haven’t got a future.”

The panel were positive about the future of mobile advertising, discussing the opportunities around targeted and location-based ads. However, they were doubtful that mobile would be a successful display advertising channel.