Mobile Fix – Apple’s iAd; Mary Meeker; and mobile money

In the latest Mobile Fix, Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, says “when US troops first arrived in the UK during the Second World War, they were greeted with the label Overpaid, Oversexed & Over Here. Which doesn’t seem that inappropriate for the news that Apple’s iAd platform is coming to Europe”…

10 questions

New stuff from Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley is always newsworthy. It’s virtually illegal to do a presentation about mobile without including at least one of her charts.

Her talk at Web2.0 this week weaves a new story around some familiar data, posing 10 questions that every internet executive should ask and answer.

As ever it’s a must read. And if you have 20 minutes it’s worth watching the video of the presentation, where you get more colour than the charts can provide.

It’s also worth taking some time to read some background on her – from her involvement in the Netscape IPO that kicked off the whole dotcom era through to these decks, she is a key player and a hugely influential thinker.

iAd

When US troops first arrived in the UK during the Second World War, they were greeted with the label Overpaid, Oversexed & Over Here. Which doesn’t seem that inappropriate for the news that Apple’s iAd platform is coming to Europe.

With rumours of a minimum spend of $1 million and lots of hype, the first European iAds will kick off in December in the UK and France.  Apple reports that they have signed deals with L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, Unilever, Citi, Evian, LG Display, AB InBev, Turkish Airlines and Absolute Radio.

The FT talks of enthusiasm waning and quotes a number of agency people dissing them;

• “They are expensive and a pain to deal with,” said one media agency’s digital chief.
• “Apple is in a weaker position than you’d think,” said another agency’s digital leader.

To be fair to Apple it’s very interesting that the quoted people are anonymous – most agency people would love to be quoted in the FT. A key factor driving agency gripes is that Apple chose to go direct to advertisers – and agencies hate that. ITV and Google are always in trouble with agencies for having people who talk direct with clients because jack of all trades agencies fear their client might learn more about the opportunity than them – or have told the client.

Apple are justifiably proud that iAd has signed on over half of the top 25 leading US national advertisers in just four months,* with a projected 21% share of US mobile display advertising revenue for 2010 according to research firm IDC.**

Apple have worked very hard and succeeded in getting mobile attention at C level – something that has been a real struggle before now. As the Wall Street Journal points out the hype over the iAd platform has been good for the industry as a whole – with more brands taking mobile more seriously.

We do know that two advertisers have pulled out in the US; Chanel cited expense as an issue and Adidas talked of creative differences. But if Apple creative control has driven brands to create mobile specific campaigns  – and avoided the Louis Vuitton approach where the only requirement for the mobile or digital ads is to match the above the line – that has to be a positive step too.

iAd success stories will bring more brands and more money into mobile and that is good for everyone.

Apps – Thick, Thin and Blended

CNN have a good overview on apps and see a future where apps and mobile sites coexist: “Having reviewed all sides of this ongoing debate, we believe apps will remain a measurable part of mobile ad delivery during the next five years, at least. They remain convenient – easier to use than even a bookmark. Above all else, apps are fun.”

And this piece looks at thick apps where companies are building tools for their workforce that save money and improve business process, reminding us that mobile isn’t just about big M marketing from the marketing department. Reducing transaction costs, driving customer advocacy and building loyalty are all problems that can be resolved with mobile.

Done properly mobile doesn’t have to be a toy, it can be a powerful tool too.

Mobile money

A fascinating talk from Eric Schmidt at the Web2.0 conference has shaken up the debate about mobile and money. The next generation of Android phones will include NFC (Near Field Communication) chips bringing the promise of the mobile wallet a lot closer. Eric also shows off the next Nexus – but covers up the brand with tape so we don’t know too much.

And a partnership between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon (supported by Barclaycard) in the US is also moving this forward. ISIS is a very significant move as it reflects the operators attempts to seize the momentum back from Apple and Google – and people like PayPal who shared some thoughts on the space this week.

Whether they will succeed is debatable; a key factor in building out new payment systems is the ability to bring merchants on board and it might be that partnerships built through location systems could be the springboard for payment innovations. In his Web2.0 talk Eric Schmidt touches on the links between payment, location and deals.

Location

Google has been busy this week with the launch of Hotpot where they enable people to review places they have visited. As a build on their location play this makes some sense – as does their ability to use search history to surface places you have been before – but it seems to be a little under developed, so its more one to watch than a game changer.

And highlighting how early we are in location, Disney have developed a location service for their theme parks – but rather than work with the usual suspects of Foursquare and Facebook they partnered with Gowalla.

We continue to be excited about location but believe people need something more that mayor badges for this to go mainstream, so we were pleased to see some new data suggesting that people are open to location based coupons.

As we have said before, the slightly dull world of sales promotion just got a lot more interesting.

Quick reads

Steve Woznial, the co founder of Apple  has made a few waves saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. But then he says he was misquoted

Bubble or Boom? Two of the smartest VCs around clashed over whether the current momentum around startups is a boom or a bubble. Well worth watching.

The new messaging service from Facebook sounds interesting but invites are pretty elusive and we’ve heard little about how it works in practice. If anyone has an invite we’d love to have a play.

And another campaign we wish we had done. Anything to do with Shawn Jay Z Carter is cool – we have tickets for his London production of Fela next week – but this Droga campaign for his new Decode book is so well thought through and brilliantly executed.

Finally, we’re in Berlin next week for Mobile 2.0. If anyone is going to be there let me know and we can have a coffee/beer/currywurst.

Click here for your full Mobile Fix (complete with links to background articles).