Mobile ads need compelling content to grow

ORLANDO, Fla.-TV network executives charged with delivering their programming to the mobile environment are happy to see their shows living on multiple platforms, but there’s little room for celebration as they each anxiously await opportunities in advertising on the new medium.
“Actually, I wish this was going beyond the hypey, bubbling phase and going into the real phase,’ Cyriac Roeding, executive vice president of CBS Mobile, said in a panel focusing on the profitability of mobile television during the Mobile Entertainment Live event at CTIA Wireless 2007.
“The consumer is not going to bear all the cost on their shoulders anymore,” he said.
Roeding believes the market will “explode in terms of users” if the industry comes together and decides to make the content supported more heavily by advertising. It could simply mirror their business model for at-home television, he said, but he doesn’t expect that to happen before the end of the decade at the earliest.
“Discoverability is a nightmare,” he said “This is about simplicity of use.” MediaFLO USA Inc., a CBS partner in broadcast mobile television, stands out as a “massive step forward” in the industry as it makes “advertising highly relevant on that platform,” Roeding added.
As more networks come to market, advertisers’ interest will logically increase, he said, in which case the cost to subscribers would be cut drastically.
“Content is basically where it all starts,” Roeding said. ‘The content creation process is currently not set up to create mobile content that understands and identifies this as not a TV screen.”
Success on this and the advertising fronts would give networks the capability to reach profits much higher than they’ve experienced on all other mediums, he said. “This is the only medium that you will always carry with you while you are viewing other mediums.”
Roger Wood, senior vice president and general manager of Amobee, said a watershed event would be realized if advertisers are given the opportunity to preview their ad or commercial before it goes to market, much like they can do now in traditional media. He said advertisers are a needy lot and interest in mobile television will remain stagnant until they’re given the capability to continue driving interest to whatever demographic they want.
“I think what we really need in mobile is better content,” said Lucy Hood, president of Fox Mobile Entertainment, offering an interesting admission from a major player on the content creation side of the game.
“If we really want to grow this business, it’s got to be truly compelling content because that’s the only way you grow beyond a few early adopters,” she said. Beyond that there are two missing ingredients in this marketplace, she said. “We’ve got to offer proof that people are being reached and that it’s working” and “you’ve got to have global reach,” she said.
As for monetizing the industry, Hood looks to new, innovative advertising formats to offer her clients. She doesn’t believe companies will deliver their message via text or a 30-second TV spot. “I think it’s a whole new advertising format we’ll deliver in the next year or two,” she said.