In the beginning, there really wasn’t a variety of choices for advertising on mobile phones. Banners and boxes were simply scaled down from the ones that we saw on our computers. However, the problem was that a lot of companies simply did not know how to use them correctly and were throwing advertising that wasn’t adapted into the mix. The ads from these companies were typically hard to read because they just shrunk it and didn’t even think that it wouldn’t be readable.
One name for this comes from Google: Shoehoring. It means trying to make old ad formats work in places that they just simply cannot work in. The other downfall of the beginning mobile advertising is that even apart from the inability to read some of the mobile ads; they were even more unwelcome than the ones on computers. Why not? Some ads can quickly cause a phone to freeze up because it is just thrown in there, causing the user to become even more annoyed at the ads. This ended up leading to the better incorporated ads that are much less intrusive.
In contrast to banner ads, the most successful transition to mobile has been in search advertising. This is the place that Google rules, taking money from most other ad campaigns on mobile devices. The great thing about this advertising is that it is not intrusive, because people are already searching for results on their own. So when Google responds with results, it does not feel like an intrusion, even if the users know that it is being paid for.
However, even though it’s Google and they seem to be on top of most things, they even have not figured out mobile advertising completely. It wasn’t until recently that the company made it possible for advertisers to manage online search campaigns and mobile buys through a single process. Moreover, Google is still trying to convince advertisers to use the features it has already put in place for mobile.
The possibilities for making your company useful to customers are still open to the creative minds. Every day we see new, interesting advertising tactics. One such thing is the reward system of some apps. Such as pedometer apps giving people a coupon after they walk a certain amount during the day or fitness apps giving coupons for sports drinks after a recorded workout.
This is a great opportunity that allows brands to frequently be on user’s minds.