Lose the jargon and follow the money

Macau - Mobile marketing specialists are pushing advertisers and media agencies away from the monetisation of mobile, argues Pushkar Sane, general manager for Starcom Mediavest at the Mobile Asia Congress Conference.

Presenting on the topic of mobile money, Sane (pictured) outlined the key challenges the mobile sector faces in moving towards a profitable business model.

He said that mobile is an "always on" tool where people are "compulsively connected", connectivity is no longer just SMS or MMS, but an emailing, entertainment and social networking device, he added.

Mobile is about entertainment everywhere from music, videos, games to applications that people use to kill time and create memories. This has led to the richness in the content generated.

However, Sane points out there are several barriers preventing the industry from monetising the mobile platform.

He said mobile marketing specialists have created silos by speaking in a language that marketers do not understand and therefore they do not spend money in mobile.

Sane said specialisation should not become separation and mobile has to be part of marketing and to look at how mobile drives marketing.

There is also a fear factor for marketers to embrace mobile marketing. Sane said the fear of the unknown and failure prevents marketers from using mobile advertising.

Another barrier is what he calls 'the jargon soup for the marketing soul' where mobile specialists completely reinvent the technical jargon, making it difficult for marketers to grasp.

The inability to scale up from an advertising standpoint is also stopping mobile monetisation.

For the ecosystem to develop, Sane suggests mobile marketing has to be a value driver and industry players need to make the content free.

He said industry players need to follow the money and there should be a dialogue with advertising agencies and advertisers.

While marketers should be brave to try new things, more importantly, the industry must develop a common currency of measurement for mobile advertising and marketing.

He said there is confusion in the market and the value cannot be proved with the industry still using the old school of measurement.

Sane concludes his presentation with three key trends to watch out for.

The emergence of fat servers and thin devices where information is hosted centrally; snack content will win as 30 second ads become too long on mobile and finally pirates will be officially paid as content carriers realise the need to engage with them.