Advertising beyond walled gardens - Part 6: Mobile with Madvertise

As a our series continues to promote media diversification beyond WG, Madvertise has accepted the challenge to talk about Mobile advertising :

Thanks Madvertise to help us understand the benefits of choosing Mobile as the media to choose outside of WG. Mobile advertising is often seens as a device in the programmatic display environment were tiny banners are presented as part of mobile extension of a website. There is so much more to it that we ask François Roloff, CEO of Madvertise S.A. to give us a tour of all that mobile as to offer.

Thanks François for taking the time to talk to me today! We explore how advertisers can diversify their media buying outside of walled gardens using Mobile solutions.

If you were an advertiser which has started advertising on social media and now sees the need to grow out of it, why choose Mobile?

A growing part of each country's society is less and less available through one single WG, it is now fragmented and different types of audience are clustered in different Social media platforms. There are many types of situations in which social media is consumed but two of those being very interesting as pro advertising momentums: 

1. as a “time burning” context: Users have a passive attitude when consuming their favorite platform as they are usually connected when they are waiting, bored or commuting;
   
2. as a second screen when doing other activities like watching TV, OTT or listening to audio content.
   

It is not the ideal context for an engagement into a buying decision.

Smartphones are both impactful and intrusive: always in our pocket, that is the first thing we notice losing and every owner spends an enormous amount of time both eyes looking at the screen. It is our main screen for media consumption, there are a huge number of use cases to use mobile as it covers all touchpoints of the consumer funnel. Social media as walled gardens are limited to a section of the funnel.

Mobile as the power to reach the same audiences, but in a different mindset.

Great intro! Mobile has the power to extend the reach of the Social media audience when they are in a least passive context. I read last week that TIktok is not as “social” as its predecessors because only 9% of the users actually produce content. It is evolving into a TV-like usage of content consumption. It illustrates the patterns you announced earlier. As social media is mostly consumed on Mobiles devices (figures here) it is often associated with mobile advertising but it is misleading, there are other usages that have become extremely popular on Mobile devices.

Bitcom 80% of the usage is on app vs 20% Web browsing. FB and Instagram would say they cover 50% of this 80%, but I am not convinced this is still the case. One important part of App usage is casual gaming, and it offers a great context for advertising. Adcolony and Nielsen have published a great study on this topic and the benefits for advertising context.

As we used to say, “there is an App for that” and most ecommerce and publishers are now offering an app environment to use its services. Not only social media but news titles, retailers, games and content providers are in app.

Social media, shopping and other verticals are mainly accessed via Mobile and one can be a mobile addict like me, and not have a Facebook account anymore, again like me. My gut feeling is that probably 25 - 30% of people now have mobile usage excluding main social media channels.

I will look into this to search for a potential official source of an actual figure to confirm this, but I would not be surprised it is. 

Post interview Fact check : 

• 98% of social media traffic comes form mobile - Hootsuite 2021
• 55% of travel and 76% of Fashion eCommerce comes is mobile - Statista 2021 
  

A large proportion of the adult population is reachable on a mobile device worldwide, probably 75%, which is more than TV. In the context of a second screen though, there is a great offer on synchronised advertising between lead media (such as audio and TV) with digital ads. Users are then served the relevant ad when they search for a product on their mobile device in the minutes following the spot, or serve ads on the IP that listen or watch in the same time window.

Thanks for mentioning this solution, as it triggers the mobile ads in relevance with the interest from the user. I know it is leveraging some great technology like sound recognition - which is a bit creepy as it listens passively to the activity around the person, via its mobile device - or a spot list approach which helps cluster time and moment where ads are on TV or Radio. 

Which technology on mobile synchronisation is yours ?

Using ACR technology (reading the streams to recognise what is the person watching or hearing on which device) by identifying which of the advertisers is played where and associate the synchronised ad with it.

The use of a microphone as an input is passive but there have been questions regarding GDPR compliance of the technology despite numerous proofs, that it is only “waiting for a certain sequence" to trigger the ads. We deprecate this solution in France and Germany as a result, but our Italian colleague would love to leverage it. Each culture is different!

True! So many best practice sharing sessions in international agencies have proven tactical approaches to be working somewhere but not anywhere else. It brings us to talk about Measurement. 

How do you generate impact with Mobile?

FR - First is format: Size does matter on mobile devices

Bigger formats bring more impact, obviously as the screen size is small. Design is paramount: High quality and resolution of the creative with smooth usability of enriched ads are key to drive results on mobile devices.

Steve Jobs used to say “they have to wish to leak it, because it is so good and Yummy!” to create the desired impact.

Also, There are opportunities with mobile devices and augmented reality as the technology permits the visualisation of eCommerce products into your personal environment. Madvertise was one of the first to offer this technology - but it is now two years old - it is specific to the device.

We will see a decrease of banners towards videos of higher quality, as they catch more attention and interest.

Are you also talking about shoppable videos on mobile?

FR - Yes! We will soon launch this outside of social networks where they are more present, we can talk about it in a later interview.

Great, we will be in touch to talk about this in more detail! I Mobile being a device in the arsenal of programmatic solutions, what are the particularities of measurement linked to mobile?

Measurement SDK is mandatory for quality parameters such as viewability, it is the only way to get proper measurement in an in-app context. The open web can be measured in the same way as the other devices such as desktop and tablets, but not within apps. Madvertise has an advertising SDK to confirm the advertising performances, but third party solution providers can also be integrated when advertisers have established relations with other partners.

Right, measurement solution is overall important to compare solutions and the integration of SDK offers this capacity across all devices. 

Thanks for taking the time to give us this view over Mobile as an advertising platform outside of walled gardens !

…

What is Madvertise?

The Mobile ad tech pioneer madvertise has been active on the market since 2008 and has innovated mobile advertising solutions and products. As a premium publisher, madvertise specializes in innovative branding solutions with activating forms of advertising such as rich media, pre-rolls and exclusive special placements for mobile devices. Thanks to the in-house creative department, the focus is on creative mobile conception with extraordinary special formats. Performance-based solutions and programmatic deals complete the offer.

Contact: info@madvertise.com

Why MMT?

MMT offers consulting services in Adtech and Martech, in parallel with its flagship modular suite of applications to support advertising budget allocation, and modelling, campaign management and reporting.

MMT Mercury is the name of the media management platform that aims to gain efficiency in media operations. MMT Mercury offers a trafficking solution in direct connection to DSP via automation, improving efficiency and quality of campaign management including for Mobile activity.

Source :

• https://www.statista.com/statistics/296695/preferred-mobile-payment-service-providers-mature-markets/
  
• Hootsuite 2021 Mobile
  
• https://www.adcolony.com/reports/mobile-gaming-in-emea-latam-2021/
  
• ACR technology presented by Spot X