The first was a report from Forrester projecting interactive marketing spend in 2016, which they estimate will reach $77 billion. While the headline focused on the fact that interactive media will catch-up to television media spend by that date, an equally interesting set of figures provide a glimpse into a very different digital media world in 4 years. The report predicts that search’s share of digital media spend will shrink, as marketers disproportionately increase their investments in more sophisticated display media and really rev up their mobile media spend.

The second was an AdAge Digital piece on how veteran digital shops (most of which started in the late 90′s) were changing (and expanding) their business models. The article focused on the big search agencies – iCrossing, 360i, and iProspect – and how they’re diversifying into other areas of digital advertising. Obviously they’re looking at the same data as Forrester, and as they look to grow, they are seeing greener pastures in areas such as digital content, display advertising, and online video.

The article also talks about how shops like AKQA are expanding their focus from digital design and development into digital media (search, display, etc).

Two trends I see for the future:

• Less room for and a resulting fewer number of specialist digital shops (i.e. the search marketing agencies, or the digital content shops)
• The growing prominence of a new breed of large, integrated digital agencies, accentuated by an increased difficulty for big traditional agencies to keep up with the pace of change in digital

While an iPhone app is very emotionally appealing to most people, in many cases starting with a mobile Web site makes more sense.

John Arnold of Entrepreneur.com has written a nice piece laying out the pros & cons of mobile apps vs. mobile Web sites.

I would even go a little farther than Arnold is saying that starting with a mobile Web site makes the most sense for most companies. As Arnold states in his article, extending an existing Web site to be mobile-accessible is much easier, less time consuming and expensive than launching an app, particularly if your site is running on a CMS (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, etc). That, coupled with the tough decision of which platform to focus on (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, etc.), points to starting with a mobile Web site.

While there are exceptions to every rule, I feel the “test and learn” approach afforded by going mobile Web site first makes the most sense.

Check out my piece in Mobile Marketer on this crucial question.

Jose Villa

A successful mobile initiative by Land Rover was discussed and compared to  online marketing. The main point of this discussion was that although mobile advertising CPMs are significantly higher than those for online, Land Rover’s mobile lead-gen campaigns have resulted in higher ROIs than online campaigns due to the advertiser’s ability to directly reach consumers on their cell phones.

Some key takeaways:

-You don’t have to overwhelm clients/advertisers with fancy, complicated mobile initiatives. Great things can be done with simple SMS campaigns. This is also a smart way to test the waters and make your client feels comfortable in this emerging (not considered emerging anymore at the conference) marketing arena.

-Mobile providers like Virgin Mobile and media giants like AOL and Yahoo are knee-deep in creating mobile-specific sites and content to extend their brands and accessibility to consumers. They are believers in the power of directly reaching consumers.

-The iPhone is a bigger deal than most people think, and this is not due to the cool factor, but mainly because it has revolutionized the way mobile media and content are consumed. The iPohone has therefore paved the way for other phones to come as well as forced brands and sites to offer more to a tech-thirsty generation.

-There is still a lot to learn about mobile marketing—there are mistakes to be made, and it is from these mistakes that advertisers will learn how mobile fits in their overall strategy.

Isabella Bejarano, Sr. Account Executive

Dan Peralta, Associate Creative Director

In this guide I found an interesting article on Hispanic mobile advertising that highlights the importance and success of including mobile in the Hispanic marketing mix. Not to my surprise, I found that although online and general technology adoption among Hispanics lags behind the general market–it’s no big secret that the Hispanic segment significantly over-indexes in mobile phone usage.

In 2007 the Mobile Marketing Association found that 75% of Hispanics own a mobile phone and use it regularly.  Mobile marketing messages are also more successful amongst Hispanics, particularly coupons, status alerts, and sweepstakes or contests. Text message usage also increased dramatically, over 39% in the last 12 months according to a recent comScore M: Metrics study.

Sites like MTV Tr3s and social network MocoSpace offer mobile Web sites, and increasing mobile Web traffic to these sites proves that Hispanics are active and engaged mobile users. Additionally, premiere advertisers like P&G, IKEA, Coca Cola, and McDonald’s have jumped on board mobile advertising for Hispanics in an effort to deliver highly targeted and interactive mobile content to engaged users.

Evidently, mobile advertising is an essential component when marketing to Hispanics, and recognizing this sophisticated, fast-growing mobile user segment will definitely become more and more essential as mobile technology and adoption continues to grow.

Isabella Bejarano, Sr. Account Executive