Agenda

Why should mobile media be any different from the Web? Direct, performance-based marketing continues to dominate interactive platforms even two decades into the commercialized Internet. If a Web banner can’t make us cry then how will a pint-sized mobile ad really hope to tell the stories that grab consumer hearts and minds? We ask some of the agency world’s top mobile thinks the big question: will mobile bring together some of the leading agency thinkers to ponder, is branding really possible here?

The migration to mobile devices far outpaces the new platform’s ability to monetize those user habits. But as some major media companies see a third to half of their activity coming from devices already, a curious evolution of media consumption habits suddenly becomes a real business problem. Are we all Facebook now – watching users shift to the very platforms where we haven’t cracked the monetization code? Banners and incremental app fees are not going to pay for the editorial and infrastructure resources big media requires. The mobile ecosystem is flooded with inventory, and the platform is bound to face the same commoditization pricing the Web suffers. We ask members across the mobile media value chain to chart the path forward for sustainable business models here. Because now it is getting serious. 

Whether it is comparing prices using a smartphone in Aisle 5 or sending photos and asking advice on a shelf item from Mom from the Cereal section, consumers have been well ahead of retailers and mobile solutions providers. What next? We ask our panel of researchers and marketers to share both the metrics and the trajectories on mobile shopping? More to the point, as marketers have the opportunity to get to the point of sale, should evolving M-Commerce and M-Payment behaviors change the way they use the smartphone? As Web, promotional and app programs take shape for the next big holiday season, we try to put you ahead of the next curve in this ever-changing purchase funnel. 

Once again, mobilized consumers are ahead of the media and advertisers. The smartphone and the tablet have become the de facto complements to the television experience in most households, but programmers and their ad clients are scrambling to capture those distracted eyeballs with richer second screen experiences. Almost all TV content providers have been working on the challenge and opportunity the 21st century “second screen” poses to the king of all 20th century media, the TV screen. But what have we learned from these early experiments in complementary and synchronized multi-display experiences? Will television itself eventually become a two-screen experience?

As another digital buzzword, what could be more impressive than collapsing three of the hottest trends into a single concept: social, local and mobile media and marketing? Locating nearby friends, leveraging relationships in real time for better information, and pouring all of that socially filtered relevancy into a mobile device seems like a winning formula. Except that generally the recipe remains mainly in the lab. We ask experts from throughout the emerging SoLoMo platforms to assess critically how social media, location-aware data and functionality, and mobile devices come together? How can we take advantage of the existing digital social/local/mobile infrastructure without being constrained by their old formats. SoLoMo requires imagination. Let’s get started.