• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 6, 2009

Earlier this week, Mobext, the mobile marketing arm of Havas Digital, released a new report on global mobile usage indicating that the U.S. market is catching up with traditional mobile leaders Asia and Europe. The agency's Global Mobile Insight study also includes research and advice on mobile marketing strategy. Online Media Daily followed up with Phuc Truong, U.S. managing director of Mobext, in an interview about the study and mobile marketing more widely.

OMD: What does Mobext do and where is it based?

Truong: We provide mobile strategy and execute mobile campaigns for our clients. Our service offering can be categorized in four pillars: messaging (SMS, MMS, image recognition); mobile web (display, search, apps, video); proximity-based solutions (location-based services); and analytics (incorporating the mobile campaign data into our Artemis platform).

Mobext has offices in Boston and New York in the U.S. and internationally in Spain, France, the U.K., Portugal, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.

OMD: The Mobext study indicates that the U.S. is catching up with Europe in terms of 3G and mobile Web use. How would you characterize the U.S. market in terms of mobile advertising?

Truong: The mobile advertising market in the U.S. has strong momentum. There's a confluence of factors contributing to its growth: device penetration, faster data speeds, one-rate voice and data plans, the proliferation of smartphones that improves the overall user experience as well as overall consumer adoption of advanced mobile usage beyond voice. On the client side, there will always be a need to innovate and use new channels, and the mobile channel is in the forefront of "new media."

OMD: Are America's cell phone users becoming less resistant to mobile commerce and advertising?

Truong: The mindset in the U.S. has been all about free content and content being ad-supported, other than ringtones and wallpaper downloads. Within the last two years a lot has changed, though, and the iPhone has been a big catalyst for the industry. Carriers woke up and said, "Hey, we can partner with third parties on our network," and Apple made hardware relevant again by coming up with a slick, user-friendly device. That's lifted the whole market, and now price points are going down on smartphones as well.

OMD: There seems to be a dichotomy in mobile advertising, with one camp focused on mobile Web and application-based advertising on smartphones and the other supporting more basic formats like text messaging. Your report indicates it's not necessarily an "either-or" question.

Truong: Correct. A savvy mobile marketer can successfully use both elements in a campaign. There is the mobile advertising side of the equation, where a lot of display, search and video tactics can be used (ad-appending to SMS alerts is another option). Simultaneously, if the campaign objective also calls for direct response via registration or mobile opt-in, mobile messaging via SMS, MMS could then be used. If so, this falls within mobile CRM. The use of both tactics depend on the campaign objective, the consumer target and their mobile usage.

OMD: A recent Nielsen Norman report suggested that "mobile Internet" is still an oxymoron. How big a barrier is the user experience to the growth of mobile advertising?

Truong: Certainly with the mobile Web, navigation tends to be more difficult coupled with the smaller screen sizes. As mentioned earlier, the proliferation of smartphones -- with its bigger screens and easier touch navigation together with faster data speeds -- improves the overall experience. With a better user experience, it's no wonder that mobile data consumption continues to grow quarter over quarter. The devices and technology will continue to get better.

The biggest barrier to mobile advertising is the lack of tracking and analytics. But great strides are being made there as well. It's almost a prerequisite that our media partners use third-party ad-servers like DART or Atlas. We're also putting spotlight tags in order to get insights for back-end reporting. Once we can replicate the online tracking and analytics experience to mobile coupled with the unique targeting abilities that mobile has to offer, the floodgates will open for the mobile channel.

OMD: Is mobile still an experimental ad spending for most marketers?

Truong: Last year there was a lot of test and learn, with companies throwing five figures at campaigns. But some of those clients are now dedicating six figures to mobile campaigns, which is encouraging. Once the tracking and analytics piece comes into play, we should see even more mobile budgets coming in at 5% to 10% of digital budgets.