Commentary
Why Marketers Can't Envision Their Mobile Future
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, August 25, 2016
By now, you’d think most marketers would have a clearly defined long-term mobile strategy. However, you’d be wrong.
For reasons that escape me, just one in five companies around the globe have a defined mobile strategy that goes back at least 12 months. That’s according to new research from Adobe, which included feedback from 4,000 marketers and digital professionals.
That’s despite the fact that an increasing share of e-commerce revenues are transacted on mobile devices -- 28% this year, versus 21% in 2015 and 16% in 2014.
That’s despite the fact that mobile is now responsible for 37% of all digital traffic -- up from 31% in the last 2 years.
That’s despite the fact that brands expect mobile to make up more than half of their digital traffic in the next 12 months, which would represent an increase of 32% year-over-year.
That’s despite the fact that 63% of brands believe the quality of their mobile experience is more important than that on desktop.
That’s despite the fact that the number of brands that see themselves as “mobile first” has increased 200% since 2014!
“The finding is worrisome, but not surprising,” Ray Pun, head of product marketing for mobile at Adobe Marketing Cloud, tells me.
“As big a cultural shift as mobile has been, many brands are still behind the maturity curve in how they execute against it,” Pun explains. “This a broader organizational and systemic issue.”
To wit, “management hasn’t defined a clear vision that connects the dots and breaks down silos,” Pun continues. “At the same time, there is a knowledge gap where digital teams are lacking expertise with mobile Web and app-centric experiences.”
On the bright side, such challenges do not seem to be souring marketers on mobile.
On the contrary, nearly all of those surveyed (98%) plan to increase mobile spending -- or at least maintain their current level of spending -- moving forward.
“The investment level is not the issue, because we know that’s continuing to increase,” Pun assures us.
This column was originally published in Moblog on July 29, 2016.
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
One of the reasons why many marketers are not making long range plans to incorporate mobile in a big way in their advertising plans is their preference for video---or TV----commercials. This is one area where mobile, for a variety of reasons, is not a major ad medium either in terms of the amount of activity nor the availability of suitable content to support the commercials and engage audiences. Also, there are serious questions about the attention getting--and holding---power of mobile video ads and the reach capabilities of mobile video buys. Until these issues can be addressed----and that may not be an easy task----mobile will be seen as an interesting add-on option or a supplement to other mnedia when this is appropriate----but not the "main event", hence worthy of having a dedicated long term strategy. Instead a more flexible, opportunistic, approach is what many advertisers may consider for mobile.