As some of you may already know, I don't consider mobile
an ad medium, per se. It's a device people use to interface with media, some of which is ad-supported.
And since mobile is also increasingly the best available interface for many consumers,
it's also becoming the dominant one they use to access advertising in many categories, including local ones.
So I was not surprised when the analysts at BIA Advisory Services sent me an
advance look at their 2022 local advertising forecast, which not so coincidentally predicts mobile will overtake direct mail as the biggest source of local advertising.
“For a
long time, we’ve been talking about direct mail as the king of the share of wallet in local ad spending,” BIA Managing Director Rick Ducey states in the revised forecast, adding,
“This coming year, for the first time, we pass the crown over to mobile, as its momentum drives it to be the biggest overall piece of the spending wallet -- and we expect that to continue in the
foreseeable future.”
Ducey says there are four main reasons why mobile is poised to take a dominant position of local ad spending now:
- COVID’s impact on consumers'
increased time spent with mobile and other digital media, making digital the place to find and target consumers.
- Digital’s overall momentum in winning more revenue share
of media time from traditional media.
- The rise of virtual consumer channels like delivery, curbside pickup and ecommerce in top categories like retail, restaurants and CPG,
where physical channels like retail store visits decline.
- Greater consumer acceptance and use of virtual and ecommerce channels.
So to some extent, mobile's
dominance is attributable to digital's even greater dominance. Based on BIA's categorizations, "digital" will account for a 47.6% share of local ad spending vs. "traditional's" 52.4% share in
2022.