• by Joe Marchese , January 16, 2007

Ask almost anyone to name the one device they won't leave home without, and nine times out of ten they will tell you it's their cell phone. It seems that cell phone functionality improves by leaps and bounds daily. We carry them everywhere. We look at them constantly. But despite the ever-growing role of cell phones in everyday life, the so-called "third screen" has yet to deliver on its much prophesized advertising potential. This has left mobile ad networks and would-be mobile advertisers alike to ask consumers: can you see me now?

Will 2007 be the year mobile advertising delivers on its potential? I don't know, but I doubt it. Why? Because it's not simply a technology hurdle preventing efficient and effective mobile advertising, it's the contract. No, not that the $49.99 a month, two-year contract most people have with their wireless provider. I am talking about the implied contract between advertisers and the advertisees. Typically the negotiation has gone something like this:

Advertiser: You can have this for free, but I want some attention for it.
Advertisee: OK, but I am going to ignore a lot of what you say--and if it gets really inconvenient, I am going to find a new option (re: netzero and free PC).
Advertiser (with fingers crossed): Deal.

Okay, maybe it's not that simple, but I know we wish it were. The truth is, this negotiation is not a direct dialogue but an iterative process of feeling out the other party to see what they will put up with. Try an ad here and there, see if there are complaints. Give away this or that, see if there are cheers. Find a mix that works and you have a contract. The difficulty is that mobile is a very personal medium and people don't use it just for entertainment; they rely on it. No one likes negotiating with a gun to their head, and given people's dependence on their cell phones, that's what forcing advertising onto cell phones amounts to.

So before mobile can begin to ask for people's attention of this most personal and necessary of mediums, it had better do two things. First, advertisers must make it very clear what people are getting for the intrusion that the people are not already paying for in their seemingly infinite contract line items.

Advertisee: I know I can get Internet on my phone, I pay a data plan plus I have to deal with the ads already on the Web pages. I pay for my minutes and you really charge me if I go over, I pay for my text, I pay for my phone and I commit to long-term contracts just to get them a little cheaper. So what am I getting, anyway?

The answer had better be good. For me to tolerate advertising on my phone, it would have to be a service that only makes sense for the phone (maybe something GPS-enabled). Anything else I can get on the Internet (maps, traffic, search, etc.)

Second, advertisers had better be sure they are getting the most out of the places where people will tolerate ads, because there won't be much--and it will fall to nothing quickly if the ads aren't helpful (re: relevant). This is where solving the problem of local advertising will overlap with solving that of mobile advertising. The content and the advertising that will be most relevant for display on my phone will, in all likelihood have something to do with where I am. This requires separate advertising and content developed just for mobile, and unique delivery technology to ensure that I get it at the right time AND in the right place (new wrinkle in the negotiation). Could this simply be a function of improving the quality of online ad-serving networks so they know that a viewer of an ad unit is on his cell and in midtown Manhattan? Maybe, but that's a lot of inventory to develop and kinks to work out.

I think it will be a very careful back-and-forth between people and advertisers over what is acceptable and useful advertising. And it will take a little bit longer until that can be scaled properly. Once the contract is in place and the technology works, then I am sure we will see the exponential growth everyone is talking about. If all this happens in 2007, then advertising can be a benefit on people's cell phones. Until then, I'd bet most people would prefer that advertisers just put their cell phones on a do-not-call list.