by on May 6, 2013 Leave a Comment

Tumblr Unveils Mobile Ads

By Savannah McClelland

Last month we shared Tumblr’s announcement that they would be incorporating ads into the Tumblr mobile app, and then Tumblr unveiled the result of their work. The Tumblr mobile ads are native, as opposed to banner ads—meaning that they are little more than basic posts marked with an animated dollar sign, which readers can “like” and “reblog.” According to a statement from Tumblr, users will not receive more than four sponsored posts per day.

The move comes as part of Tumblr’s overall strategy to become profitable this year—the mobile advertising market is forecast to increase 65% to $2.1 billion in the United States this year. Importantly for the company, Tumblr’s mobile viewership is growing even more quickly. David Karp, Tumblr CEO said in an interview back in February that he expected mobile traffic to overtake PC traffic by early 2014.

Six partners are included in the mobile ad launch, including ABC Entertainment, GE, Pepsi and Warner Bros. GE will be featuring cinemagraphs of their jet engines and locomotives, while Warner Bros. plans to use the new venue to promote their upcoming summer films The Great Gatsby and The Hangover Part III.

In the February interview, Karp said that he did not think that Tumblr would have a harder time monetizing its mobile traffic. Karp explained, “On Tumblr there are no special brand pages, there are no Sponsored Stories. There are blogs and there are posts. So as long as there are those elements and our mobile apps are getting better and better at displaying those atomic elements… We should be able to inject advertisements there in a way that’s really not disruptive and not interruptive.”

With the growing focus on mobile advertising, this move will likely help Tumblr to achieve profitability this year, a goal that the company has repeatedly focused on in press events and announcements. The six-year-old company is hungry to prove that it is a viable business, and this among the other changes that have come in the last three months demonstrate just that.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
by on March 11, 2013 Leave a Comment

Tumblr Introducing Mobile Ads

By Savannah McClelland

A little more than a year after Tumblr began allowing users to pay to promote their content on the network, the blogging company is bringing those ads to mobile.

In an interview with Bloomberg magazine, Vice President of Product Derek Gottfrid said that companies will be able to promote their blogs as well as individual posts on Tumblr’s apps for iOS and Android within the first half of the year. Lee Brown, head of sales, has said that the average advertising purchase on Tumblr is now “just under six figures.”

Tumblr tells advertisers to create campaigns that will spread like its other content; for example, Coca-Cola Co. ran a series of photos that highlighted simple art, instead of blatantly promoting the soft drink, under its “Open Happiness” theme. Companies won’t be able to buy display space or keywords in the ways they are accustomed to, but instead brands will pay to get their blogs seen by more people. Impact can be measured by how many viewers shared or “hearted” the post.

Using this nontraditional approach, Tumblr has been able to sell promoted posts to companies including Target Corp., Adidas, Lions Gate Entertainment, and Christian Dior. Lee Brown commented, “Marketers have become accustomed to buying scale as opposed to earning it. We’re not really selling ads, we’re promoting their content.”

The timing of this development is good; last month, Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp said that he expects mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic by early next year at the latest. The number of people using Tumblr’s mobile product has quadrupled in the past six months, which makes the project more urgent. Research firm Gartner expects worldwide mobile advertising revenue to reach $11.4 billion this year—up from $9.8 billion in 2012.

Having run internal tests, Tumblr is now seeking launch partners for the new products. According to Lee Brown, The advertising should help the six-year-old blog site, which has a monthly audience of 170 million, to turn a profit for the first time this year.

 

Filed Under: Mobile Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
by on August 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Mobile Ad Spending

For the first time ever, the United States will spend more on mobile advertising than any other country.  Advertisers in the United States will spend more $2.3 billion while Japan falls to second spending close to $1.7 billion in 2012.  Smartphone growth and mobile internet usage is growing very quickly in the U.S. where the majority of people use smartphones, causing a lot of interest from advertisers.  The U.S. mobile ad market is expected to growth by 96% in 2012, a smaller growth from 127% in 2011, but analysts are expecting numbers to drop while the market matures.

Despite the booming interest in mobile advertising worldwide, mobile advertising only accounts for about one percent of total ad spend in the U.S. & worldwide.  Global media ad spending is projected to grow 7.4% this year to $542.3 billion, with the Olympics giving it a small nudge, but is projected to decline next year by 6.4%.  Next year China will reach $53 Billion, surpassing spending by Japan for the first time, and placing it behind the U.S. as the country with the second highest amount in ad spending.

Filed Under: Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, MMS Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
by on July 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

Mobile Marketing is Only Getting Better

By Austin Lovvorn

Marketers are gearing up for 2013 and the only word buzzing around for budget plans is mobile.  Marketers plan to increase their budgets by 70% for mobile platforms by the end 2012.  Whether the money is being allocated towards mobile apps, ads, or campaigns, research shows that advertising on smartphones will be a $5 billion dollar industry by 2015.

Companies realize that our whole lives are stored on our phones and they are investing big bucks to get their messages across our phones.  In order for marketers to get their message across on a mobile platform, it’s got to be on a personal level.  Everyone wants their phone customized to their own likings, meaning the ad content needs to relevant and contextual.  Brands are beginning to realize who is shopping for what and what kind of smart phones they are using to do it.

On average, Americans spend over two hours a day socializing on their mobile phone.  Over five billion text messages are sent on any given day in the United States.  Companies are locking into this overabundance of time being spent on a mobile device by not creating apps, but utilizing HTML5, Javascript and CSS3 to aide in the creation of mobile websites.  Apps are looking like a thing of the past for companies to brand because of the ease of mobile websites being used across varieties of different mobile platforms.  Another avenue advertisers are taking advantage of is LBS (location based services), which lets the right kind of message be delivered according to the location of the mobile user.

It took radio 38 years to gain 50 million users, whereas it took Apple only two years for the iPhone 2 to gain the same amount.  Over 50% of all online purchases are done through a mobile device.  Desktop user numbers are going down while mobile steady climbs.

Filed Under: Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
by on August 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

The Use of Advergaming in Mobile Marketing

by Jennifer O’Brien

The decision to use advergaming in a mobile marketing campaign is a smart move. Advergaming is “the practice of using video games to advertise a product, organization, or viewpoint.” Many marketers are already taking advantage of this in various ways. It can be done through product placement, advertising in games that are downloaded for free, including free games in products, and so on.

I believe the technology of the ‘smart phone’ has made it possible to use advergaming in mobile marketing. Now we are able to download games on our phones and play them anywhere. From what I’ve noticed, the most obvious form of advergaming through smart phones would be through free apps. If someone downloads a free game from the app store, then there are always advertisements before it loads and within the game. It can be an advertisement for the company who makes the game or for any company whose target audience would play the game. People don’t mind the advertisements because they got the game for free and are more likely to be interested in the product because it is targeted specifically to their interests.

A company can also use advergaming on mobile devices through product placement. They can have their product included as part of the game to spark the customer’s interest in it. They can even have their company inside of a game that has a virtual world. Let’s say that this virtual world has a shopping mall. This virtual shopping mall can have real stores inside of it.

The benefits of advergaming in mobile marketing are immense. These advertisements are different than traditional advertisements on buses and billboards. They are targeted specifically to people who would buy certain products. The consumer has no choice but to pay attention to the ad and they are more likely to show an interest in it. There is sometimes a link for the consumer to click on to go directly to the website and make a purchase. People are exposed to the ads in free apps for a good amount of time and they sometimes interact with the product ensuring that they remember them.

Filed Under: Advergaming, BMI Elite Blog, Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,