Mobile To Strip Traditional Print Budgets in 2015

As the year that many say was finally the year of mobile comes to a close, Big Mobile’s Graham Christie reckons 2015 could see mobile spend budgets siphoning from traditional print budgets.

In October, eMarketer published some data from mid-year. Its ‘Advertiser Perceptions – Wave Two’ study shows advertisers forecasting a 78% increase in overall spend.

The 40% of advertisers that plan to increase mobile spend, say they will fund that from redeploying traditional print budgets, 34% from TV, and 32% interestingly from online display.  39% of respondents said that a bigger mobile spend would come from an overall increase in the ad budget.

It’s been a huge year for mobile across the region, and next year will be bigger again, according to Morgan Stanley, who believe that globally, the mobile web will be bigger than desktop by the end of CY2015, that’s quite a big call.

However there are already 40 countries where this is the case according to StatCounter, and these, as we would expect, are in countries where there has been little to no fixed internet in, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa and South-Asia.  But taking a closer look at this data set across APAC shows a similar decline in desktop, and a hastening adoption with smartphone and tablet accounting for traffic volumes as follows; Indonesia (43.1%), Singapore (42.3%), Thailand (38.1%), Malaysia (36.6%), Hong Kong (33.3%), Australia (32.49%), Philippines (26.2%), and New Zealand (24.6%).

So regionally, it’s fair to say that many of our markets will be close to parity within the next 12-18 months.  I can’t put the implication of this better than Aodhan Cullen, CEO, of StatCounter, “Websites should be preparing for a mobile-first world if they have not done so already. There are huge challenges and opportunities for businesses to adapt to this trend.”

What objectives-what device?

In the same study (eMarketer – ‘Advertiser Perceptions – Wave Two’), an effort was made to contrast the performance difference between smartphones and tablets across key attributes.  Highlights, well, regarding audience reach and composition, 49% thought the two devices delivered the same performance, with 38% specifying smartphone was better.

Ability to target across BT, geo, context etc, saw smartphones having a clear edge with 36% of respondents support vs. 12% for tablet.  On either devices ability to generate results such as conversions, sales, and awareness, smartphones got the nod at 36% vs. tablets at 22%.  Whether either was the best ‘platform’ for ‘my advertising’ was almost bang on 50%.  Tablet has the ascendancy in User Experience, where 49% felt tablets performed better compared to 17% for smartphone.  For APAC, we should take these as indicative, but what’s clear though, is that marketers see both devices sharing the ability to deliver against important attributes.  In this study as a whole, the take out is straightforward, migrate spend and/or upweight overall spend, and have confidence that the campaign can be targeted and can deliver results.

Samsung is under pressure that may take H1 CY15 to solve.

The life of manufacturing behemoths is commonly quite turbulent, such is the case with Samsung. The company that lagged behind Apple, then responded with eye-watering speed-to-market and innovation to inevitably take the number one position has encountered some turbulence.

Based on IDC data, Samsung’s mobile revenue and profits are tumbling and the emerging markets across APAC are in so small part a cause. Samsung is getting squeezed at the top end of the market by Apple, but more significantly I think being muscled at the entry and mid levels by Asian brands like Lenovo, Huawei, Ningbo Bird, and Xiaomi.

In Xiaomi’s case the recipe is clear; affordability, aggressive market share tactics, and relentless upgrades, with many models software features being updated every Friday at 5pm just with the press of one key. To put affordability into perspective, in the wonderful consumer tech mall palaces of KL or Jakarta, you can pick up a basic android powered 5 inch smartphone for US$20. At the time of writing, Samsung has announced the exit of key executives.

HTML5 now established as the standard.

The World Wide Web Consortium, (W3C), the folks who pretty much guide the web, have stamped ‘Recommendation’ status on the published standards for HTML5.  This is an important ‘gate’ for the mobile industry as the device manufacturers are now exhibiting a lot of confidence to really get behind HTML5 and invest fully.

The knock on effect is of course that those that are developing and designing brand experiences on smart devices, have confidence to learn, train, build experience, and collaborate.

Planning for more mobile in 2015? – here’s a guide.

For those looking to take mobile to the next level, hint – everybody really needs to, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), recently published quite an extensive guide to mobile marketing.  The guide covers consumer focus, strategy, toolbox, ROI, effectiveness, and measurement.

The feedback I get all the time from digital marketers about mobile is the exasperation of there seeming to be so much to consider and do. 2015 will be genuinely pivotal for most organisations in regards to mobile. The prize of getting it right is now so significant, and the risk of lagging behind so great, that real leadership is needed. CMO’s and Agency principals alike, need to invest ahead, fully support their key teams, be laser focused on only the very top commercial and strategic imperatives, and apply a less is more approach to task setting.

See you in 2015.

Graham Christie is the chief commercial officer and co-founder of Big Mobile.