Mobile advertising provides some up ina down market

Sequoia was one of many VC firms that recently stated they were pulling back the strings on new investment based on the recent market crash, and coming storm clouds. Somehow AdMob, and Seqoiua, and some other VC firms missed that memo. Any well. Ad-mob, a company that manages ad buys and advertising for distribution through mobile platforms, recently recieved another 15.7 million in a third round of funding, and specifically with Sequiao spear heding through their new "growth fund" of 1 billion.

While many companies have scaled back in these uncertain times it is still veyr important to realize two things:

Digital media is not slowing, and the U.S. market while very robust in terms of usage, lags behind many otehr countries in terms of technolgy and viable revenue models that actually work.

The mobile advertising market is definelty maturing with more companies and ahenghies looking at the plaform as avery viable and appealing way to reach their audiences, it still is far from its glory days.

So, overthe very short term it might not be that greta of anivestmetn, but looking at internationally a s ameasuring stick, as well aa in the U.S. as it moves rapidly towards a mobile focused economoy that is in man ways 70-90 english speaking, this is a very long-tail and briliant move as Afd-Mob is very well run and has a good product.

Lets look forwrad to seeing more of these balnced but forwrad looking funding announcements of mobile companies.

Robust growth in interactive ad spend and ROI

You can look at many different research papers, study' and metrics and can see from most if not all of them that traditional advertising is declining, and interactive is on the march - and steadily growing. As we move to a more wireless and digital world, one where we are on the go and receive our media through as many digital platforms as possible, the media buying and ROI will increase in areas that are showing the largest growth, in this case mobile/interactive/on-line/out-of-home.

With many metrics showing that the ROI is also much better, the following stats below will provide a better outlook on specefic areas of growth and information to back it up:

• 45% of 2007 interactive ad spending counted as display
• Paid search advertising accounts for 38% and is expected to grow.
• Google commanded a median 86% share of 2007 search inquiries in the survey’s sample of 35 countries, somewhat ahead of other industry samples.
• The mean online shopping spend per user in 2007 was estimated at $471, and the only country to break the $1,000 mark was Denmark.
• There is also strong positive correlation between the amount of broadband a country has and the internet’s share of advertising investment.
• Demographics alone will sustain growth in internet use among consumers for at least another generation, and possibly two, as those under 25 years old carry their habits into middle age and beyond.

ROI on Japan's interactive mobile poster experiment

Japan is clearly ahead of the curve on many things but this is truly visionary. Based on earlier technology and initiatives that Japanese companies already use for people to get interactive with a movie, but after visiting a site with a text code from the poster, they can now do that instantly with a major initiative by Soft Bank Mobile.
Using technology by Near Field Communication (NFC), Soft Bank Mobile customers can access trailers, movie stills, ringtones, etc... that are related to the film and are avilable from a customer syncing up with any poster that utilizes the technolgy by NFC, whihc sends targeted movie info directly and immemdialty to the the cionsumer.

This is a really, really great turn for new technolgies that will undoubtedly open the door to so many other types of digital signage and billboard type advertising, which will create fantastic opporutites veyr high ROI and CPM. Pint in fact, a recent reserach paper stated that digital signage and POS signage has teh best retention, just about 2 to 1 gretaer than TV an dinternet in terms of a conumer remebering the ad, what it was about, and any other distinsguishing elements about it.

For any content producer, ad compnay, or any one directly involved in digital media, this is a huge step forward towards the embrace of new technologies, and stronger ROI.