Michael Boland, The Kelsey Group
Michael Boland, a senior analyst and program director for The Kelsey Group’s Mobile Local Media Forecast Division, is an expert in mobile advertising market research and the mobile industry. Since joining The Kelsey Group in 2005, Mike has been instrumental in covering the local online space for Interactive Local Media practice. He writes frequently for the firms’ blog.
Mike is a frequent speaker and organizer at top industry conferences including Kelsey Group events, search engine strategies and others. He has authored in-depth reports on the changing local media landscape including online video, social networking and mobile.
He contributes regularly to highly read online news sources such as Search Engine Watch and Huffington Post. A trusted source for reporters covering the interactive media space, his comments have appeared in major news and trade media, including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Forbes.
The Kelsey Group is the leading provider of strategic research and analysis, data and competitive metrics on Yellow Pages, electronic directories, local search, SMB advertising and local media.
The Kelsey Group’s Mobile Local Media Forecast for mobile advertising (2008-2013) is highlighted in the report “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity.”
Kelsey’ s projections, quoted in Mobile Marketer, are $330M in 2009; $720M in 2010; $1.5B 2011; $2.3B in 2012; $3.1B in 2013.
In the podcast, Mike discusses local mobile search advertising trends, including advertising revenues changes from traditional media (radio, television, newspapers) to mobile (SMS, display and search). SMS still dominates, but local search is growing faster, and traditional media area adopting mobile marketing as another channel for revenue growth.
Research firm eMarketer recently downsized its U.S. mobile-ad revenue spend this year, dropping the forecast to $760 million, reduced from its $2.8 billion forecast for 2009 predicted last March, with a substantial reduction for 2010-2013. However, Mike and Kelsey are sticking to their higher forecasts.
Online giants, like Google and MSN and large advertisers, continue to dominate mobile advertising, but SMB’s will garner more of the mobile advertising pie as ad revenue growth continues. Mobile search advertising will emulate online search practices—bidding for keywords, demographic targeting, etc.
Mike states that fewer dot mobi sites will appear, due to company’s optimizing their existing websites for mobile devices. XHTML mobile device like the iPhone, Google’s Android devices and other smartphones are the biggest targets for mobile advertisers.
Current handsets in the U.S. (266M) will grow to 280M in 2009, 286M by 2011, 291M by 2012 and flat by 2013 due to high saturation among the total population.
Mike makes astute comments about the growth of Netbooks and mobile devices, combined with 3G and 4G handsets. Netbooks, the most “mobile” laptops on the market, easily complement cell phones, even if only used for voice communications. In fact, Mike says, the use of voice, already tested and in use by Google, is another channel for mobile advertisers.
Mobile marketers are realizing that “the application is the new ad unit.” One example, discussed in the interview, is a Coca-Cola brand campaign in Brazil.
For example, Coca-Cola worked with Nokia to launch a special edition mobile phone brand ‘Coca-Cola Zero Studio’ to put their brand directly into the hands of consumers in Brazil. The exclusive music content was bundled on device and acted as a real incentive to consumers to buy the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music Special edition, a handset that was designed by Nokia with music in mind.
Other mobile applications and services—especially on smartphones—are boosting mobile advertising revenues and rapidly growing. The iPhone and BlackBerry Application Stores are established channels for application developers.
MobilePeople in Denmark, quoted in one of Kelsey’s blog posts, provides local mobile search and advertising solutions for directory publishers and directory assistance providers, offering SMB’s a new sales channel to monetize their businesses.
Links for the Podcast:
Michael Boland Bio:
Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity
Reach Michael at mboland@KelseyGroup.com
