Despite the worldwide advertising slump, mobile media marketing and advertising are growing substantially.
Today’s New York Times gives hope. According to a communications industry forecast from the private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, scheduled for release Tuesday, overall media ad spend in 2009 is very positive for mobile and Internet and not so positive for broadcast and print.
“The [U.S.] segments where advertising will decline most rapidly in 2009, according to the firm’s estimates, are newspapers (down 18.7 percent, to $35.5 billion); consumer magazines (down 14.8 percent, to $11 billion); radio down 11.7 percent, to $15.8 billion); and broadcast television (down 10.1 percent, to $43.0 billion).
“Veronis Suhler expects a few sectors to increase their advertising dollars this year, including mobile (up 18.1 percent, to $1.3 billion) and the Internet (up 9.2 percent, to $23.8 billion).” Despite mobile’s percentage increase, of course, the actual revenue at this time represents a small portion of the total $210 billion spent in the U.S. for advertising and $550 billion worldwide.
But in areas of the developing world (Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere), mobile may be the ONLY alternative for advertisers. Numerous advertisers and mobile ad networks are taking advantage of this opportunity.
The good news is the overall growth in the media industry. According to the Veronis report:
“…the media industry…is expected to be the third-fastest-growing economic sector over the next five years, after mining and construction. Almost none of that growth is forecast to come from shrinking traditional media, however.
“Instead, it will be drawn from areas like word-of-mouth marketing and public relations (with a 9.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 through 2013), branded entertainment (9.3 percent) and the Internet and mobile devices (10.2 percent).
Therefore, despite our current hard times, taking a “multimedia approach” to mobile is probably your best strategy. David Miller of Mobile Discovery and Mickey Khan at Mobile Marketer, during their podcast interviews with me, recommended this approach.
Here are the podcast/blog post links if you’d like to listen to their ideas:
Mickey Khan podcast
David Miller podcast
