Mobile Advertising News

So Nokia is saying 'no' to adult ads and yet the 'community' is stunned at this. I'm not really sure why they're stunned. As a brand, I can quite see why Nokia would want to steer clear of advertising erotica and gambling as it's not the brand fit they're quite looking for. Whether that will change once they work out the economics remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Google Adsense is launching on mobile and Debi Jones wonders what impact this will or won't have on Admob over at the Mobile Messaging 2.0 blog. And not only that, but the word on the street is that Medio is ramping up to tackle the EMEA market more aggressively in the coming months. And surely it's only a matter of time before the likes of Doubleclick finally make their move into the market, now that everyone else and his wife has already done so.

But advertising doesn't solve all your marketing and sales problems. Success starts and ends with a good product or service and too many folks don't start with a good enough product or good enough service. Marketers can't hide behind their old advertising, marketing and sales tricks any more. As an audience, on the whole, we're too savvy to be taken in any more. If you have a good product or service, then advertising, marketing and sales are going to help for sure. But you need to have the basics right first, otherwise you're wasting your cash.

I recently stumbled across a new mobile video service that had gone live. Having gone to their website, I eventually found a demo buried amongst their none too coherent corporate blurb. I entered my number. About 30 minutes later, I get a text message telling me to go to the mobile internet to a specific URL. Note, I didn't get a wap push. Note 2, there was a typo in the SMS message I received. D'oh on both counts. Anyway, I click on the link, only for the wapsite to hang on me and I still haven't seen my 'free' video clip. I'm not going to name them to give them a chance to redeem themselves but I do know this company is about to do a big marketing push, but clearly the demo product isn't ready. And if that's not ready, what's the end product going to be like?

Hmm, something to think about.

And if you'd like more on which to ponder, then this Seth Godin video is well worth a look. It's not very long - about 17 minutes. And while you're at it, it's also worth having a look again at this advert for Microsoft.