A key takeaway from the Cannes Lions advertising conference earlier this year was the emergence of programmatic as no longer a dirty word within the industry.

It is no surprise! According to a report just released from BI intelligence, programmatic will account for over $18.2 billion in U.S. digital ad revenues in 2018, up from just $3.1 billion in 2013.

So why is it creating such waves within the industry? Read this analysis to find out.
Industry Opinion by Charlie Faulkner, head of EMEA and APAC, Manage.com
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By Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO of mInfo Inc

China is by far the largest mobile market in the world with over 800 million active subscribers, over 250 million mobile internet users and over 200 million new handsets sold each year.

Even at this scale, the growth hasn’t slowed, with 8 to 10 million new subscribers are still being added each month (the size of a medium size operator in many countries!)

Having a basic understanding of this massive market – with its huge potential for advertising – is important for everyone that is involved in the mobile marketing industry. more»

Last week an interesting article was published in Media Post suggesting that LBS was set to increase its share of local advertising spend substantially over the next few years.

The article, contributed by Dave Morgan, CEO of New York Based TV marketing agency Simulmedia and previously founder of TACODA, suggests that LBS will take between 20% and 25% of the ad revenue of local media by 2014! more»

With so much competition in the App Store, trying to get your new app noticed, let alone downloaded and used more than once is an ongoing challenge for marketers.

Russell Berry from AppCreatives shares his strategies that may do the trick for you! more»

Luke Janssen is the Founder and CEO of TigerSpike, a leading global mobile agency.

A major point of discussion with TigerSpike clients these days – especially those with smaller budgets – is the best strategy for mobile apps.

In this article Luke shares the advice he has been giving his clients about why apps are important, and which platforms are key. more»

It is common knowledge that Japan leads the way in the development of mobile value added services. But with an already saturated mobile sector, what are the chances of a western Operating System making it big in Japan?

According to an article by Levi Shapiro published in RCR Wireless, they are pretty good. He explains that Japan’s saturated market means that operators are forced to innovate in order to try and gain market share. more»

Smart phones make it easy for ad networks to bypass the mobile operator. A major bonus for advertisers is that this eliminates the cost of sharing revenue with mobile operators, and a major bonus for technology providers is that it eliminates the effort to integrate with a mobile operator’s infrastructure.

However, there may be some key advertising benefits that only a mobile operator can provide. In this article, Mark Westling, Founder and CTO of Sigma Limited argues that there are several compelling reasons to include the operator as part of the value chain. more»

The Turkish mobile market is one of the most dynamic in the world: a population of over 70 million with mobile penetration growing from 52% in 2005 to 100% today.

Turkcell is the largest mobile operator in Turkey, with 37 million subs. They have been very innovative in the area of mobile advertising and marketing, with their “Tone and Win” service winning this year’s GSMA award for “Best Mobile Advertising Service“.

In this interview, Chief Value Added Services Officer Cenk Serdar talks about the Turkish market and why Turkcell has put mobile marketing at the center of their business. more»

The IBM Institute for Business Value has published a very interesting report titled “Beyond Advertising – Choosing A Path To The Digital Consumer“.

The report is a survey of 2,800 marketing professionals across six countries with conclusions about how ‘digitally-savvy’ consumers have become in a short space of time. It discusses how the traditional distinctions between advertising and marketing have blurred, and how companies must move beyond traditional advertising to combine granularity of targeting and measurement with cross-platform integration. (available for download) more»

A wise man once said that “predicting the future is the art of seeing the present logically extended”. In light of the continuing the economic crisis, what does 2009 hold for the world of mobile advertising, marketing, and messaging?

Timo Ahomäki is Chief Scientist & VP Product Management at Airwide Solution, a leading messaging company. Timo has given this some thought – here are Timo’s top predictions for 2009. more»

The more than 6.7 billion individuals living in approximately 200 countries on six continents around the globe constitute a vast human mosaic. The differences between people are enormous: different countries, races, climates, religions, ages, genders, languages, economic and education levels, different tastes and interests.

And yet despite these differences, the fact is that people everywhere use mobile phones. In this opinion piece, Guy Yaniv, VP and General Manager of Comverse MobileAd, discusses how mobile advertising can overcome the challenges of cultural diversity. more»

Vodafone recently sponsored an international Mobile Marketing seminar that brought together 100 specifically invited delegates from 70 major brands and agencies. This report recaps the key themes from the event, discusses the results of a delegate survey on mobile advertising, and provides a link to view the presentations from the event. more»

Ad-funded services seem to be a rapidly growing part of the mobile advertising landscape. The Telco 2.0 Initiative, a leading telecoms consultancy, offers some interesting insights into what lessons the industry can learn from observing Blyk, the ad-funded MVNO. more»

Tomi T Ahonen is a Hong Kong based author and consultant who worked previously for Nokia and mobile operator Elisa in Finland. He is a prolific writer, and his sixth book is entitled Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media.

In this opinion piece, Tomi talks about the 7 key benefits of mobile, the need for “engagement marketing”, and some of the advanced trends that he sees coming out of the Asian countries. more»

If you’re interested in mobile search advertising but don’t know exactly where to begin, here is a series of articles that will take you step-by-step through everything you need to know. more»

In an article published in the Australian IT section, Vodafone Group chief Arun Sarin is quoted as saying that mobile advertising will see big growth within the next few years. He expects sales to top US$ 100 million within that time frame. more»

Danny Kalish, CTO at Unipier discusses mobile operators’ need to adopt an approach that allows them to target specific users with relevant advertisements and at the same time manage the overall ad-related user experience including user privacy and charging aspects. more»

Russell Buckley ran more than 1,500 Location-Based campaigns for 150 different clients when he was working at ZagMe. Currently the European MD of AdMob, Russell has written a 75 page report sharing the lessons he learned and examining the potential for this type of advertising. more»

This article in the Guardian Unlimited by Victor Keegan takes a look at the implications of various mobile data rates on mobile content. Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman of mBlox, explains his view that neither the current “pay per megabyte” nor the upcoming “flat rate” schemes will work. more»

Kaiser Kuo, group director, Digital Strategy at Ogilvy, China, wrote an interesting article in Contagious last week, looking at the emerging mobile advertising market in China. more»

At the MIPTV conference in Cannes recently, there was a special mobile content VIP lunch organized by Reed Midem and sponsored by Vodafone and Buongiorno. 120 leaders from the mobile and advertising industries dined together in a beautiful beachside restaurant, and had a chance to share opinions on the current state of the industry. Companies represented included Vodafone, Alcatel, Turner Broadcasting, Ogilvy, Admob, Amobee, Nokia, TIM, Dentsu, Cap Gemini, M:Metrics, 3, Ericsson, American Express and many more. more»

Hollis Thomases has written two interesting articles in ClickZ with her view of the key obstacles facing advertisers when looking at planning and implementing mobile advertising. Hollis is president and founder of WebAdvantage.net, an interactive marketing, promotions, and advertising agency. more»

Jim Cook, editor of MobiadNews, spent a week in New York at the Mobile Advertising & Marketing-USA conference put on by Informa. more»

Laura Marriott, executive director of the Mobile Marketing Association, writes about the opportunity in mobile marketing and advertising, and shares some key thoughts from the recent Mobile Advertising USA conference from New York. more»

Spending a week in Barcelona at the 3GSM conference was a perfect opportunity to take a snapshot of the mobile advertising industry, an industry that, according the various pundits is either in complete confusion or poised to take off at any moment. more»

One of the biggest areas of divergent opinions that I’ve seen recently is the use of client in the handsets. Ads can be served with or without a special client resident in the handset, and each approach has its advantages: more»