EarthQuake partners with Medialets to provide innovative advertiser solution
EarthQuake has partnered with Medialets, a company that has built a disruptive mobile ad platform and network for iPhones. Advertisers are able to embed creative ads directly into innovative, native applications being built specifically for the phone. Think: DoubleClick for iPhone applications, but the key differentiation is that this isn’t for the web, or the mobile web. What Medialets provides is for real, iPhone platform applications built to run directly on the device and not in a Web browser. Medialets works with advertisers and developers - who in this model are the equivalent of publishers - to deliver a rich media experience using CPM, CPC and CPA ad models. Applications with embedded ads are distributed through iTunes and the App Store Apple has built into the phone. Medialets provides the analytics, tracking, and a toolkit to drive viral distribution from directly within developers’ applications. EarthQuake will work with advertisers to understand the analytics and optimize their campaigns.
This sort of stuff is old news for the Web space, but it is exceptionally different from the desktop software model and even from the existing mobile marketplace. iPhone apps are desktop apps and iPhones are simply desktop computers running a derivative of the same operating system on desktop Macs, just reduced in form and function to fit into people’s pockets. Microsoft, Nokia/Symbian, and all of the other mobile platform providers have completely missed this for a host of reasons, but Apple has put together the right mix of user interface and, most importantly, distribution for the applications.
eMarketer forecasts $142m in 2008 and $338m in 2009 spending on mobile display ads, but these numbers completely miss the transformative impact the iPhone will have on the mobile marketplace and the opportunities that will be created for advertisers to put rich media ads onto consumers’ mobile devices. Microsoft, Google and Nokia will all follow Apple’s lead with redesigned user interfaces and an equivalent to the iTunes model of central content and application distribution. The second generation, 3G iPhone represents the mobile market’s answer to the tipping point.
There’s a clear lesson all marketers have learned from the Internet content business: free is better. Free applications will be more widely distributed than paid apps, and wider distribution means broader reach potential for advertisers. The model is simple: developers write cool software, add the Medialets ad code to their applicaion, add their app the to the iTunes store and set the price to zero, Apple distributes them, consumers download them, advertisers reach consumers.
Medialets also works directly with brands to help them build their own custom iPhone applications. They call them “branded experiences”, but they really can be anything you can build on the iPhone platform. Let’s say there’s an advertiser currently spending on promoting their brand through professional auto racing - they might want a racing game jointly branded for both their company and the driver they’re sponsoring, or maybe an application to view race stats, real-time camera views and telemetry data from cars, and community elements to connect with other fans of the driver. Medialets builds the application, then promotes it across their advertising network to help brands reach their targeted number of installs on end-users’ phones.
One other thing to note about the iPhone that is distinctly different: it’s an exceptionally social device, marrying the best of phone capabilities with the features of the big social netoworks. Location awareness is built right into the phone, so things like finding and connecting with nearby friends are natural fits for native applications. Email and messaging are just as natural as they are on a desktop computer, but even more important, people carry these everywhere they go. That’s true of most mobile phones, but this isn’t like most mobile phones. It’s a mobile computer that happens to make phone calls, and it’s the first one that does such a good job at being a mobile computer that people don’t even realize it is a computer. Smart brands, publishers and advertisers will want to be associated with this, and the ones who experiment early will likely see the biggest returns in the long run.
EarthQuake is helping to provide media strategy, buying and planning around the Medialets network. Give us a call today to learn more.
